Author Archives: jp

This Wednesday, April 6th, 2011 from 9pm – 12ish, at Akbar, it’s CRAFTNIGHT!!!
Project: Nautical Themed Craft Assortment! (Fabulous Foam shaped mayhem of an oceanic kind)
$2 processing fee, please!
$4 cosmos >>> delicious!

It’s getting too controlled around here, not enough ridiculousness. With all this spring cleaning, and taxes, and co-workers getting upset about disappearing yogurt, and bendy straws coming in only about 4 different colors (highway robbery) it’s time to set sail for the unknown. Nothing’s as it appears, though it might be rather convincing to regard.

Seriously, we’re only as permanent as the ground we walk on… hmmm… right, that’s not stable either. Har de har.While strife comes in many forms, there can be no denying, that life is rife with all that you have, no more and no less.Best to navigate the miracle of existence with the proper tools (flat colorful foam tools, of course.)

That’s where CraftNight comes in, to recognize that we are all here together ’cause we’re not all here.
If your wild-horse mind is refusing to be tamed, I’ve got a backpack clip in the shape of a ship that will help you navigate Maslow’s five seas hierarchy of needs.

I’ve got eye patches to change your point of view (decorate, then wear, then command with authority and verve)
I’ve got ship steering wheels for you to stay the course (or delightfully veer off of it in defiance, if that’s what you’re into)
And see here: telescopes so you can identify your target: Eyes on the Prize!

Oh, we are the damned and the beautiful, with tiny human common source of pain at every turn.
We are stardust, we are golden, we are billion year old carbon and we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden.

Free your soul, and your ass will follow?

Get in here and see for yourself!

See you at the Craft Table,
JP Craft Captain

CraftNight

Akbar

This Wednesday, March 30th, 2011 from 9pm until 12-ish, at Akbar, it’s CRAFTNIGHT!!!
Project: Helicopters
$2 Processing fee, please!
$4 Cosmopolitans

The Los Angeles Mosquito
If you live here in the LA area, chances are, you have experienced the chopping of rotor blades roaring through your neighborhood. You have probably had an otherwise peaceful outside telephone chat with a friend turn into you hollering “WAIT. HOLD ON… HELICOPTER… CAN’T HEAR YOU… JUST A SEC…”
Maybe you’ve even had the crazy electric bird circling your house twirling a ballyhoo on your backyard and the scratchy loudspeaker blaring from the sky “COME ON GUYS, IT’S LATE, COME OUT FROM THE BUSHES, WE KNOW YOU’RE THERE.” Hopefully, they aren’t talking to you.
Our fair city is quite ubiquitous with the helicopter, in most cases, they are merely a nuisance to our troubled ears, we’ve gotten so used to them. But we’re going to celebrate them this week by assembling, painting and decorating beautiful little wooden rubber band-powered facsimiles. They are so lovely, you simply must have one for your collection.
Why?
Because helicopters are AWESOME, that’s why.
Helicopters aren’t just for chasing suspects on the run, or for indeterminate dubious military usage.
This amazing machine takes off and lands vertically, it can hover for extended periods of time, and can operate under low airspeed conditions, and it’s got a happy little propellor on top for cuteness. Where else can you find something so useful, and at the same time, so cute?

HELICOPTERS
1.) Act as air ambulances when road vehicles can’t reach the scene quickly
2.) Find lost hikers/swimmers in Search and Rescue missions
3.) Fight fires by “water bombing” the area with “helibuckets.”
4.) Report to us what’s up with the freeway traffic, or other types of news (celebrity funerals or alligator transport, for instance)
5.) Reflection seismology! So nerdy!
6.) Aerial photography
7.) A sassy way of getting places, OR a great way to see the city, if you feel like being a tourist for an hour
8.) FUNNY GIRL (1968) Barbra Streisand. Hudson River. Tugboat. One of my favorite shots EVARRRR. It was pulled off with luck, skill and I guess some kind of ESP between the pilot and cameraman because it’s INCREDIBLE. It’s the longest crane shot in the world (for that time) and it’s not using a crane, and it’s absolutely exhilarating.
9.) Helicopter crashes in fictional action films are an unabashed  love letter to explosions.
10.) It’s hard not to find a helicopter we don’t love, from the ones on M*A*S*H to T.C.’s chopper in Magnum P.I, to Stringfellow Hawke and his faithful Airwolf. Oh yeah. And Blue Thunder. Ha.

Twirl your cheeky self in here for some crafting goodness!
See you at the Craft Table,
JP Craft Captain

CraftNight’s Site

Akbar’s Site

TONIGHT! Wednesday March 23rd, 2011 from 9pm until 12-ish at Akbar it’s CRAFTNIGHT!
Project: Color/Paint your very own Unicorn
$2 processing fee, please

It’s raining outside, and I’m not going to make it easy for you.
As in yes, get your butt out the door and to Akbar, with US!

As we paint and decorate our unicorns, we will screen Cleopatra, the film that almost broke 20th Century Fox’s back. Watch Elizabeth Taylor in one of the most glamorous roles of her career, an epic historical drama with astounding scope and grandeur! Outfits! Crazy Sets! Technicolor! Men in little skirts and robes! Outfits!

Elizabeth Taylor was the original “Hot Mess” who lived in the public eye practically all her life.
She was in her first film at the age of 9, and reached superstardom in National Velvet at age 12.
This woman found Montgomery Clift’s mangled body directly after a car crash down the hill from her (back then) Benedict Canyon house and PULLED HIS TEETH OUT OF HIS THROAT so that he could live.
By the time I was born, Elizabeth was on husband #5, and by the time I was three years old, she’d divorced #5 and married him AGAIN. She had health problems and man troubles and crazy hair… she was wild. We couldn’t get enough of her.

When Ronald Reagan was in office, and people were dying at a staggering rate, the President couldn’t utter the word “AIDS.” Elizabeth Taylor, with the same knowledge that all of us had, and twice the bravery, co-started the American Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR). After Rock Hudson died, she also created her own AIDS foundation, the Elizabeth Taylor Aids Foundation (ETAF). Liz Taylor’s efforts raised over $100 million fighting AIDS.
She’s like… a total badass.
On the day of her funeral, anti-gay protesters are going to picket her ceremony.
If you have a second, donate to the ETAF and tell those picketers to take a long walk off a short pier.
Elizabeth Taylor said ”There is no gay agenda, it’s a human agenda.”
Ms. Taylor, CraftNIght salutes you.
And no… we couldn’t find horses… just unicorns, but just think of it as Fantasy National Velvet, and we’ll be all right.

See you at the Craft Table,
JP Craft Captain

CraftHead’s Site

Akbar’s Site

This Wednesday, March 16th, 2011 from 9pm until 12-ish, it’s CRAFTNIGHT!!!
Project: LOVE BRIGADE and SOCK DRIVE for Japan
Admission to CraftNight is: a.) Bring me some NEW socks (adult sizes encouraged) for the drive or  b.) Show me a confirmation that you’ve sent $10 to the Red Cross or Unicef or some such other organization that is helping the people of Japan.

Use your phone to text REDCROSS to 90999 to Give $10 (red cross text FAQ here)
And if you want to give more, you can donate to the Red Cross Here

For Unicef you can Text JAPAN to 864233 to donate $10
Donate to Unicef Here and here is an article on sending a contribution that makes a direct difference.

Friend of CraftNight, Megumi, who is in Japan, has asked us to send pictures of well wishes to the Tohuko Children’s shelter. We shall make drawings, cards, take photos of them and post them on Facebook for her to re-post to the Japanese site. We’re sending “virtual” cards, because lots of people don’t have walls anymore, no walls to hang stuff. Many kids in Sendai and surrounding prefectures were in school and were never picked up by their parents. This is only one tiny scenario of how thousands of peoples’ lives have been changed forever.

In the face of such mind-blowing obliteration and hellish devastation, it can feel absolutely insignificant to send a card to someone who has lost everything and everyone they once knew. But we will try to send at least a little love, and some socks, and make a donation, in solidarity. I feel totally helpless, but we’ve got to start somewhere.

I was an exchange student in Sendai, Japan in 1988. I am heartbroken for all the damage I’ve seen, Sendai is a beautiful place, with beautiful and generous people. Matsushima Bay in Miyagi Prefecture is listed as one of the “Three Views” in Japan (somewhat akin to the 7 wonders of the world) and I remember being on a boat in that sea, with seagulls following the boat and diving for crumbs. We puttered through many tiny pine-topped islands poking out of the sea, some of them with ancient tunnels carved in them by the water. It is still astonishing that the same water that can make changes over thousands of years is also the same water that makes changes in mere minutes.

It’s also hard not to want to be glib and push the whole thing aside or dismiss it and go get another English muffin. If that’s where you’re at, believe me, I understand. Disassociation is not a stranger to me either. To let in destruction and grief is highly “inconvenient” and can dismantle a person for days on end. If you’d rather not think about it: then please… use your cell phone for 2 minutes and send a donation. That way, you can go do your thing, but you can breathe easier and know that one day, god forbid if you lose everything you have, someone in Japan will use their cell phone to help you. And they will probably feel weird about it too, just sayin.

And, if you can’t come in tonight, but want to send something anyway, make and send your card to the CraftNight page on Facebook, where Megumi can grab it and send it onward.

See you at the Craft Table,

JP Craft Captain

CraftNight

Akbar

This Wednesday, March 9th, 2011 from 9pm until 12am (or later) at Akbar, it’s CRAFTNIGHT!!!
Project: Assorted Wooden Structures
$2 processing fee, please
$4 cosmopolitan special

Ever looked the Eiffel Tower up and down and said “Meh, I could do that.” Now’s your chance. For a mere 2 bucks, YOU can be the next Gustave Eiffel, preparing your tiny wooden lattice structure for the smallest worlds fair in history. You can build it, and then strut around and puff out your chest and brag! But I’ve only got 6 Eiffel towers, so if you want one, get here quick, first come, first serve.
Don’t despair if I run out of towers though, because bragging doesn’t stop at mini monuments. I also have 4 London style phone booths, 6 italian villas, 6 ranch houses, some horses, and some dinosaurs. All of these are wood, they may be assembled, painted and then adorned to wherever your capricious mood takes you. I also have mini rubberband-powered windmills left over from last week’s CraftNight, and can I just say: those are kind of mind-blowingly cool.
Gas is up to $3.85 a gallon, but CraftNight, even now in it’s 10th year of existence, is only 2 bucks.
TWO DOLLARS.
What the HELL costs two dollars that offers this much fun?!? Add a cosmo and a tip, and you still haven’t gone over 8 dollars, it’s a ridiculous value for Wednesday night amusement. I guess you could stay home and watch cable in those pants with the weird pockets that you don’t ever wear in public because you think it looks really nineties. But NOT TONIGHT! Tell yourself “I was made for great things, I was made to spend my precious free time futzing around with wood and paint and nurturing my artistic capabilities!”
C’mon c’mon, it’s not raining, and now we have Tivo, or friends with Tivo, or YouTube, or Hulu! There are a million ways to catch up with any programs you might miss on a Wednesday night due to ditching the electronic fireplace and socializing with fabulous people.

See you at the Craft Table!

JP Craft Captain

CraftNight

Akbar Deluxe