.cross.wired.mind.

Jennie has cataloged all of the wonderful and wacky happenings of our trip but this is something I did that she has not mentioned. I brought a sketchbook and some pencils along with me and drew up some neato characters for my mystery project (more soon).

This is one of the doodles that I felt compelled to turn into sculpture. I call it my self portrait in sculpey.

He is a tad asymmetrical and just a bit whimsical. He’s the embodiment of how i have felt my whole life - just a bit off center and tad goofy.

Maybe some day I will use him as a design in my mystery project (don’t you want to know what it is .. oooo weee oooo!).

I’ll just leave it at that for now.  Me in sculpy …
 

Ok. I tried to avoid writing a movie review on my blog, but I feel I must for this one.

Here is my review of X3 … it sucked - big time.

If I say more than that I would be giving it more time than it is worth.

One of my favorite urban vinyl creations is CardBoy. Designed by Mark James and produced by Playbeast, CardBoy is an innovative, part cardboard, part vinyl art toy that is truly cool.

One of the coolest feature of CardBoy is how it comes packaged.  CardBoys box is actually his head.  All you have to do is flip the box inside out, tuck in the flaps and CardBoy is done. The whole CardBoy series includes: CardBoy (picture here), SprayCam01, Wrestler01, CardBot, Ninja, Rocker, and CardB-Boy.

When asked about his signature creation Mark said…

I always wanted to make a vinyl toy which I could give away but it was just too expensive. Then I thought about packaging for vinyl figures, how once you take the toy out, what do you do with the packaging? Cardboy was a way of combining the two.

It was just an experiment of using the design of a box. It is unbelievable how much attention it got. I still get emails about it now. Three months after the latest Cardboy Sneakers launch, based on the packaging of trainers, there will be one based on ink cartridges, then milk cartons.

(read the whole interview at Fascinating Life Of A Skint Student)

Mark James was born in Wales and is based out of London.  Cardboy was produced by Playbeast which is the company Mark started with his fellow Welsh artist Pete Fowler.  In addition to his work with Pete on urban vinyl he has also designed album artwork for Stereo MCs, The Charlatans, Busted, and Super Furry Animals.

A couple of years back I stumbled over some very cool toys.  I saw an add in a zine for an online store called kidrobot.com.  The designs were way cool.  I had never seen anything like them.  The designs were the result of a confluence of graffiti art, urban street fashion, manga art, alternative, and hip-hop.  Truly a result of the global exchange of cool.

In a few short years this art toy trend has begun to weave its way into the fringes of the mainstream.  Tower Records and Urban Outfitters stock the toys and MTV (and others) have published books dedicated to showcasing the works of some of the best designer toy artists out there.

I resisted getting into collecting urban vinyl but there are just too many cool designs out there.  Over the next few months I am going to show case some of the toys and artists that are a part of this exciting design revolution.

During the past few months I have begun to truly embrace who I am. More on who that is in a moment - first how this all happened. No, it is not a mid-life crisis (I am 38). No, it was not a religious experience (that was in 1990 and has never faded). I have been in a phase of deep self-reflection since the time I was formally diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder.

I never truly realized how deeply this illness has effected my life. There is the obvious effects on my school experience and the like, but the effect on my ability to embrace my true self has been much more subtle. It has a lot to do with negative self-perception. A good example of the dynamic is my post below on comic books. I took my love of comics as intellectual laziness when in fact it was the best way for my brain to be active without being overloaded. Other examples of this dynamic include my approach to everything from music to fashion to gaming - heck just about everything.

You see, I thought I was flawed and that must mean that the things that I make a part of my life must also be flawed. I told myself that I should strive to be more “normal”. Here’s the thing. As hard as I tried to be normal I could not deny who I was. Oh, I tried. So I would swing in and out of interests and hobbies. I would try to be like normal people only to ditch the attempt later.

I was watching an awesome episode of Futurama “Mechanical House” where Fry rooms at Mars University with a hyper-intelligent monkey named Guenther. Towards the end of the episode Guenther is in the middle of an exam and he keep looking out into the wild foliage at the edge of the campus. In a banana induced moment of weakness he throws of his little hat (the source of his hyper-intelligence) and scampers of into the wild. In the end he figures out that all he wants to be is a monkey of average intelligence.

That’s all I want to be too. Well … errr … figuratively of course. My “hat” is the pressure to be “normal” that I place on myself as a result of a negative self-image.

No more. I do not want to fling off my hat and run into the wild. I just want to follow my passions. Be my true self.

I will be a Bahá’í and not worry that others do not get it.
I will read comics in public and not care what others think.
I will listen to the music I love regardless what others might think when they hear it.
I will embrace my eccentricity.

I will not ascribe negative attributes to those parts of me that fall outside the norm.
I will not be obnoxious about being me.
I will not make a scene.

I will be me … without apology.