The Time I Pulled a Fast One on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy... sorta

The photographer (not shown) got what I was doing when I said to Number Two son while we took his wedding photos let’s do an “Andrew Sisters” type of pinup pose where we hold hands and stick our rear ends out while looking at the camera— I make myself laugh sometimes.

Sometime in the late 1990s or very very early 2000s I was sitting at my drawing desk knocking out whatever my latest project was and my phone rang— it was my good friend, then current Worcester Magazine Editor and later a Boston Globe Editor Michael Warshaw.

“Hey.” He said in his usual upbeat but somewhat cutting manner. “You ever hear of this show ‘Queer Eye for the Straight Guy’?”

Amazingly, for a guy who barely owned a television, I had. More than that I watched more than a handful of episodes. For those of you that may not know the show had a simple format; 4-5 gay guys would come to the home of a straight guy who dressed and lived like a schlub and they gave him a makeover. It was a fun show at least the ones I saw.

“Yeah…..” I replied, my mind racing as to where this was going— I assumed they needed a cover done featuring those guys or something. Mike would call me on occasion to chat— but we’d talk about how many times Bela Lugosi actually played Dracula (it’s two on screen) or how the Worcester City Government bought a bunch of surplus flame throwing trucks after WWII with the idea of using them for snow removal and then proceeded to light cars on Shrewsbury Street on fire. We never chatted about pop culture.

“Well, we’re doing a take on it and we want to get some Z-Grade local celebrities to be the ones getting made over. We’ve come to the bottom of the barrel so I’m asking you.”

I laughed— he was completely right I was a Z-Grade local celebrity. Interestingly enough I’d been flown to Berlin to judge an art contest once, and I’ve juried other events in New York City but locally I was grade Z. One time when I was shaving my phone rang and for some reason I answered it and it was my good friend and radio host Hank Stolz who asked me, live on the air, what I thought of Steve Rogers dying. It took me a few minutes to realize Stever Rogers was the alter ego of Captain America and Marvel Comics latest stunt was to kill him off.

“No, I think I’m pretty well put together already, I’ll pass.” Also true- I’ve always dressed well, I get an expensive haircut every 10 days— I don’t dress or live like a schlump now and I didn’t then. Before I could hang up— Mike closed the deal.

“I know. It’s the only thing about you I like!” he laughed. “The marketing company is paying for everything, we’re going to do it in about three weeks, you let your hair grow, show up in some schlubby clothes and they’ll end up putting you in an Armani Suit!”

THIS was a genius plan. On the show if they were meeting with a Wall Street Banker they’d end up making him look like a rodeo clown, but if they had a surfer dude in front of them they’d walk away in a $2k suit.

“I’m in.” The wheels started rolling.

How did it turn out? Tune in tomorrow.

A picure is worth a thousand words

I think this picture, of 3-4 year old Andy, explains a lot of why I am the way I am. I’m dressed in a well fitting suit— I’m pretty darn happy to be by myself— that is my mom in her white shoes— and I’m spotlessly clean.

My nickname was Prince Andrew.

Election Time - Predictions

I’ve got friends on both sides of the coming election— both are convinced if their candidate loses its the end of America as we know it.

Yawn.

I follow politics the way most guys follow baseball and I have since I was 15 years old. I’ve read the polls, I’ve read how close everything looks and this one will be a nail biter.

I don’t think it will be. Some of my friends are going to be clutching their pearls and screaming at the sky..

But good luck to you and whoever you’re voting for. Unlike many people today I don’t care if we agree or disagree politically and like Ronald Reagan and former Speaker of the House Tip O’Niell I believe you can disagree and still have a polite drink together.

So Yesterday I met Lee Majors

Yesterday I met Lee Majors, the Six Million Dollar Man, The Fall Guy, the unknown Stuntman who made Eastwood look so fine as the song went (and was sung by he himself) and possibly most of all the ex-husband of Farrah Fawcett Majors.

Veronica and I do a fair number of comic book shows but as invited guests— we don’t actually go to comic shows— but she was a big fan of RENO 911 and she was even hoping to get a group photo. I saw that Lee Majors was going to be there as well as John Romita Jr, one of my all time favorite artists and someone I’ve known since 1987.

Rhode Island Comic Con is a pop culture show— it’s NOT a comic book show. I’m a big Golden Age Comic Collector and I’d hoped to find some books to tempt me— there were not many— in fact I’d say if you looked at the box in my entryway that is sitting there waiting for me to process them (they get photographed into a collecot’s app so I can track what I have) you would find more book than in the entire show.

It does have a lot of vintage toys, art but the real pull are the celebrities. I will say that the staff of RICC is probably the best I’ve ever dealt with outside of South Carolina Comic Con.

I hung out with John Romita Jr for a while as Veronica talked to the cast of RENO 911— then I caught Lee Majors where he was interacting with some fans.

Lee Majors looked good— he’s probably mid to late 80s— I had a nice conversation with him and his handlers because as someone who is often a guest at these shows I know what it can really be like.

After that I headed up to meet Veronica for her photo shoot— she asked me if I’d like to be in the photo— several times in fact, but I really wanted this to be her moment with the cast, she’d spent the morning talking to most of them and making a real connection, so I waited with her bags and coat. RICC does an amazing job of handling crowds and the photo event was lightning fast, plus it came out great.

Goodbye October...

October is my favorite month of the year, it’s also at 31 days the shortest one. I don’t know how that works. Why is February which is only 28 days the LONGEST month of the year? Go ahead; try and explain it.

Hello November. At least you’ll bring Turkey and that Cranberry Sauce that SCHLOOPS out of the can (no other kind will do).

HALLOWEEN IS HERE.. and maybe it can stay.

Faux SPOOK SHOW poster by me— it’ll come in two colors— blue and red, and it’ll be available over on ROBO PICTO soon.

Yesterday I wallowed in sadness over the end of the Halloween Season. In the past when I was reliant on Cable or Satellite I liked how most of the channels now had horror/monster movie marathons, mostly I was referring to my favorite channel TURNER CLASSIC MOVIES. When Robert Osborne died, some of my love of TCM went with him. They got too formulaic in programming, but October— Man they pulled out all the stops.

Today I rely on Streaming— and if you look at my Blu Ray/DVD collection its a full lineup of Classic Horror Films— and many of them also on Streaming— so it occurs to me I don’t mourn the loss of the season because I can keep watching genre movies for the rest of the year and into next, it’s the coming of Winter that I mourn- even though that first snowstorm is usually pretty nice— by storm 10 there’s not much nice about it.

So Halloween goes and soon we’ll have Thanksgiving, then Christmas, then New Years Day and then the bleakest of all the year— let’s hope the predictors are right and its going to be a mild one like last year.

Halloween Season is Coming to an End...

Above image by Mike Ploog.

I always feel sad as Halloween comes and go, like Linus in the pumpkin patch I wish it was with us longer. Over on the Robo Picto website (link to the right) Recently married #2 son is posting his reviews of horror movies, and I’ve been enjoying them. It’s under DAILY DIGEST and there have been some surprises for me.

I’ll probably drag myself over to SPIRIT Halloween to peruse the aisles of junky Halloween Stuff just to make it feel like it’s still got a few more days (and of course it does) but I still can’t help but feel a little sad to see it go.

More tomorrow.