These Are Dreams

Journey into the Invisible World to Kubrick's Moon Landing

2012-01-06T22:04:00.004-05:00

Happy 2012! Happy 2912! Happy 29120012!

I had a super busy December in 2011. Went to NYC. Finished (more or less) mixing the all new Troy Westfield Experience album (coming soon) with my power pop compatriots Mike Gordon and Allen Towbin. I also starred in a upcoming short film called Left For Dead, where I played a man who lives deep underground and must embark on a mission to the surface world during new years eve. We filmed all over the Tenderloin District in San Francisco (and if you know the Tenderloin, then you know it was a urine-soaked, crazy-crackhead-good time) at ungodly hours for five days and nights, including during the stroke of midnite amongst the heaving, thronging masses on new years eve 2011-2012.

It was insane.

I also appeared in studio on episode 85 of Frank Todaro's the Invisible World, where we talked about the brilliant Jay Weidner documentary "Kubrick's Odyssey." Weidner has put together a rather convincing (in my opinion) doc on the deeper meanings and behind the scenes history of Stanley Kubrick, his films, and his alleged deal with the US Govt to help fake the Apollo moon landings. Its a truly wonderful doc, check it out, you won't regret it:

Kubrick's Odyssey from Charlie Crumlish on Vimeo.

And then, please follow this link to listen to my conversation with Frank. I could have talked about the multitude of facets of this crystalline puzzle of the mysterious collision of sci fi and sci fact for 8 hours....

The Invisible World ep 85 12/14 by Theinvisibleworld | Blog Talk Radio

Much more to come in 2012. Holy shit, its 2012!

wow. who would've thought we'd even get this far....

3 For Thursday

2011-06-03T05:47:00.011-04:00

I haven't posted in quite some time, apparently since the end of last year. Since then I've been acting up a storm: short films, TV, extra work in feature films, music video, voice work, lots of live improv, and of course, performing for elementary school kids as a giant light bulb superhero named Bulbman. All to varying degrees of success or quality. I've also been to NYC to record a new 5 song EP with the legendary Troy Westfield Experience! Hopefully we'll be finishing that record this summer and maybe even making a music video for our epic pop heartbreaker Good Ache. Can't wait to get that song out to folks. Hooray for being a working actor! This has definitely been the most paid I've ever been as a performer. Its been very encouraging, and I'm finally convinced there is a future for me as an actor, more specifically, a film actor. This summer I'll be going back to the east coast to work on a play, finish the record, and act in a lead role in a new feature film called American Epitaph. All this and my older brother Carl gets married, so I think it will prove to be an interesting summer....

I wanted to post 3 projects I worked on since winter 2011, in order of when they were completed:

1. Save My Favorite Show

A bizarre little piece, this short was made to enter a contest to win $100,000.00 from dockers to make a feature. The producer was a huge fan of a cancelled sci fy channel show called the Invisible Man, and wanted to reunite the cast for an unrelated full length movie. I appear as a protester, as one of the producer's favorite actors, as the voice over narrator, and as a silver painted singing telegram. I don't think this piece is very successful, but it gets points for weirdness.

2. A Rapturous Scent

I have the lead in this one. Filmed at the beginning of 2011, this was created by a SF State student and shot on real film! Any actor in the digital age will realize how rare it is to actually get to perform for actual film. This was made by a smart group of filmmakers determined to use all the tools available to them to get some interesting shots. The subject matter is a bit more cheesy than I normally enjoy, pretty much a straight up romantic story, and this version of the film is a condensed 5 minute version of what will eventually be a 10 minute film, complete with trippy dream sequence that didn't make the cut. I think the 10 minute version will work better than this one. My experience of the process of making this film inspired the upcoming TWE tune Good Ache, and I'll be happy to explain that progression once the song is released. I can't help noticing how strange looking I am in this film, especially my profile. It reinforces my feeling of being an alien in a human body....

3. Coulda Woulda Shoulda

Legendary SF rapper Lyrics Born's brand new video. This was a one day shoot I did for free (the other two were paid gigs). It just seemed like a great opportunity to be in an LB vid. This is actually my favorite of the three, even tho I barely appear in it (you can spot me dancing in a black and white poke-a-dotted shirt). Its a cool disco tune, and I dig the little animations they added to the video. I remember the drummer and bass player playing cover tunes during some downtime during the shoot and they were extremely sick musicians. Hopefully I'll get more opportunities like this in the near future....

More videos to share as they are released, but I think we're off to a good start here. Stay tuned!

Epic Interview with my old pal Troy Westfield

2010-12-23T16:10:00.001-05:00

My oldest buddy in the world Mike G aka musical partner in crime Troy Westfield conducted a rather lengthy interview with yours truly about the Agents of Venus album "Boduvt" and posted it in its entirety over at his blog Kinde Words. Mike was nice enough to let me blather on not only about the Agents of Venus writing and recording process, he was also kind enough to let me jabber about the mythological underpinnings of some of the themes of the album and my personal experiences that informed the lyrics of the record.

Many many thanks to Mike for his friendship and for his interest in the AoV project.

Please go here to read the interview: "Her Favorite Album of 2010"

My latest Invisible World chat with Frank

2010-11-16T20:15:00.001-05:00

Here's my latest interview with Frank Todaro for Frank's Invisible World show. I'm hoping it will be the first of a several part talk on the subject of extra terrestrials and ufos, probably focusing a bit on Venus' relationship with all that due to the Agents of Venus band name. Don't know about Agents of Venus? Where have you been? Go here and learneth, newbie. Otherwise, enjoy the interview. You may notice the debut of our smash hit single "Her Favorite Song" on the show:

I have to say, this interview just barely began to explain a larger subject I'm looking forward to exploring, either with Frank or here in blog form (probably both). That subject, the seemingly contradicting understand of the planet Venus being represented historically (in western traditions) as either Venus or Aphrodite (or maybe Isis or Mary Magdelene, perhaps?), the goddess of love and beauty, as well as Lucifer, the first cast out angel from heaven, the Lightbringer, that much maligned representative of all things hidden and nefarious in this world.

I inadvertently seem to blame the Freemasons for representing the latter in our discussion, without being able to really explain why I say it and what I really mean by it. I'm not going to go into it yet here, but I will eventually explain myself either on this blog or on the Agents of Venus blog (again, maybe both). I do want to admit that I have nothing against those wacky kabalists the Freemasons in general. During the interview, I was trying to spout out a large idea in a small amount of time, and I didn't really formulate my idea all that clearly. Suffice it to say, when choosing the band name, I was trying to find a way to bring two polarities, two opposing ideas together under one roof, so to speak, in hopes of creating a higher level of perspective on just what the morning star (Venus) means to our little planet and our world traditions. It seems to me that its time to unify polar opposites, not only because we surely could use a fresh perspective on the seemingly endless struggle of good and evil in this world, but because the struggle itself is indicative of a 3rd dimensional perspective, as the push/pull of the polar opposites seems to be (to me) the creative force in action in our world, and I believe, since we appear to be moving into times that call for us to broaden our awareness of higher levels of reality, then the act of unifying these polarities actually propels one into these higher levels. I promise somewhere down the line I will do my darndest to explain this further (or "furthur," as the Merry Pranksters might have put it.)

Stay tuned....

Been Busy --- Blood Was Everywhere Teaser Trailer

2010-10-14T15:49:00.002-04:00

Internet wizlings

Damn, I been busy. Lots of stuff to report, not sure I'll do it all here and now, but soon.

I'm currently in a show at the Town Hall Theater in Lafayette, Ca. Its a newish version of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. You can find out about it and get tickets here, and here's a review. It runs through October 31.

In other newseses, the film in which I acted this summer, Blood Was Everywhere, has released a teaser trailer, featuring the opening song from none other than Agents of Venus' album Boduvt (that song being Fall Off the Earth). Here ya go:

Its sort of a strange teaser, as this is a slasher film, but you don't really get that sense until late in the clip. I had a little facebook discussion with the director Jason Torrey, and he said they put it together fairly quickly to show at the wrap party (which I missed, due to being on the wrong coast), but that also he is following his tendencies to sublimate expectations about how a horror movie works by slyly slipping the killer and his actions gradually into a series of images that initially looks like a day in the life film about people in a small town. You have to watch the trailer a few times to figure out who the killer is and what he's up to.

I've decided that he is creating a film featuring an ensemble cast where one of the ensemble happens to try and kill everyone else in the story. What genre would we be talking about with this take on film-making? Has he invented something new?

Here's Blood Was Everywhere's page on the facebook. Their website is currently under construction.

Hopefully there will be a full on trailer by the end of the year. I'll keep you posted....

Agents of Venus all over the web!

2010-06-08T20:37:00.004-04:00

Boduvians! At long last, Agents of Venus' new album is all over the web.

If you go to AgentsofVenus.blogspot.com, you can hear tunes, read info, see art, and follow links to buy the record! Or....

The best deal to get the physical CD is on CD Baby, only $9.99 (which also sells the album on MP3 for the same price). You can download Boduvt on Itunes for only $9.99, too! The best price to get the MP3 album is on Amazon - only $8.99! Sweet, yeah? Seriously, this is a freakin steal. You can also purchase the CD on Amazon, (its a little pricier, but if you want to spend the dough, we ain't gonna stop ya). Any of you NAPSTER freaks can listen to full songs and buy AoV:Boduvt here.

And the coolest discovery: LAST FM! This site is great. Not only does it allow you to hear new tracks from our album, you can also add it to a music library, along with music from any other band you may dig, and Last FM will create a playlists for you, free streaming your own AoV inspired radio station. Dope! Make it happen here!

So what are you waiting for? Ride a Boduvt to Synchroni City all over the web, and grok hard with your Agents of Venus!

Spooky Snack

2010-05-22T19:37:00.001-04:00

Here's a commercial I acted in when I first moved to San Francisco late last year. I finally got a hold of a copy. Its a little silly, but the special effects are cool. I was performing with an actor wearing a head to toe green screen suit, so that he could be edited out in post. Also, the Doritos spilling out of the bag when I fall off the counter and the Dorito at the end of commercial that I grab for and it disappears are totally animated. I think it looks decent. Nice to have been part of movie magic.

I'm the dead guy...

2010-05-16T21:26:00.001-04:00

Just go here and you'll understand it all, I promise.

Interviews, Reviews, and News part Tiew

2010-05-13T19:23:00.001-04:00

Blogspot was giving me some trouble with expanding this original post, so here's part 2:

Old buddy, former news hound, frog lover, and web entrepeneur Lorin Kalisky has written up an rather intelligently rendered review of the new Agent of Venus album, Boduvt, (and shame on you if you haven't looked into our album or blog, here's your chance). I highly encourage you to go over to his Lodog blog to read it and be wowed by his dopeness. Homeboy can really write. Thanks for the kind words, Lorin. He says he's listened to the record 20 times in a row, which is the best review anyone could give our record.

Lastly, I've learned that an actor pal from college has been wrestling with cancer, and is writing a rather masterful document of his experiences on a blogspot blog. Celebrity Holter Graham is not only a talented actor and the bastard son of George Carlin, Denis Leary, and Rob Halford when he talks (though dude can't sing like Halford, but homey gets the metal), but he is also one hell of writer and a damn fine human being, if I do say so my damn self. Reading his blog has been sobering and entertaining: Holter has never been short on personality and has a particularly, dare I say, Holteresque take on this predicament. I highly recommend checking out his online diary. This is my way of sending out good wishes to the man and my profound hope for a speedy and effortless recovery. Love ya, Holter, even though I know you'd hate to hear it....

Strangely enough, and relevant to this blog, I had been seeing people on the street yesterday that had been reminding me of Holter, and then only hours later learned of his illness. The invisible world at work, or some knowledge crossing over through time, but the precognitive thing just sort of happens to me from time to time, especially when someone you care about is really going through the shit. Its like some kind 5th dimensional alarm clock, if that makes any sense.

Whatever it is, it is succeeding in breaking my heart.

Dammit Holter, you better get better....

Interviews, Reviews, and News

2010-05-13T17:26:00.007-04:00

Hey folks. Some odds and ends to take care of here. Since I've started a few other blogs, I tend to forget about this one, but I'm back, here to share developments with you and encourage you to explore my fellow Artists (with a capital A, cause when I say artist I'm talking about all the arts) work, because, if there is one thing the internet is keen on reminding us, its that we are all connected.

First off, I'd like to share these two swell interviews I've done with my good pal Frank Todaro over on his blogtalk radio show, The Invisible World. Frank and I used to do Start Trekkin NY improv together (Frank's still doing it) and during those couple years we learned that we shared a mutual interest in the paranormal, and extra terrestrials in particular. Frank's also a sci fi nerd and comic book maven, like me. Fortunately for both of us, Frank has channeled his love of all this mucky muck into a weekly radio show. Thus, the Invisible World is born. You'll notice, not coincidentally, that the invisible world itself, in the form of orbs, have popped up in several pictures of Frank and I from a Start Trekkin photo shoot. (You can click on the pictures to enlarge them, and thus, see the orbs up close, there's some great orbs in these pictures.) Frank is tight with the orbs.

Due to my particular experiences, many of which I still haven't gotten to on this here blog, I seem to fit the role of having a unique perspective with Frank's growing list of guests, so Frank has already had me on the show twice in the course of two months to talk about synchronicity, dreams, visions, 2012, ets, my music, and mucho mas. Frank has also featured three Agents of Venus tunes on the program: Hero with 1000 eyes, Cobalt Silver, and 33 (the last of which was spun on a show where I wasn't being interviewed, which is pretty cool -- the music is speaking for itself.

Here are the two interviews, in order of date (first interview first). I recommend listening to them in sequence, cause the second interview builds on the first. If you want to download them, you should head on over to The Invisible World, and they will hook you up with the goods:

Invisible World interview 3/23/2010

Invisible World interview 4/20/2010

A few good things...

2010-03-24T13:02:00.002-04:00

I'll be getting to part 3 of OOooooooooorrrrrrbbbbbbsssssssss! as soon as I can. I just wanted to take a second to tell you about a couple of cool developments that might make your life even more fun than I suspect it already is.

First, I would love folks reading this blog to go on over to my new band's blog site, (which is soon to be accompanied by our new virtual CD website, stay tuned). The band is called Agents of Venus, the album is called Boduvt (pronounced Boe-doovt) and if you go to AgentsofVenus.blogspot.com you can read up about us and hear 3 of our new songs. We will be releasing the album both physically and as a digital download at some point in April. Awesomeness abounds!

Second (and also awesome), last night I was the special guest on former Start Trekkin stage mate and now paranormal talk show host Frank Todaro's blogtalk radio show, The Invisible World. I got a chance to rap with Frank and his psychic expert Lady Fontaine about the discovery of Earth type planets, Frank's recent ufo sighting, and my two important spiritual experiences in the 90's that put me on the path to exploring the hidden and strange, and that also gave this blog its name. At the end of the show you can hear a brand new Agents of Venus song, "Hero with 1000 Eyes" played in its entirety.

To listen to the show, please go to blogtalkradio.com/theinvisibleworld. It is the newest episode (#4) and it is also available for download on itunes.

These are a few good things. More to come!

OOOOOOORRRRRRRBBBBBBBSSSSSSSSSS part 2

2009-11-14T04:16:00.010-05:00

Orbs Love Rock

This isn't an opinion. Its a fact. Orbs love the rock. After learning about the ECs, I went back into some of my pictures and realized that at least 6 or seven years before they had shown up in photos of a couple of concerts. These first three photos are from the legendary Troy Westfield Experience's final concert on 42nd st, during what I think was a fund raiser for the NTUSA at one of Chashama's theaters (the whole block is now a bank, but for a time, artist were running the block). Above you see me belting with a rather large orb in the upper left. Now, I concede this could be a stage light, but it really matches the orb profile.

This one is the least obvious , but I'm pretty sure there are some orbs in the upper left. I'm busy in this shot summoning the fire out of Stevey D's guitar.

This one I find the most peculiar. If you go back to the Ooorrbbss part one, you'll recall Nancy Burson, Extra Celestial spokeswoman. Her website not only features lots of light spheres, there are also many images of more humanoid figures who manifest as tall light beings or in clouds of smoke. I never realized this before, but that cloud of smoke to my left looks an awful lot like a giant skull, a typical EC manifestation. Whatayathink?

These next 4 are from a concert a few years later, starring the hard hitting 80's glam rock cover band Rok Goddington. Again, this is years before I knew about orbs, but I think you'll find the EC's presence in these images much more pronounced. Also, I realize that the snaps from above are film, while the ones below were digital, so that may be another factor.

Cock, Spock, and Lox Goddington jamming on the one with a band of orbs . Even ECs are nostalgic for 80s hair metal, apparently. The orbs kind of look like cartoon intoxication bubbles in this photo which, if I remember correctly, would be extremely, let's say...accurate for this show

Yours truly pointing to a guitar as Vox Goddington, big ole orb looking on. That's the singer's job on stage, to point to where the guitars are, in case the audience can't find them. I've noticed I get lots of orbs near my head for some reason.

You'll notice if you look closely that there seems to be some kind of face in this one. I might also note this guy appears near an image of a bird with a halo, so we're kind of channeling the holy spirit as a reinforcing synchronistic symbol.

A little EC hanging near one of my rok-gloves. Small but very bright. You'll notice a stage light behind Spock -- I bring it up just as a comparison, they look quite different from an orb.

A seemingly serene moment of roking

Cock and Spock on the job, probably singing some Judas Priest, orbs just below Spock's bass.

The ECs showing up during rock shows seems fairly plausible, as we are creating ecstatic states of vibration through sound, a building block of matter. In the beginning was the word, as they say. Plus, as we all know, rock is awesome, so why wouldn't they want a part of our good time? The orbs know what is important. Rok is our church. Let us pray.

Stay tuned for Oooooorrrrrbbbbbssssss part 3, ooooorrrbbbsss iiiiiin ssssppaaaaaaaaaaaaace!

OOOOOOORRRRRRRBBBBBBBSSSSSSSSSS part 1

2009-11-12T14:11:00.013-05:00

Hello. I am feeling a little depressed and out of sorts today. I am not sleeping normally -- lately I have been working or making art all night and sleeping all day, still adjusting to being in San Francisco without a real regular schedule, and though I didn't work last night, I meditated a lot and tried to sleep, alas, to no avail. I need a little cheering up. So......

It is time.

For.

OOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRRRBBBBBBBBBBBSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!! part 1.

Frank's folk's orb farm in Herkimer, NY (I'll explain later)--click to enlarge this image, its worth it!

That's right, folks, orbs. Also known as extra celestials, these little balls of light have been popping up in photographs worldwide -- often suspected to be a trick of light or dirt on the lens, or the result of some kind of malfunction of the digital camera. But we in the know are aware that those explanations are all bullshit, and that orbs are some kind of other dimensional entities that like us humans and our earth, and are, well, living with us day to day, just outside of our visual perception range. And they like us, I swear it. I've even seen one with a little smiley face sticking out of it.

I first learned about the orbs while I was taking a meditation class, and an older woman from the class offered to take me to a lecture held by Nancy Burson, an NYC artist and spiritualist who talks about her experiences with the orbs (she calls them Extra Celestials -- I will probably alternate referring to them as orbs or ECs throughout this post). I believe the ECs began to visit her after she entered a crop circle in England. She has developed a real relationship with them and now considers herself to be their emissary. During her lectures she also breaks out a little glow in the dark statue of Mother Mary that dances when she turns off the lights and plays spiritual, beat-ladened music. I don't remember seeing any orbs during this lecture, but I did soon thereafter begin to photograph them:

click to enlarge. Steal these pictures and enlarge them even more. orbs are cool looking!

Within a week or so of the lecture, I was painting a mural on 38th st and 8th ave in NYC, and upon photographing the image for my files (the mural had to be painted in a weekend, I chose the image of a root chakra as a grounding, healing image for passersby) I found that the pictures had picked up some ECs around the front of the building.

The one just below is particularly amazing, probably the brightest orb I've ever photographed.

It seems that if you are exposed to the ECs you will most likely start finding them in your photos, so if you read this orb series of posts, start to look through your photos and you will realize you have been posing for pictures with invisible friends!

Nancy says these are higher dimensional light beings who are here to assist humanity in our enlightenment. They are very happy little fellers. I tend to agree with her assessment. She says if you call to the ECs they will come and help you out with whatever might be ailin' ye. So maybe give it a try and see what happens.

Consequently, relating this back to Nancy's experience of the ECs with the crop circle, often bright balls of light are seen hovering over fields just before or during the making of crop circles. Are the ECs making the circles? A potential connection between the two phenomenon are the geometries that exist inside both the orbs and circles. If you look closely at some of these photos, you may see some very intricate geometries lying inside of them.

For example:

Perhaps a year or two later, I went to another Nancy Burson lecture, and some of her "friends" were photographed hanging with us afterwards (look closely):
I think it might be important to mention here that the orbs, to me, appear to have depth to them. Or more specifically, they seem to be portals or tunnels, as if you could dive into them.

For example:

The reason I point this out is because I think the orbs are illustrating an important quantum idea. It seems to me that source energy, god energy, consciousness, emanates from every atom, from every point in the "material" world. Being that energy is never created nor destroyed, perhaps energies are transferred from point to point through vortexes, (essentially a portal or tunnel that has torsion, or spin.) Perhaps these ECs travel by creating their own portals, by turning themselves into vortexes, and then teleporting from place to place, dimension to dimension, through themselves.

I bring this up for two reasons: 1. My out-of-body experience (the "first dream," the reason this blog exists, which can be read here), where I witnessed a giant vortex made of light that spoke to me, meaning it was conscious. 2. A friend of a friend whom I met at the last Nancy Burson event, who described seeing a giant energetic portal in Central Park in NYC some years earlier. Essentially, I think these orbs are individuated, living vortexes of light. They are conscious energy centers, just floating all around us. But for some reason, we can't see them. Yet, the digital camera CAN. So the question begs to be asked: Are the cameras just making them up? It is possible they are some sort of digital anomaly, but I really don't buy that. I think the cameras are doing what they are designed to do: reproducing images of what is actually there. They are literally photographing glowing objects that exist in the way a tree or a car exists. This same phenomena manifests with photographs of spirits, ufos, etc. We as humans are either psychologically blocked against seeing them, or the camera has a wider visual spectrum than the human eye. The camera can't just invent an orb, right? Right?

So what the heck is goin on here?

Stay tuned for oooooorrrrrrrrbbbbbbbbbbsssssssss 2!

Two Totally Unrelated Things that Go Great Together

2009-11-06T19:59:00.011-05:00

I'm posting at an exponentially faster rate. Unemployment is good for that. So while I have the time, here are two completely unrelated things that I thought might entertain you, as well as have some sort of significance in the strange and winding career that belongs to Phil Ristaino.

First, we have a video conceived and created by NTUSA members and Flackman Bros associates Ryan Bronze and Matt Kalman (aka Max Flackman). I agreed to participate in the making of this short Christmas video starring Ryan as Spiderman and Matt as Batman, surf buddies, and featuring the cheese-center-filled rock classic "Come Sail Away" by Styx, particularly significant to me because they were my favorite band (other than, say, the Beatles) when I was a youth (pronounced "yout" minus the "h"). I worked the camera for much of the shoot, in between sneezing profoundly, as the fall pollen had descended on Far Rockaway Beach on the outskirts of Queens or Brooklyn or somewhere in between and caused my nasal passages much dismay. Later in the shoot, myself and another actor Greg (last name slipping my mind right now, sorry Greg) posed as 60's style masked baddies, attacking the two heroes on amidst their holiday and being summarily dismissed by the crime fighting professionals.
Cheque eet owt:

It may be significant to note that Matt and Ryan went into cold New York autumn ocean waters fully costumed and both nearly drowned during the shooting of this video. If you look hard, you'll see one or two waves really kicking their asses, which, I admit, was pretty funny to watch in person.

The second part of this post is dedicated to me Ole Da, who hit the big 7-0 this October (happy birthday, DAD!) My older brother Carl opted to get my folks a new dish washer for Dad's b-day, and I was assigned with the task of creating the card for the gift.

Take a look:

Here's the inside:

Editor's note: Brother Carl's and his daughter Izzy's signatures and notes are missing from the card because I put all the other notes together in photoshop and express mailed the card to Carl for him to sign in time for the delivery of the dishwasher.

Just as an explanation, my parents have a house on a lake in Maine, and there is a family of bald eagles on the island, so I figured I'd put dad on the eagle a la Gandalf in the third LOTR film:

Dad's body is more or less a steal from a Jack Kirby silver surfer:

And here's me Dad:

Dad trippin balls

So there you have it. Two great things that have absolutely nothing to do with each other.

Posting as an excuse to be creative... or BRAINS!

2009-11-05T19:18:00.009-05:00

In honor of my brain-dead state today (just shot a spec commercial for doritos, where I spent 16 hours wrestling an invisible man for coveted corn chips, my body is still killing me two days later) I am posting photos from an old play from the early aughts or maybe even late 1999, (can't remember and don't care)(editors note: it was actually 1999, dummy!). This play I speak of was called Brains!, directed by fellow Skidmore College alum Yehuda Duenyas, and co-created and starring yours truly and actors extraordinaire James Stanley and Jessie Hawley (the latter also from Skidmore). These three performers are the core of the National Theater of the United States of America, an NYC based company who create epic original absurdities for the stage.

Hoody (Yehuda) describes this show on his website as, "a particle physics zombie show that premiered at Walker Space in 1999." This is pretty much true -- it was a movement intensive show, discussing particle physics, out of body experiences and framed in the scenario of three people trapped in a house with the imminent threat of a horde of zombies. Good, clean fun.

Consequently, if you go to Hoody's website, you can see these images as a slide show, y'know, just fer shits and giggles. Or you can look below (click on images to enlarge):

Me, Jessie, James, Hoody

While I'm At It...Start Trekkin NY at NY comicon 2009

2009-11-02T18:36:00.004-05:00

Here's a fun series of videos. Taken with a friend's phone, these two performances from the 2009 NY Comicon were only able to be filmed one minute at a time (that's how long her phone could take videos). So what you are seeing are the bits of both performances that made it to digital documentation. Some fun bits in there - I am typically over the top. Good luck adding in the rest of the story you aren't getting here...think of it as a fun project, where you can make up your own stories and transitions to fill in the blanks.

Here ya go:

PhilRistaino.blogspot.com/Cafe Antarsia

2009-11-02T16:15:00.008-05:00

New Stuff!

Well, not really. I've recently rediscovered this footage from a play I performed in called Cafe Antarsia. It was a musical of sorts, more of a play with music, complete with middle eastern musicians and score. The theme of the show was essentially the occupation of Turkey on an island in Greece near the turn of the twentieth century. (Can you believe we live in the 21st century? I never really considered that until now. Whoa....)

I play Kariogiosis (spelled something like that), the half Greek, half Turkish weasel who sort of inspires unrest and keeps the peace in sly ways, always to further his own survival. That's me with the red fez running around and yelling in the strange, poetic dialogue the playwright invented. This might be the first footage I've found that demonstrates what its really like to do physical performance art. This show was directed by fellow Skidmore alum and old pal Ian Belton, and performed at the Here Arts Center in NYC circa 2005. I believe Cafe Antarsia the band is still a going concern, and you can find out more about them here.

I also want to encourage whomever stumbles upon this blog to check out my new website of sorts, PhilRistaino.blogspot.com. This is my attempt to begin to organize and catalogue my various art forms into a more accessible clump or clumps. Funny enough, I find in some ways by assembling whatever I can from the past, I'm still only scratching the surface of past works, and really wish there was much more documentation of all the plays I performed in over the last 15 years or so. Oh well, theater has always been what I consider the most ephemeral of art forms....

Laurellefe makes fairy magic in the park

2009-10-29T07:18:00.010-04:00

I thought I had lost these images when my external hard drive bit the dust, but thankfully I was wrong.

One day, the lovely Laurelle Rethke and myself took some photos in a park on the river on the west side of NYC somewhere around 55th st (maybe 57th?). I took the images and turned them into some surreal scenes to enhance the fairy magic that Laurellefe (her fairy name) seems to conjure as she wanders across the city that lost its soul. So, she's, like, giving it the soul back. Cause she's a woodland creature, right? A magic fairy princess...ok, I'll shut up, but trust me, its true. She talks to rocks.

Click to enlarge:I even turned one of the images into an album cover for the Beatles "Love" copy I ripped for my sister: Consequently, my name meaning "love," you could say that the album is called The Beatles "Phil."

But you wouldn't say that, would you?

The "Phil Sessions" for Bones Rodriguez' "Kirk's Guide to Women" blog

2009-10-26T05:18:00.008-04:00

Supreme gentleman and now a member of Start Trekkin NY improv, (of which I am, alas, no longer a member), Skidmore College alum John "Bones" Rodriguez has written Captain Kirk's Guide to Women. A tome of sexy proportions, Kirk's Guide takes you step by step through the seduction of the space-lady of your affections by following in the footsteps of the master himself, Capt James Tiberius Kirk.

In promotion of the book, Bones invited myself and a couple actresses over to play dress up and shoot a little film. What resulted hath been dubbed "The Phil Sessions" over there on Bone's blog.

(Note : the sound quality is a little overdriven on these shorts, so please forgive the fuzzy dialogue.)

(Double Note: "Kirk" means "Circle." Take a moment to consider that perhaps why Kirk is so successful is because he represents the perfection, the wholeness, the self-fulfilled, and the very symbol of the divine female, the manifestation of all matter in the universe.)

(Special Triple Feature Note de El Shabbaz!: If you look carefully, you will be witness to the extra special cameo of the Sid Barrett of the 21st Century, the now mythical Dave Smits.)

New Illustrations for Vision Into Art

2009-10-01T14:14:00.006-04:00

Just wanted to commemorate my brand new move to San Francisco, CA with a post of some recent art I completed for the multi-disciplinary arts consortium that is VisionIntoArt. Some time this year (I'm having trouble remembering when) I designed and created two album covers for their two new cds, "Sounds" and "Travelling Songs."

Here's "Travelling Songs":

and here's "Sounds":

Also, I was asked to do a couple new illustrations of two members of the company. Do check them out:
Hopefully they will be added to the roster of over 20 member illustrations I've completed for this group. (You can go here to see the rest of them.) I believe they are updating their website, which will include all the illos I've designed for them. That site can be found here.

Just Because

2009-06-17T02:39:00.005-04:00

Its been a while. Months and months and many more months. Several dozens of collections of hours between then and now.

So....

I've really chocked up a ton of hours down at the Regal Beagle. Janet has been extra annoying and Chrissy is still hot, but is soon to be replaced by that dumb chick and then Terry, also hot.

So....

So there's a couple from that classic turn of the century film, "Today Will Be Yesterday Tomorrow," starring the Flackman Bros, Martin and Max, and yours truly as the mythical Mystical Bill. Thanks again to Max for hooking me up with the clips -- the debt shall be repaid. In spades!

Oh, and sharp eared viewers will recognize that wonderful chestnut from the Troy Westfield Experience, "For A While," playing in the background (of your mind) during the second scene face-off with a nic-fit-quitting Martin. Its track number 11 in that album just to your right. Go ahead. Check it out. For once in your life, do what's right, I tells ya!

Til Little Nixon makes a comeback....

A Sound Christmas Thrashing

2008-12-28T19:32:00.004-05:00

Yours truly gets punched in the face (twice) in a new web commercial for weheartfighting.com.

This website is dedicated to promoting Street Fighter 4, apparently, and also features a lengthy exposition about a guy dressing up as Santa Claus in full body armor, going out to what appears to be right around Penn Station in NYC, and getting his ass kicked. Repeatedly. Has Christmas changed? It has.

This commercial was produced by old school chum Yehuda Duenyas, (he's the guy with the pointy beard in the commercial who looks like one of the three musketeers), and also features many former Skidmore college classmates and friends; Ryan Bronze (the guy at the table saw), Ahna Tessler (woman annoyed at being followed and eventually punched), Steve Donnely (1/2 of a couple who are punched by a pirate), and Matt Kalman (the pirate).

Yehuda, Matt, and Ryan are all members of an absurdist avante garde theatre company called the National Theatre of the United States of America. They paint the stage with historical/hysterical monologues, big dance numbers, and lots of moving platforms, slamming doors, and a myriad of death-defying surprises. NY theater not to be missed.

Article about Start Trekkin on Trekmovie.com

2008-12-17T02:09:00.006-05:00

Cool little write up about Start Trekkin in Trekmovie.com. I am featured in the opening picture at my snarkiest next to a Klingon performing Hamlet. Check it out.

Also, I just want to encourage humans to check out our website, starttrekkin.com, which is in the midst of being updated and awesome-ified, thanks to our producer and webmistress Lauren Hunt. She is awesome.

Some notes of interest are the media page, specifically the red shirt diary, (super funny) and a full length and fully improvised Start Trekkin radio play (which qualifies as ultra mega gazoinkagadoinkingly cool-- that's a space term, "cool"). Please tool around the sight while you are at it, it is getting doperer and doperer as the days grow short. Word up to outer space.

Start Trekkin NY: Ten Minutes Left of Money

2008-12-10T01:30:00.006-05:00

Start Trekkin NY performed at the Big Apple ComicCon a few weeks ago (Mid November, 2008). For some reason, they will only book us to do a 15 minute episode. Not sure why, I think we could at least do a half hour without breaking a sweat or screwing up their schedule. At any rate, we've developed a cliff-hanger-type technique for little gigs like this, which hopefully brings in new fans and briefly entertains convention-goers. Someone was kind enough to film the sequence and put it online (thank you, stranger). Since you're here, you might as well check it out:

Nomadic Jazz document of mom and dad's aniversary/Izzy's b-day

2008-12-07T14:13:00.005-05:00

Roger Fritz, rebel filmmaker and psychedelic video mage just hooked me up with a video he made of a party we had for my mom and dad's wedding aniversary, as well as my niece Isabella's birthday and her grandmother's birthday. It was a fun but fairly mundane event, except for watching Izzy eat an entire birthday cake, which was rather insane to watch, as she devoured it like a shark in a pool of blood soup. This video treat stars yours truly, the beautiful Laurelle, my sister Christine, brothers Andy and Mark, a Casilio, and the mad fool Roger himself, who seems to be wearing my hat. Go here to see more of Roger's work on the U tube. Don't forget to lose your ever lovin mind, man!

Perhaps this will be of interest to you,perhaps not,but Roger has provided me with two (yes, 2) other versions of this bizarreness, one with audible voices, but still heavy on the visual and audio effects, and one that presents, for the most part, the untouched original footage. I find it a fascinating study in the progression of his process blah blah blah just watch it, okay?

This is the one "with vocals"

And here is the "raw/uncut/savage" footage

Murals of the Past: Me and Andy's at John and Glo's

2008-11-25T10:50:00.005-05:00

Brother Andy and myself painted a mural in the baby's room of friends John Reitan and Gloria M. (she has a crazy last name I don't rightly know how to spell) in preparation of the coming of their new girl, Georgia. This mural never got completely finished, but it is a rare documented Ristaino bros collaboration. I did the left side over to the right side tree, Andy did the bright green tree and all the cool little characters on the right side, even following my advice to turn a smudge on the wall into a parachuting hotdog. It appears this mural was painted in late October or early November 2006.

As Seen On TV

2008-11-08T04:47:00.009-05:00

Hey. I know I promised a blog about the orbs in my last mural post, (for those 2 or 3 of you who've been reading these blog posts) but I wanted to post this TV pilot I hosted for my good friend Phil Armand (please check out his website). This show was created summer 2008.

Phil created this idea to enter into the New York TV pilot festival, and got some good responses from those who saw it, but unfortunately it didn't get anywhere. This hopefully will be the closest I'll get to selling my soul, in terms of content--the show is about me testing products advertised on television. I think Phil did a nice job putting the show together, it looks pretty good, moves smoothly, and there are some funny things in there. One thing of potential interest: aside from the voice-over narration, everything you see here is completely improvised. Enjoy:

Also for your perusal, I found the Net 10 commercial I made with Phil this past winter 2008:

Murals in NYC part 6 -- Root Chakra

2008-10-28T15:40:00.006-04:00

notice anything strange on the picture above? click to enlarge.

please click images to enlarge

Yet another NYC mural that came through Chashama was this painting I did on 38th st and 8th ave in, I believe, 2005. It was created as part of a performance and art festival that was happening on or around loading docks and storefronts at least throughout the garment district if not all of Manhattan. I was supposed to create this one over the course of a weekend. What I didn't realize was that I was obligated to repaint their entire loading dock as part of the deal. I don't know how that happened but, oh well, whatayagonnado? I did end up repainting the dock yellow, white, and a lovely lime green.

What's that little floating orb on the bottom of the picture above?

The simple gist behind this image is that its a painting of a root chokra. Ideally, people would see it and have some sort of unconscious response to it, or rather, their root chokra would be activated by seeing the image. Its been difficult for me to learn to be grounded during my adult life, and I imagine other New Yorkers have the same problem, since this place is so frenetic and mental. Ideally, this imaged would inspire pedestrians to be more grounded.

Consequently, a very ungrounded thing appears in the photos of this mural: strange glowing orbs of light, floating about, nearly invisible sometimes, or glowing brightly in other shots. I will explain this phenomenon in my next non-mural related post.
Can you dig it?!

NYC Murals part 5 -- Hiphop Theatre Festival

2008-10-28T14:39:00.007-04:00

please click images to enlarge

Here's a series of 'process' photos of the Urban Theater Arts Festival mural I co-painted on the 2nd story of Chashama's main building on 42nd st. I would later go on to paint the "One Myth" mural over this mural. Please check out the two part entry on One Myth: Part 1 and Part 2.
The building, sadly, would later go on to be destroyed. Such is the life of a mural artist in NYC.
I think this mural was done in 2002, maybe 2003, not sure.

One interesting note: the statue of liberty image was painted by Adam Matta, who is a human beat box and does paintings with his bike. Check him out at http://adammatta.com.

NYC Murals part 4 -- Anita's house 2

2008-10-28T03:03:00.006-04:00

please click on images to enlarge

The second mural I painted for Anita was downstairs in her living room. The child was now born, a little boy, and she wanted more animals, this time in some kind of ice kingdom. The interesting thing related to this particular mural goes something like this:

In the midst of creating this particular mural, I was involved with an earthshift. A what? Lemme back up.
Since around 2000, I had been studying meditation and energetic healing with the Merlins of Vortex Healing, a divine spiritual lineage re-discovered by Ric Weinman in 1994. Over the years since 2000 I had experienced some profound energies through Vortex, but perhaps the most overwhelming experience occurred in early 2005 in NYC during this earthshift. An earthshift is a healing done on a global scale by a group of wizards who have been studying Vortex Healing, facilitated by the teacher, who happens to be a Merlin. This specific earthshift was about releasing a lot of the war or violence karma in the Middle East. I won't go into the all the details of the shift, but suffice it to say that it was a very powerful energetic experience, and at the height of it, I felt a giant snakelike surge of energy rise up my spine, force my head back, and push its way out of my mouth, as if I had vomited up a giant, invisible boa constrictor.

This is me being literal, this actually happened.

Probably a day or two later (really not sure) I was painting this mural in Anita's house and listening to the Shins second album, Shutes Too Narrow, when this feeling started coming over me. I began to see the profound beauty in the music, in the painting, in my surroundings, like this all pervasive feeling that God was in the room with me and everything had this beautiful grace about it. It was quite moving.

I'm not sure if it was that night or the next morning when I realized I was sick as a dog. Sweating, aching, nose running, completely-dilapidated-type-flu-sick. I think I remained sick for about five days, pretty much staying in bed, totally laid out and wasted. It was brutal.

But perhaps on the sixth or seventh day (again, I'm really unclear on time around this event), I woke up feeling completely amazing. Something had shifted in my consciousness, and, simply put, I knew that I was God. Not that I was a part of God, or that God had come into my life, but that I was, in fact, God itself. It was a truly incredible feeling. There was so much happiness surrounding it, so much peace, so much energy and excitement. Everything looked amazing, everyone looked amazing. It was like I was in love with everything I saw. I think this sensation lasted for less than an hour. I don't remember what happened for the rest of that day, but that brief experience was rather priceless, sort of one of those unbearable lightnesses of being that mystics, holy rollers, and rock stars strive for.

Fascinating what can happen to you around painting a mural....

NYC Murals part 3 -- Anita's house

2008-10-28T01:19:00.009-04:00

please click images to enlarge

A few years ago (2004 to early 2005) I painted two murals for Anita Durst, the ceo of Chashama, the non-profits arts organization in NYC who had previously hired me to paint a few huge murals on the second story of their main building on 42nd st between 6th ave and Broadway (which consequently has been destroyed and turned into a humongous bank). Anita was going to have a baby, and she hired me to paint the entire bedroom as a wildlife mural. We went through lots of pictures of animals she wanted to see, as well as landscapes and flowers, and eventually I painted all four walls and the ceiling. I don't think I quite finished this mural to Anita's satisfaction, but the project was so huge I would have needed more time than I had to go back and fix or finish every mistake. That said, I think for the most part, the work I did complete was pretty cool. Please check it out:

NYC Murals part 2 -- I Magi Nation: a nation of magicians

2008-10-27T00:15:00.010-04:00

click images to enlarge

This is the latest mural I've completed, created in Long Island City (Queens), NY July 2008. Curated by Patrick Smith for Off the Wall By the People in conjunction with the arts group Chashama. I was interviewed for an article on this project to bring mural art to all the construction site walls on LIC by the Queens Chronicle--you can check out the interview here.

Thematically, the idea was loosely based around a workshop given by the channel Daryll Anka, who channels an inter-dimensional extra-terrestrial consciousness named Bashar. I first saw Bashar speak at a huge Ufo conference run by Lakota Souix elders in Estes Park, CO (a subject I will get to in this blog at another date) over ten years ago, and he stuck out in my mind because of his forceful delivery and great sense of humor. Lately I had been watching google videos of his seminars, and I decided to participate in one that was being broadcast live from LA over the interwebs. The two day workshop was entitled "Imagination: Key to the Higher Mind."

Bashar broke down the word "imagination" into I-Magi-Nation, saying that this country, perhaps this world, could very well become or is a Nation of Magicians, as we invent reality into being through our consciousness and by pursuing that which makes us happy. "Follow your excitement" seems to be one of his basic 'laws' of realizing the higher self in this incarnation. I decided this would be the theme of my mural, as it is a piece of public art and I should endeavor to put forth a positive message for the kids and whatnot. I had originally intended to paint a line of people, to show the nation stretched across the mural, but for the amount of money I was being offered to paint, I decided it would be more worth my while to stick with one central figure instead. Art is, after all, much more labor intensive than most people realize--its long hours, in this case at the height of the summer--so I figured I should cut myself some slack and just concentrate on getting the mural done in a relatively short amount of time. I seem to remember painting the face of this goddess figure on the hottest day of the two weeks it took to complete the image, and it definitely affected the intensity of her face, as I had intended to make her more traditionally beautiful. But the painting sort of got away from me, and this stranger manifested....

What I realized, after I had begun work on the painting, is that by choosing this central wise woman figure, I was preparing myself to see the avatar Amma, who was to arrive in New York City shortly after I finished the painting. It was my hope that anyone who stumbled upon the painting would be spiritually uplifted, and maybe the mural carried the energies of Bashar and Amma with it, which would be sure to raise anyone's frequencies. If you sit with the image quietly for a few minutes, do you feel any subtle vibrations coming off the screen or inside your own body? Something to ponder....

Here's some more details, don't forget to click on the image to enlarge it....

NYC murals part 1 -- Spiegelworld

2008-10-26T21:32:00.016-04:00

click images to enlarge

I've decided it was time to post a series of murals I completed in NYC over the past 5 years.

I'm going to start with the images that are currently on my hard drive, specifically with a huge mural I did for Spiegelworld, which is a performance company that creates a summer long series of acrobatics/burlesque performance, live music, and djs who spin for their outdoor restaurant. The whole thing is based around a few hundred year old round performance tents that continuously tour the world as a living slice of history.

In the summer of 2007 the Spiegelworlders hired me to paint a giant mural on the roof of a storage trailer (probably around 40-50 feet long), which sits right next to their tents and can be seen from above as you stroll the walkways of the mall next door outside of pier 17 downtown below the Brooklyn bridge near Wall street in NYC.

Enjoy:

Get Skronked!!

2008-10-03T02:41:00.006-04:00

Brother Andy has been drawing amazing shit forevah! He is the bee knees. You have a rare opportunity to see a serious genius in action by going over to his SKRONKED! blog. Tons of amazing art, music, pics, and musings of a true madman. Andy has recently released the collected Babysitter graphic novel, as well as had an awesomely dark story published in Meathaus S.O.S. You can peek into his progress into the abyss of cataclysmic inspiration by going over to his blog, or wander on over to his website Skronked.com for more stuff than you can shake the crime stick at. And if it wasn't for Andy, I wouldn't be blogging right here on this here blog here today.

What are you waiting for? Git Skronked, ya varmint!

Start Trekkin on I09

2008-10-03T00:49:00.009-04:00

Awesome review of September's Start Trekkin show on I09.com.

I get some good face time with the article, and they cover one of my characters:

"Any improv group that is going to make fun of a tattoo-wearing secret monk society that doesn't actually help — but saves the day in the end — is aces in my captain's log, especially when they try and rip said tattoos off."

Please check it out.

Also, I'm going to start keeping a record of the notices for our shows. Here's the one for tomorrow's show 10/3 at the Sage theater, NYC.

Feel free to visit our website, myspace, and facebook pages.

Master and Margarita Radio Play

2008-09-23T05:32:00.008-04:00

One of the first things I did when I moved to NYC around 1998 was weasel my way into a live performance of an adaptation of the famous Russian novel "The Master and Margarita." I was living in the spare room of old friend actor Mike McCartney (another Skidmorian) and answered a phone call for him about an audition for this show, and I turned it into an audition for me. Its not something I'd normally do, but something about this was more or less fated, as I made some great friendships from participating in this show, so I just chalk it up as being meant to be. Mike got the part anyway. So I became a pivotal part of the show, acting as the sound foley, the announcer, and several comedic characters.

The show was first shown as a live theatrical show, then graduated into a live radio broadcast. This is a recording of that 2nd show. Hope you dig it. Special thanks to Megan Ryan, who directed, Cami Delavigne, who wrote the adaptation, Sharon Unterman, the Margarita, Steve Strauss, who drew the postcard, and of course, the mythical sergeant of love, Mike McCartney.

Room of Meat

2008-09-23T02:47:00.013-04:00

click to enlarge

Just wanted to post this image since it semi relates to the Vision Into Art from the last post. Around the turn of the millennium I was working with my buddy Ian Belton, fellow Skidmore College grad and master of disaster, on a series of weird little plays based around Lorca, the Spanish surrealist poet. Ian directed, I acted, along with Holter Graham (also from Skidmore) and Jesse Perez. Ian and Jesse were in Julliard at the time, along with a lot of the folks who created Vision Into Art. In fact, their producer/director Paola Prestini was producing shows that our pieces would appear in. At any rate, this show, Amargo, the Lorca Trittico was the culmination of 3 shorter pieces we had created, one of which we were working on the day before the World Trade fell. Definitely some cool, F-ed up theatre. In this image, we are three surrealist creators. Holter on the left is Luis Bunuel the filmmaker, Jesse in the center is Lorca, and I am Salvador Dali. And all the meat symbolized meat.

As far as I remember, it is early in the day, the meat locker is damn cold, and I am most likely hung over. I think my face looks very strange in this image, almost like a mask that needs adjusting. Somehow that seems appropriate to the subject matter.

What I remember from this show:

1. I played a goat at one point, I remember climbing into the audience and grabbing someone's shoe with my mouth, and throwing it behind me (with my mouth) about 20 feet and hitting someone else on the other side of the audience.

2. Holter swung in on a rope as the Hunchback of Notre Dame, wearing a football helmet and acting extremely retarded.

postcard above: Jesse aghast and me as Spanish officer with cap and cigar.

3. We did a full reenactment of a scene from some Selma Hayek movie, (can't remember the name) but she's a gypsy and tells this guy he will be a juggler. There is a series of shots where she is supposed to be juggling, but its a. somebody's arms juggling b. her face looking at the balls as if she's juggling c. cut to her catching the juggling balls as if she's done juggling. Extremely fake. In our version, Jesse plays Selma, Holter,the guy, and I'm her goat. Jesse pronounces "juggler" with a "y" as in "yuggler," which, according to him, is "espanish." Pronounce that last word to yourself and you'll get it.

4. Me throwing a wine bottle to Holter across the stage and him catching without fail while he looks away from it--harder than you'd think. It always amazed me.

5. The performance from the card just above is of note simply because some rocket scientist from the New York Theatre Workshop gave us envelopes containing a subway token and the words "A token of our appreciation" which, in lieu of actually getting paid for the performances, is about as offensive as getting a flaming bag of shit after winning the lottery.

6. Getting to do the "Happy happy joy joy" dance like Wren and Stimpy.

7. Pretending ants are climbing up our arms.

8. Ian yelling at us. I actually don't really remember this, I'm sure I've blocked it out, but it had to have happened frequently. Also, I'm quoted as saying in rehearsal "I hate you all, but we really should rehearse."

I think I almost got laid a few times because of these shows. And probably almost got paid, too.
Ahh, theatre....

Vision Into Art animation

2008-09-22T14:27:00.007-04:00

(click image to enlarge)

Some time ago I did a trunkload of illustrations for the multi-disciplinary performance group Vision Into Art. Click here to see them all. Well, they decided to create a piece of animation based on my work, and its pretty damn cool. Apparently done by an artist named David Popolow. I just found the finished version on their website and I think you, the mysterious viewer, will enjoy. So hurry up and enjoy it, dammit!

Just go here and click on "Bios."

Must....Keep....Blogging......... or, Athena 2008

2008-09-19T21:14:00.047-04:00

(excerpt from "Athena 2008." Click images to enlarge.)

(Bloggers note: this is a long post, and well worth reading, in my humble opinion. But if you'd like to skip all the yakkity yak, please just scroll down to the painting images at the bottom.)

Looks like its been many months since last I wouldst to blawg. Who cares? I'm at it agin', consarn' it, wid a doozy of a post!!! I'm using this post to demonstrate just what can go into the thought process of a single work of art, especially in these days of Quetzoquatl's return.

"Athena 2008" is the first project I completed this year, a painting I made for my college friend, the fair Nicole Stagg, who previously was spearheading the Joke Project website with my buddies the Flackman Bros. Nicole approached me around Christmas time of last year, saying she wanted to hire me to paint an original image for her to sort of initiate the beginning of a new phase in her life. She showed me a few images that had meant something to her--for example:

(this is an image she had grown up with and felt strongly represented the kind of bold graphic quality she was looking for. Consequently, I don't think the painting I eventually did captured the same style, though I do think it represents a similar idea)

Nicole also sent me pictures of her dog in tuxedo as an image to be include in the final version.

(I surely don't have to tell you that this is a surrealist's dream.)

With these ideas in mind, I proposed doing some kind of mythic image, with the goddess representing her higher self, as well as feminine qualities of strength, leadership, and wisdom, which seemed appropriate to a lady who runs a large website. In the dead of winter, 2008, I set out to discover what this new image of the goddess just might be.

I've been studying the path to enlightenment for quite some time now, and mythic images and stories have become important as signpost or way-showers in my research. One mythological researcher that I've become really fond of is a writer and interviewer named William Henry. Based in Nashville, Tenesee, William has a really upbeat quality about his research and storytelling, and his findings and leaps of intellect have really spoken to me for years. You can listen to some of his interviews on his website, or as a guest host on Dreamland, Whitley Strieber's internet radio show on his site Unknown Country. Trust me, this guy is really on to something, and I always look forward to his newest revelation.

At any rate, William is constantly referencing the replica of the Parthenon of Athens that exists in Nashville, (check that link out, its awesome, seriously) complete with a rather large statue of the Greek goddess of Wisdom, Athena herself. Lights went off in my head as I realized this was the perfect representative for Nicole's transition and new direction. As you can see, the statue, (which I believe stands around 40 feet tall and is gilded with gold) holds a sort of angelic figure in her right hand, while a shield sits below her lowered right arm as her spear rests on her right shoulder. The angel is actually the goddess Nike, who represents Victory.
I proposed to Nicole that in our image Athena be focused on Nike, while her shield and spear would be set down behind her. This was meant to represent that she was putting her struggles behind her, and focusing only on victory, on positive outcome for the future. Nicole loved the idea, and it was off to the races I went. But wait, there's more to this story... so much more....

More facts about Athena; according to the legend, she is born from a crack in the head of her father, Zeus, also known as Jupiter. Somewhat coincidentally, if you observe the emblem of the sneaker company Nike (remember her?), you will note that their ubiquitous swoosh is actually a depiction of the rings of Saturn. Could connecting the symbolisms of the goddess legend and the shoe company be telling us something about a greater astrological and spiritual relationship? Perhaps Athena is Saturn, and Nike, maybe once her moon, is now destroyed and held in sway by the planet's gravity?

Also, according to Irish metaphysical historian Michael Tsarion, Athena's name is derived from the god worshiped by the 18th dynasty heretical Egyptian king and queen Akhenaton and Nephertiti. This god, called the Aten (also, Aton), is said to be a disc of light or sun disc, purported by western scholars to be the first example in written history of monotheism, and is said to pre-date Moses' revelation of the one God of the Hebrews. Tsarion declares (and he's not the only historian who thinks this) Akhenaton actually IS Moses, as the name Mosis is a suffix used by many kings of the 18th dynasty (example: Thutmosis the 3rd). Admittedly, their story's are similar--Akhenaton is an Egyptian king who is cast out after changing the entire worship of Egypt from many gods to one God; Moses is adopted and raised by an Egyptian king as a prince, later bringing down Egypt through his introduction of the power of the one God, then cast out to lead his people through the desert for 40 years or what have you. Tsarion speculates that Akhenaton/Moses (or his followers) spread out their belief of the one God from Egypt into the west, cropping up in different mythological forms and influencing empires all way into our current America. Thus, the
light disc Aten becomes many centuries later the city of Athens and the goddess Athena. Tsarion paints this movement with a potentially nefarious thrust, leading all the way into the corruption of the shadowy New World Order that plagues our modern paranoia and manifests as the eye in the pyramid on the back of the one dollar bill. For me, the jury is still out whether Akhenaton was a megalomaniac uprooting a late dynasty Egypt into following an invisible circle of light or a prophet revealing a deeper truth about the unifying consciousness that lives behind the eyes of every creature on this planet. At any rate, I wanted to show you, the reader, the connections I was making as I was creating the painting over the month of January, 2008. It was proving to be an intense experience. But wait, there's more...much more....

Lets go back to William Henry. A fascinating subject WH has been studying is the story of Meru, the center of the mythical city of Shambhala at the center of the world. Go here to check out the full monty, its really an incredible legend. I'm not going to go into the whole story, WH tells it so much better than I ever could. Suffice it to say, at the crux of this legend is a 2nd century Chinese manuscripts that depicts the Meru tower or rod, a structure that may have symbolized a inter dimensional doorway or kabbalistic ladder to the heavens. If you look at it, it also seems to correlate to the human spinal system. William Henry says it is also a diagram for a particle accelerator! In his article, he has had an artist create a 3d rendering of the Meru super antennae, sort of fleshing out the drawing so you can see how it resembles a piece of modern or even futuristic technology. So where am I going with this one? A mythical city? A heavenly ladder? A skeletal system? A particle accelerator? Clearly, the leap William is hoping you will make is that this is a myth depicting not only an advanced piece of technology from the ancient past, but also that the technology lies within the human body, making a person the potential instrument to be used to travel into the heavenly or inter dimensional worlds. Or, in the sense of quantum reality, each person can tap into their own inner Aten to realize themselves as the center of the world, a singularity, a god.

And doesn't the structure look like a spear?

Bing!!!! Another light flashes on! I have not only chosen to release Athena from her obligations as a goddess of battle by putting her spear aside, I've also replaced the war instrument with a more literal interpretation of what a spear might represent in mythological language. Hence, in my painting, the spear would become a stairway to heaven--and now Athena would be flanked by the Meru particle accelerator to lead the goddess up towards the higher mind.

Here's a few initial sketches of the ideas I presented to Nicole for approval:

Here's Athena sitting with her formal wear guard dog. (Please click on the images to magnify)

Here's the goddess Nike offering Athena her perfected soul.

Athena's wartime weapons and armor at rest: her helmet, the shield of Zues, and her spear, now depicted as the Meru particle accelerator.

Here's the cracked open skull of Jupiter, flanked by some befuddled angels.

And here's the whole scene on a mellow beach setting (per request of Nicole).

At this point, I've hopefully demonstrated the lengthy thought process that went into this one image. Mind you, not all of my work is this, shall we say, involved. More often than not, I completely reject drawing sketches for a work of art, preferring to make something from nothing and let the muse of the moment be my guide. But something...unseen... seemed to be egging me on to make this one painting special. And as I painted, I was drawn to discover the next layer of this metaphysical onion. So please, read on...there's more...so much more....

I gotta be honest with you, painting can really suck. Its hard work, usually for not enough money, and its really kind of lonely. I'm a night owl, and if I'm painting I'll stay up till 8am and sleep half the day. This will screw up your sense of time and connection to the outside world. Its like you've been dreaming for days, or in this case, for a month in the middle of winter. Also, I was really digging deeply into the work of Michael Tsarion while making this thing, and he's Irish, and being part of an oppressed people doesn't always make your view on the world come off as all that positive. Don't get me wrong, his info and insight are rather incredible. Mind blowing. I could feel it change me as I listened to his wisdom. But damn, man, some of the conspiracy stuff can get pretty bleak. If I was going to pull off this painting with a positive spin, I was going to have to look for something new on the internet to entertain me.

Don't ask me why, but, being fascinated by the whole UFO community, one day I decided to see if there was any connection between Athena and extraterrestrials. Guess what?

I had heard of the Ashtar Command before, but I hadn't ever really looked into it. The UFO community is extremely entertaining and totally brain boggling. In the past after spending time looking into ufos, I definitely had to leave it behind for a while so I could accomplish some earthly tasks and also not go completely insane. But lots of time had passed, and this painting was leading me down a lot of fascinating channels, so it only made sense that the last stop had to be outer space.

Lady Athena seems like a very nice lady. I've spent some hours now listening to her podcasts and she's actually pretty down to earth in the way she speaks and in her sense of humor. I'm sure if you met her on the street you wouldn't necessarily know she professes to be a commander of an interstellar community of space people invisibly monitoring and mentoring humanity with a message of love and peace and the intention of helping us all realize our Christ illuminated selves and transitioning the entire planet into an higher enlightened consciousness. And again, she seems like a really nice lady. Here's her description of the Ashtar Command's purpose and function:

"The Ashtar Command, also known as the Orion Jerusalem Command and the Fleets of the Solar Cross, is the airborne alliance of the Councils of Light of the Divine Throne Worlds. We are the Celestial and Ascended Hosts who, under the direction of Commander Ashtar, serve the Most Radiant One, the Christ in His mission of Love. We work in coordination with the Legions of Metatron, Melchizedek and Michael and the Councils of Light in administering the Divine Plan.

We also serve in monitoring and stabilizing planetary grid systems and other conditions which affect the various Gardens of Life, which includes your Earth. We surround this galaxy as guardians and overseers, safeguarding all evolving Souls according to the Divine Plan. We are the peace keepers and peace guardians within this universal sector.

Fleets within the Command specialize in a multiplicity of areas, among them, Spiritual education, scientific research, intergalactic protocol, diplomacy, statesmanship and the ascension of planetary worlds. We and our ground based representatives are here to assist the Earth and her population as she transfigures from dense physical, to etheric-physical bodies of Light capable of ascending with her into the fifth dimension.

Our intent is ever to inspire faith and trust in the One Divine Source, and to awaken everyone to your unique and Divine nature and purpose according to the Divine Plan. We ever encourage unity, harmony and the peaceful co-existence of all life.

We, your elder brothers and sisters from many worlds, are eagerly extending our hands to welcome you into the galactic family of which you are a part. Know that you are part of a vast universe so magnificent that even we cannot do it justice with our descriptions. We can assure you that it is teeming with life and filled with love, wisdom and creative opportunity. Know that you are precious in the sight of your Creator…that you are the Divine heirs to a kingly inheritance.

It is our delight in being of service to you and we are ever ready to respond to your specific requests. We bless you in the Love of our Most Radiant One…peace to our dear ones on Earth…we are the Celestial Hosts known as the Ashtar Galactic Command."

So this sounds like a pretty good deal, right?

Needless to say, as I painted along my merry way I was thrilled to realize I had inadvertantly found my long lost space brothers and sisters and was actually painting a version of our commander in chief manifested in human form right here in the good old US of A. And I had something new to listen to. Consequently, I've joined the Command's MSN group and now I eagerly await contact and can chat with ascended masters and celestial beings online. All this because of a painting! High praise for Athena's wisdom, she surely was guiding me the whole time. If you follow that link above (here it is again) you can hear Commander Lady Athena's internet radio show and also follow links to learn how you too can potentially join the Ashtar Command's chat group (if the spirit moves you, of course). I highly recommend it if you're looking for something new and approach it with a very...open...mind.

With this final puzzle piece of the onion layer under my mixed bag of metaphor-belt, I could finally complete my masterpiece. And I did.

Its my pleasure to present to you "Athena 2008"

(click images to enlarge)

(Athena presented her perfected soul by Nike, Zues' shield as her halo or crown chakra)

(Athena's 3rd eye chakra)

(throat chakra jewelry)

(Athena's dress representing 4th thru 1st chakras)

(close upon Nike, goddess of victory)

(Nike arising out of Jupiter's cracked surface, with double helix energy trail)

(Athena's helmet hanging on her spear, the latter depicted as the top of the Meru particle accelerator. The helmet is covered by a babushka, (like a bandana, as per Nicole's request). These two objects double as the 8th and 9th chakras.)

(tuxedoed guard dog)

(Zues' split cranium. Those 3 little figures in the background are 3 ants in suits playing music.)

(Athena 2008. When the light hits it right, the gold paint glows.)

So that's it. If you are still reading, thanks for sticking with this post. I appreciate your stamina and enthusiasm for the absurd. I certainly didn't expect this project to be so bizarre and far reaching, it just worked out that way. But that's what being an artist is about. Cabdriver, Follow That Muse!!! You never know where she is going to lead you.

Shooting the Messenger, or Making a Connection Between Star Trek and My People, then Killing That Connection

2008-05-11T18:30:00.009-04:00

So at the NY Comicon we were taking a series of pictures where people would put on a red shirt and we'd kill them, with the intention of putting the series on the Start Trekkin NY website. The Red Shirt Diaries, which will include online episodes of Trek officers recounting the grisly death's of their unfortunate junior staff, is not up yet, but hopefully will be soon, as a crack team of interweb savvy experts are reworking the site as we speak. But I guess somewhere in there, we took these pictures with an an amazing Italian artist named David Messina. His blog is completely in Italian, so I'm assuming that this gentlemen, as his blog seems to indicate, is actually an illustrator for Star Trek Magazine, with which I'm not particularly familiar. And he's freakin great. That said, here's a short series of pictures that he's taken and altered into a small story.
My sister Christine is an Italian professor and she's been kind enough to translate, so you, the avid blog reader, can know his story in two languages:

"...A group of perplexed Star Trek fans don't know whether to be happy or not to have met the designer of the series..."

".... until it dawns on them who he really is...."

"... and their furious reaction!"

Me and Ghandi are So Word

2008-05-06T01:19:00.003-04:00

Okay, so I filmed this piece with Phil Armand for a commercial competition this winter 2008. It was for Net 10, a cell phone company who's slogan is "No Evil," which I can get behind. We shot me walking around with a poker picking up trash in Brooklyn and looking very serious. I was rocking a sweet beard and I seem to be having a good hair day.

But dammit, I can't figure out this whole RSS feed thing. It just doesn't make no sense to me. So you'll have to go here and scroll down to find my short among the many. When last I looked it was film number 6 and its titled "cleaning our streets."

Hope you can find it and that you'll derive a modicum of enjoyment from it or perhaps be so swept away by the selflessness of the whole theme that your identification with separation and the ego is dashed against the rocks of pretension and you realize your god-self and maybe hang with Dr Manhattan on Mars or something. (I just saw a Watchmen movie blog this evening and it made me happy).

There is no spoon. And no evil. That said, we didn't win the competition.

the Lost Episode of Mediocre New York

2008-05-06T00:20:00.001-04:00

This was the first episode of Mediocre New York I hosted. I actually look like I bathed before the shoot, and if you check out the other episodes I host, you'll see how I eventually look like a homeless man who stole a broken microphone from a low budget TV show. Never to be out-mediocred....

Laydeez and Gentlemens, I give you... the New York Inn:

Also, here's a link to my "about the host" page on the MNY website. I thought it was kind of funny.
YOU DECIDE
if I was right, or just plain dumb.

My first foray into animation

2008-05-05T22:18:00.001-04:00

My buddy Marc Lesser approached me about creating a short animation piece for a website. We made this sample, which I think they liked, but they had already gone in another direction by the time we had finished it. Too bad for us. Anyway, I think its kind of funny, and its my first attempt at animation, so not bad, all things considered.

In case you missed the link the first time, click here to see our nifty cartoon.

Red Shirt Massacre at the NYComic Con

2008-05-04T23:12:00.002-04:00

Here's a cool pic somebody took of us at the con. The photographer was duplicating famous photographs using people dressed as superheroes and other fictional characters. Here's Frank, Kate, Ben and myself replicating the famous, tragic image from the Kent State Massacre. Can you guess which guy I am? Hint: I'm wearing a red shirt, the subtext of which any Star Trek fan will understand.

NYComicCon

2008-04-23T21:57:00.002-04:00

I had a crazy weekend. Start Trekkin performed at the New York Comic Con at the Javits Center--it was a huge convention! I'll write more soon, but I just wanted to put up this interview for posterity. I am a total nerd in this interview, I was standing next to the Geek Squad host so he asked me all the questions and I think my brain dropped into my appendix or something, cause most of my answers are fairly lame. But it was an amazing weekend, for reasons I will explain soon...

check it out...

Christine Ristaino's new book, the Italian Virtual Classroom, and Quacknulack

2008-02-19T20:23:00.000-05:00

My older sister Christine is perhaps the nicest human in the universe, aside from perhaps my Mom. Some people don't like to be called 'nice,' but hell, I calls em likes I sees em. Every once in a while she's been kind enough to throw me a gig. Christine is an Italian professor at the University of Emory in Atlanta, GA, and she's been co-developing a virtual classroom through which Italian students can study the language from any location on the planet! Modern tech is wild, man, wiiiiiiiiiiillld! For a full explanation of how this virtual classroom works, please go here. When the classroom was first launched, I was asked to do a cover for the study booklet. Here it is:

Christine asked me to create an image that covered the various stages of Italian art. That's the statue of David and the painting of Venus as IVC students. I tried my best to draw and color each figure or object in a different style. Is it successful?

Christine has co-authored a just-released book entitled
Lucrezia Marinella and the "Querelle des Femmes" in Seventeenth-Century Italy
You can follow the link to buy the book from Amazon.

Years ago she used to teach at the University of North Carolina, and I was asked to draw a t-shirt design for the graduate romance association, which was affiliated with the school's romance language department. Not sure why, to be honest. Needless to say, the idea I came up with was a little too weird for the department and they chose not to use it. Oh well. "Too weird for college" is definitely a complement. The advantage of having my own blawg on the intrewebs is that I can actually show the design to you:

I personally thought "Quacknulack, a humanoid duck from Zubenelgenubi" was a cool idea. I mean, come on! He's wearing a flower pot for a hat! They do that on other planets, you know.
Why is my genius so misunderstood?

Start Trekkin NY on the Radio

2008-02-19T04:32:00.002-05:00

Just wanted to post a couple Start Trekkin images.

The first is the new logo I designed with our producer Lauren Hunt:

It was actually her idea, I just re-drew it. We passed it back and forth over the net until it turned into what you see.

Next you can check out a radio interview of the STNY crew with Joey Reynolds, late night talk show host on WOR am radio in NYC:

Now playing: radioshows

In the summer of 2007 we were on for about an hour and 1/2, broadcasting nationwide, and got to share the mic with Joey and the Amazing Kreskin! Kreskin was cool and did a few tricks on the air. The guy is legit! He told a funny story about how he used to get confused for Leonard Nimoy back in the day. If you look closely at the photos, you can see the resemblance...

Kate, Frank, Kreskin, Joey, Me, Karie, Casey and Cap'n Ben

Mediocre New York

2008-02-19T02:30:00.003-05:00

Phil Armand and Rob Albrecht are hard working guys. They are always digging into a new project. I've been lucky to work on a few of them over the past few years. Did you see Battle of the Band earlier in this blawg? Its one of theirs. Well folks, here's another one.

Mediocre New York is a crackpot idea about making an interview show where the hosts hunt New York City for the average, the mundane, and the crappy, and make a big deal about it. I look at it as shedding light on the cobwebs and toilet bowls of the unknown, the mysterious, and the cheap. I was brought in as one of the hosts. My job was to wrangle the funny out of the guy that let you play World of Warcraft on his dirty computers. I was the guy who would ask a tenant why he so prominently featured his SuperMario Bros soundtrack tape collection. I was the guy who kicked rust off your car. I was the guy that made fun of your toilet. Ahhh, dreams.

Check it out:
This one is a review of a mediocre coffee shop

this is an interview with a mediocre apartment renter

a mediocre spotlight on that NYC fixture, the New York Inn

and here's a interview with a mediocre car owner

This last video is featured on cashtomato.com. If you go there and give it 5 tomatoes, the filmmakers and I might actually win some dough. Clams. Uh, money.

Izzy's blog

2008-02-19T02:14:00.000-05:00

My brother Carl has the greatest little daughter Izzy. She provides hours of entertainment. She was just showing us how well she dances the other day. Check her out here.

Interview on Associated Press

2008-02-18T17:32:00.000-05:00

My wonderful friend Rebecca Geary has published an interview she did with me this summer on Associated Press. Please check it out here.

Tales of the TWE

2008-02-14T03:22:00.006-05:00

Ladies and Gentleman! Children of several ages! I'm sorry? Which ages? Go away son, ya botherin' me. Ehem, 'scuze me folks. (muttering with advisers) Let's say those ages are 7, 13, and 16 & 1/2, (those are the kids ages, that is).

Haaah? Heh, don't mind me, folks, but a tiny, bald, gnome-like transient is whispering in my robot ear. (more muttering, more advisers) All right, I'll let kids who are 14 and born on a leap year in, too.

But those bastiches is gonna hafta pay duble.

Aaahhhhh, yeeeeeesss! (Puts on W. C. Fields hat and nose, holds cigar to side of face, cane in right hand, third hand intermittently waving wildly behind ears and held limply akimbo, elbows apparently twisting into dodecahedron-shaped rifts in time space and reappearing out of anthills.) I was just about to tell a tale of the late, great Troy Westfield Experience!

Who is Troy Westfield, you ask?

This, my friends, is Troy Westfield:

Don't worry, he won't eat you. He's actually a very nice man. Trust me, I've known him for most of my life. Hell, I probably owe him money.

Troy Westfield was born Mike Gordon, (though his birth record mysteriously professes his name to be "Swartzwalder Keirchtort") hailing from my hometown of Franklin, MA. Upon our first meeting in kindergarten, I knew immediately I had met my own personal musical guru, as Gordon poured his Ovaltine into my hushpuppies and declared "Its like a fudge tabernacle."

I promptly displayed my admiration for Mike by avoiding him until junior high, where we had both signed up to play snare drum in the school orchestra. Mike's approach to drumming was unusual, to say the least. One evening, during a performance, as he strove to play the theme to "Hogan's Heroes" with a chicken leg, double stick tape, and a melted copy of "Helen Reddy, the Los Vegas Years," I had an inexplicable vision of times to come. With the rumble of a single rat-a-ma-cue, Mike was transformed before my eyes into a perfect gold pyramid, spinning off kilter on its ruddy axis, its apex spewing forth rivulets of sparkly particles and fatty tissue. Just as suddenly as the vision started, it came to a quick halt. "Nuthin' but net," Mike winked, wiggling his kettle drum's spit valve. I immediately blanched, vomiting horrible, deranged slogans and running 15 miles in approximately 8 minutes. Days later, when I was found scratching the phrase "Viva El Gordo" into the side of a water tower with my own fingernails, the policeman who brought me back to my family told my mother I was "paler than goose shit" and smelled "country." Luckily, Mike soon moved on from drums to guitar. But I was hooked.

Gordon/Westfield wrote his first song, "The Road Leads to Nowhere," a poignant ditty about the hardships of Frodo Baggins traversing the badlands of Mordor. Not only did the songwriting betray a startling maturity, but the young genius performed the ballad by vibrating the strings of his guitar with the rushing air of the pan flute. By high school we were making rock n roll.

Our first band had a few names: Guys with Ties, Gaza Strip, and Contrary To Popular Belief, the last name still holding its place in the Ruprick's Book of Rock Legend as "#1 band name to invoke malaise in the entire 1988 US Olympic Luge Team." The band would practice rock covers in our friend Denis' basement, cutting our teeth on perfecting alternating versions of the theme to the 70's cult classic "Convoy" and that perennial favorite of 80's hair metal, Dokken's "Honey, Smell This To See If It's Still Good." And lots of other crap. But it was fun. We also wrote a few originals. All of them gambling songs.

Denis was originally the lead singer for the band, but when he left town for a few weeks on an exchange program in the subcontinent, I seized my chance at rock-god-dom by weeping on the microphone during a particularly jaunty, reggae tinged version of "Smell This." Mike/Troy saw in me perhaps a kindred and/or easily exploitable spirit and allowed me to front the band. Soon Denis returned, and after a brief bout of confusion and dork toggling, we eventually both became lead singers in the band, which apexed at a talent show in the Franklin High School Ruth Buzzy Memorial Auditorium and Storage (a spectacle fellow students would describe in their yearbook memories as "if the phoenix bird fucked a stop sign") and then fell like a bubble gum juggernaut to the gnarley drag of the tide of maturity and horrible metaphors.

Time passed. College, girls, college girls, marijuana, mushrooms, lsd, dvds, stds, pcp, mainlining paper pulp into our tearducts, college graduation, and then straight off into trail-blazing a carefree swath of abject poverty through the velveteen jungle of modern society. Oh, and lying. Lots of lying. Mike began to record his own music under the moniker The Troy Westfield Experience, a name pastiched from the discovery of the famous "Westfield paramecium" and a thin Jewish undergarment.
Occasionally I would guest-ghost write, drum and sing during the recording sessions, Troy always tipping his hat to me in reference to a particularly inspired turn of phrase or drum fill and saying "good, but how would a visigoth see it?" and then, he'd hit me with a tipped hat. During one recording session, the date obscured in my memory due to my being "extra high," Troy dubbed me "The Post Relevant Movement" saying the name was, "pretty stupid." Thus, the Movement was born, and consequently, over.

Around the year 2000, we both ended up in New York City, and Mike/Troy told me he was ready to record a new album and he wanted me to be his representative for his overseas "Duck Sauce" label. Having a very limited reasoning capacity due to extensive barrette use, I countered his offer with a, uh, counter-offer to instead sing on the album and write all the tunes with him. Both of us virtually chomping at the bit to record a professional quality full length cd, Troy heartily agreed, using words like "kismet" and "marsipan" to describe his enthusiasm and crippling back pain. I actually jumped. Imagine me. Jumping. I know, its crazy. The egg of the twenty first century version of the Troy Westfield Experience was hatched:

Over a year's time, Mike would record single or double guitar tracks on a four track recorder and hand them to me, and in the non-privacy of my shared railroad apartment on 14th st and 1st avenue I'd froth, gibe, and froog my vocal and lyrical syrup all over those demos in an earnest effort to convince the mythic Troy Westfield I actually knew what I was talking about. For some unknown reason, even a mystery to the bastard gods of Asgard, Ohio, Dr. Trojian Westfieldberger reluctantly agreed that I did indeed have "a nut to bust."

Thusly, yeah verily, yon synthesis didst occur:

Having bribed and extorted our way into my college pal Allen Towbin's Maze Studios to record the full length, Troy Westfield and I channeled an orchestra of extra-terrestrial inspiration into a rich tapestry of hamhocks and government ordinances, wafting through the recording sessions in a process Towbin would later describe as "entirely frightening." Employing top gun session men and state of the art "electronics," The TWE would ravage the exoterica with the depth of ten bands, soon emerging from the studio in a scant 2 or 3 or perhaps 7 months with a series of songs Spin Magazine has dubbed as a "perfect doorstop," forcing Rolling Stone, on a dare, to nominate the disc "roundest." This collection has been preserved in all its astounding perfection for you, here and now.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you The Troy Westfield Experience's "Tantric Scrimshaw":

cover to 'Tantric Scrimshaw' (click images to enlarge)

Interior Art

Back cover to 'Tantric Scrimshaw'

And now, Gadies and Lentlemen, by popular demand, I present the never-before-published TWE Tantric Scrimshaw lyrical and pictorial digest (Click images to enlarge):

lyrics to trak 1: Alyssa Gordon
lyrics to trak 2: Who Designed Amanda?
Lyrics to trak 3: Pretty Nazi
Lyrics to trak 4: The Avatars Saved Her From Me
Lyrics to Trak 5: How You Could Leave
Lyrics to trak 6: Obsessed w/ the Five of Hearts/Being Worthless
Lyrics to trak 7: Bridges Burning You
Lyrics to trak 8: More Than Clouds
Lyrics to trak 9: "What?" Is Real.
Lyrics to trak 10: Hank Pym
Lyrics to trak 11: For a While
Lyrics to trak 12: Abiola Backus

Lyrics to trak 13: Two Sources
all music/ lyrics copyright 2001 Mike Gordon/ Phil Ristaino /obsteporous music/postrelevant records.
all art, lyrics and lyric booklet copyright 2001 Phil Ristaino/post relevant productions
except "Abiola Backus" Mike Gordon/ Phil Ristaino/post relevant productions
All TWE photos taken by the illustrious Sonja Stoerr.

Thus ends the first tale of the TWE. Please return, gentle listener/reader/art-looker-atter, for another session of rock n roll legend and other bullshit, as more tales of these ribald bards are sure to follow. Troybless and Movementspeed.

Please check out our myspace and facebook pages, or create a soundclick account to download the entire "Tantric Skrimshaw" album for free!

One Myth on 42nd st part 2

2008-02-13T21:36:00.001-05:00

Did you read the beginning of this blog? Check out the story of the first dream.

Did you read the first dream? Whadayadoin? Go back and check it out why don't ya?!

Now that you've read about the first dream, you might want to check out Part 1 of the "One Myth" mural project (if you haven't already).

Okay. Good. That vision of the spiral of light from the first dream is the central image for this mural on 42nd st. It's also the middle of the eye of god, which is the larger central image for the One Myth. Joseph Campbell, the great American mythic historian, pointed to this one myth as the arrival point of all mythologies through the whole world. He believed that what separated one culture from another throughout the globe was language, and language based on the mythological creation stories each culture would tell itself to explain where it came from, what purpose its customs and rituals had, etc. He thought (and I'm paraphrasing here) that these separate language and creation tales caused much of the social unrest and warfare between cultures throughout the globe; for while each culture had its stories of its origins and an inkling of the oneness that should connect us all, the stories themselves conflicted with the next culture's creation myths, and this conflict sparked the experience of the other, the stranger, the enemy--essentially, misunderstanding. Campbell stated that in order for the humanity to know peace, we should essentially manifest a single story, One Myth, that explains origins of all life as we know it (and don't know it, says I).

The Lakota medicine man Black Elk, who survived the battle of Little Big Horn (Custer's last stand) in the 1800s, had a vision as a young boy that would define his life and marked him as a healer and shaman. As far as I can remember, Black Elk lay in a Coma for many days, while in the spirit world he spoke with many Grandfathers, spirit elders, who showed him four roads that represented the peoples of the world and fates of humanity. Black elk spent his life watching the decimation of his people while trying to find a way to heal the sacred wheel of life, which had been broken.

I once attended a Star Visions conference in Estes Park, Colorado, organized by Lakota medicine men, where they taught a series of spiritual symbols given to them by extraterrestrials. It was a far out experience, really mind blowing, people from all over came with stories of ETs, healing methods, ancient rituals. I'll talk more about this conference at another point in the blog, ( I need to do a little research through my notes so I can remember this stuff properly).
After returning from the conference to my temporary home in an anarchist's apartment in San Francisco, I had a dream of a single, Egyptian-looking eye, floating in a bed of fire. It felt distinctly different from a normal dream, more of a vision, a message from the spirit world, the single eye of the Universe.

These visions were the basis for the One Myth structure. Since I was painting on 42nd st, I figured I'd go out of my way to create a message I thought would be beneficial for people to see, being that there are so many people there from all over the globe. This would be my message to the world.

As you look at these details of the mural, you'll find Black Elk's 4 roads, as well as the grandfathers. You'll find peoples from all cultures worldwide. You'll find the duality of day and night, earth and moon, male and female, a duality which I believe is an illusory structure of the mind that represents the movement of creation itself. You'll find the eye of God, resting on matter, containing the four elements, as well as the fifth element, spirit. And you'll find spirit, creating the peoples of the world from light, something from nothing, the many from the One.

And you'll find a tree on the moon.

You'll also notice that everyone in the painting is sleeping. Their eyes are closed. They are dreaming their way into reality.

Consequently, the whole time I was painting this mural, I knew the building was going to be torn down within a year. And it was. I think they're still building a Bank of America where the One Myth once stood.

One Myth on 42nd st part 1

2008-02-13T19:52:00.001-05:00

Sometimes I do murals for the arts group Chashama. They are a non profit organization that finds free or cheap performance spaces, artist spaces, galleries, etc, by accessing commercial spaces that aren't currently being rented and turning them into art spaces. At one point, they had nearly a block of performance and art spaces in NYC on 42nd st between 6th and Broadway. A few years ago, I spent about two months painting a gigantic mural outside on the second floor wall of their main theater space on 42nd. Because of the heavy foot traffic, I couldn't paint during the day, so I literally worked all night for two months, around 20 to 30 feet off the
ground in a little genie lift (you'll see what I mean when you see the pictures). Mad crazy, this.

Nearing the end of the job, I was approached one morning by a gentleman who worked at the united nations. To this day, I have no idea what his name is. It seems that he would pass by the building every morning on his way to work, and he decided to take a series of excellent photographs documenting the progress of the mural's creation. He showed me the series of photos he had taken over the 2 months. Incredible. I asked if I could have a copy and a few days later he kindly provided me with a disc with the series of photographs. I am eternally grateful for his efforts and kindness, and I'm proud to present these pictures to you:

Please click here to see part 2 of the "One Myth" mural project.

Rhyme Animal

2008-02-13T18:00:00.000-05:00

In 2007 NYC filmmaker/writer/producer Jorge Rivera asked me to draw a mini comic book of his short film Rhyme Animal, directed by Phil Roc and staring rapper muMs. Its a story of a literally cannibalistic rapper rising to rap god status from the underground and dining well in the process. Jorge wanted to pass out the comic to people at film festivals to attract extra attention to the project. It is my hope I did some service to his work and hopefully added an extra something to promote his crazy deep ideas.

Here's the mini-comic, based on scenes from the film:

Shaking the Magic Screwball

2008-02-13T02:52:00.003-05:00

My good friends the brothers Martin and Max Flackman (aka Marc Lesser and Matt Kalman) are kickass filmmakers and have been kind enough to throw me into their projects from time to time. One idea that has reared its psychedelic head on the web is the dreaded Magic Screwball. Shake him up and ask him the answers to your most crucial or guarded secrets, if you dare, suckers! Appearing on their Joke Project site, created with the guidance of the divine Nicole Stagg, the Screwball dares to rend the very fabric of time and space asunder with a flippant "Uh, I dunno" or "Yeeeeeeaaaaahhhhhh Baby! Yeeeeeaaaaaahhhhhh!"

The Screwball on a smoke break.

Consequently, you can go here and here to see me as a joke telling zombie.

Speaking of the Flackman's and film projects, I've also had the opportunity to design a couple movie posters for these dudes. Check-ch-check-check-ch-czech it out:

Here's the poster for "Today Will Be Yesterday Tomorrow," the Flackman's first full length film. A dream, a day-job, and Billie Dee Williams in Lando duds. Solid stuff.

I played Mystical Bill, who lived inside Max' cigarette case, preparation for the Screwball, for sure.

Then there's the award winning short "Cuando La Luna Esta Llena," directed by Marc Lesser.

A tragic love story wrapped in aluminum foil. Marc asked me to mimic a Dali collage from the great artist's time in NYC. A truly deeply satisfying experience. Truly and deeply.

Start Trekkin NY

2008-02-12T17:57:00.002-05:00

Yo Yo Yo

So, like, I'm part of an improv group called Start Trekkin NY

We do improvised hour long episodes of Star Trek in the style of the original series. We don't play any of the original characters, we make up entirely new characters and situations. Is this clear? Its fun stuff, lots of shoulder grabbing and fake fighting. Anyway, check out the website, and if you're in New York, please come see the show. You can go to the Manhattan Comedy Collective's website for dates and times of shows. We also have a myspace page here.

Here's a poster and postcard I designed for the group:

Here's a couple clips from a show in NYC at the Tank:

more pics, more to come:

Battle of the Band

2008-02-12T17:34:00.003-05:00

Hey Folks. How are ya? I'm blogtastic.

A few years ago I co-starred in a television pilot called Battle of the Band, created by the team of Phil Armand and Rob Albrecht. Its a funny show about
4 idiots trying to live the punk rock dream in NYC. The script is completely improvised, though the story was plotted out by Rob and Phil before-hand.

Darwin, lead singer and activist, at the height of his powers, stickin' it to the man.

This is the short version of the show, about 21 minutes. There is a longer version that I prefer more if only cause there's more jokes in there and the actors are great improvisers--maybe someday we'll get that version up on the intre-nets.

Anyway, dig it, won't you? I play Darwin, the lead singer, by the way.

Vision Into Art

2008-02-12T16:17:00.002-05:00

In 2007 I did a series of illustrations for the multi-disciplinary performance group Vision Into Art. They had me draw each member of the ensemble as a playing card, and the playing cards were laid out as programs for a performance series they did at the Whitney Museum in NYC. I'm pretty proud of the series, so I wanted to post them all together so you could see the whole deal. They later had an animation made of the images, which I've seen part of and its pretty cool. When I find out where that is on the web I'll post a link. VIA can be found at visionintoart.com.

first dream

2008-02-12T15:25:00.000-05:00

Howdy. Welcome to my TheseAreDreams blog. My name is Phil Ristaino.

In 1995, I believe, I was visiting a doctor's office in San Francisco, CA, and after a series of extremely uncomfortable procedures, I began to feel blackness close in around me. "I'm going to pass out," I told the doctor, and did, my body falling (luckily) onto the examination table and going into a seizure. I don't remember the seizure. What I do remember....

My body did not exist. I simply was. I was aware. Before me I witnessed what appeared to be a gigantic whirlpool of white light, like a tornado full of stars, churning in a counter-clockwise direction. I was staring straight into the mouth of a tremendous vortex of energy, as if you were looking down at a condensed spiral galaxy. Tiny stars joined the whirlpool of light on its outskirts. The thing was alive, and was composed of an unknown number of these stars. (You can find an etching created by Gustav Dore, from his masterwork on Dante's divine trilogy, that depicts just such a tunnel, composed of angels--I believe that that's what each one of these stars was, an angel)

As I watched the white light vortex churn, 2 dimensional rectangles spun around me and into the center of the tornado, like leaves down a drain. They appeared to be windows or doorways into other dimensions. A voice spoke to me, coming from nowhere or everywhere, I don't know. It said: "These Are Dreams." I assumed it was speaking about the rectangles. And, if I remembered correctly, I thought it was the vortex that was speaking to me.

Soon I began to hear the noise. It was a machine like sound, but breathing. The sound was that of the unseen engine that caused this spout to spin, constant, adamant. The sound was a million machines running backwards underwater. The sound was an ocean talking with a freight train. The sound was never ending and always being; churning, churning, breathing, breathing. The sound grew louder and louder and louder and I became afraid....

I soon woke up in my body, surrounded by bewildered doctors. They told me I had passed out and had a seizure, something I've never done before or since, to my knowledge. They sent me to the hospital and I was released a few hours later, none the worse for wear.

What was it? Had I somehow torn away our flimsy 3rd dimensional cloak to find the true reality that creates it? What would I have found had I flown into the center of the vortex? Did I actually go in and not remember it? Had I been shown the face of God itself? The tunnel to heaven? What was it?

Much has changed since my initiation into the spirit world that day, but the experience will hopefully stay with me for the rest of my life. So here I sit, remembering and sharing with you, in hopes of creating a diving board into the greater mysteries, the questions of creation, reality, and self. Consider this a vortex into dreams, a portal to the infinite.

And consider this the first dream.