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August 25, 2009

Black Cats Painting Finished!

Filed under: Artwork,Donkeyshines Announcements — Tags: , — Ryan Klemek @ 1:22 pm

It took me way longer than it should have, but here it is:

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I started the painting for the Black Cats t-shirt in the end of May I think, but was distracted with weddings and moving and stuff. I am pretty happy with it. I wish the expressions on our faces were happier or something. In the photos we didn’t look as serious. Oh well, now it’s on to the next project. Which may or may not be a painting. I still haven’t decided whether or not I will make X-mas cards this year.

August 13, 2009

More Story Premises!

Filed under: Story Premises — Tags: — Ryan Klemek @ 1:38 pm

OK, I am finding that coming up with these stories loosens up the brain and helps me be more creative. It also gives me a rest from painting and drawing which is sometimes necessary to recharge the batteries. So here are 5 premises I came up with today. I hope you find them amusing:

  1. The principal of an underachieving public school offers the reward of a class field trip to Devil’s Tower, Wyoming for the class with the highest average test scores. Believing that the movie “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” is based on a true story, one 10th grade biology teacher is desperate to win. She invents a potion that is supposed to make her students more intelligent. The students do grow smarter, but there are some strange side effects. It makes their skin turn green-ish gray, their eyes become large black and lidless, and all of their hair falls out. The teacher now fears that the aliens at Devil’s Tower will feel like they’re being mocked because of her class’s appearance!
  2. When a rich dragon moves to town, the politically correct mayor tries to outlaw the playing of the game Dungeons and Dragons. A group of teens continues to play in secret, but when they are spotted in the woods enacting a medieval battle, their game is mistaken for a plot to kill the dragon. It turns out the mayor is actually trying to set the teens up. He plans to kill the dragon himself, steal the treasure, and frame the teens for it.
  3. A man with a terminal illness decides to take control of his situation by arranging what he considers to be a more noble demise for himself. He takes a trip to the Sunderbans in India with the intention of encountering a hungry tiger in the wilderness. He has always loved this majestic beast and thinks he actually was one in a past life. As irony would have it, just as he is about to confront a large male Bengal, he is attacked by a crocodile! The ravenous tiger does not stand for this, and dives into the pond to fight for his food. The two animals kill each other, and the man is left alive to once again ponder his fate.
  4. Bob begins attending Clown College only to find that the school is actually a front for a mysterious cult. Members engage in bizarre rituals such as juggling, riding tiny tricycles, and hitting each other with pies. Bob decides it is up to him to bring down this twisted organization, and he starts a blog dedicated to exposing their secrets. It turns out that Bob hadn’t ever seen a clown before and didn’t know anything about them. He eventually realizes that what he witnessed at the college was perfectly normal clown behavior. Unfortunately, this revelation comes too late, as he has already ruined the dean’s life by publicizing his extramarital affairs.
  5. An eccentric billionaire passes away, leaving her entire estate to her 12 kangaroos. The “non-kangaroo” members of her family object, but a judge rules that the will is valid. He then puts in motion a plot that has him don a kangaroo costume and murder the eldest of the heirs. In doing so, he discovers that one of the kangaroos is actually the old woman herself in a costume! She had set the whole thing up as a way to deprive her ungrateful children of her fortune. Overcoming an initial distrust of one another, the judge and the billionaire eventually fall in love. They vow to never remove their costumes, and to never speak another word in any human language for the rest of their lives.

August 5, 2009

Married

Filed under: Donkeyshines Announcements,Donkeyshines Origins — Tags: — Ryan Klemek @ 10:13 am

As many of you know, Vanessa and I had our big family wedding in Pittsburgh back in May. It was an amazing time for us and for our family, with tons of good food and dancing and more food. One thing we didn’t have was an officiator present with the power to make the marriage legal. While we will always think of the ceremony in Pittsburgh as our real wedding, we still needed to tie up that loose end so we could get all those benefits and tax breaks and stuff that the government likes to give married people. We decided to do something small, intimate and unique. We had our friend Jeff get ordained as a Justice of the Peace for a day, and we had a little gathering in our living room. There was a total of seven of us, and we all wore pajamas. Here’s a picture of Vanessa and I:

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Vanessa is wearing her usual monkey-in-the-bathtub pajamas, complete with the button-down top. She would later add a tiara which says “Princess for a Day”. I am wearing Super Friends bottoms and my Friends for Life t-shirt that I blogged about a few months ago. Here is Jeff, the JoP:

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Since he was the officiator, he got to wear the nightcap. It is too bad we did not have a candlestick for him to hold.  Here is another picture of the lucky couple, along with another lucky couple:

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That other couple is Jon and Loretta, who you might recognize from my Monkey and Bulldog painting. They are actually getting married in September, but I will probably not wear my pajamas to that wedding. Next, we have a photo of just the ladies who were present:

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From left to right, there’s Loretta, my sister Kim, Vanessa (you can see the tiara in this one) and my good friend Shelley.

The lil’ ceremony began with a short procession from our bedroom into the living room to music from The Mummy soundtrack by Jerry Goldsmith. Jeff then had us all watch a clip of the finale from Revenge of the Nerds on Vanessa’s laptop. Jeff did not completely explain the relevance of this clip, nor did he need to. He then played a short congratulatory video made by our friend Jesse, who lives in Florida and was unable to attend the festivities. It was a parody of a Youtube video featuring a stoned Harrison Ford trying to congratulate a friend on receiving some film award. My mom, who was joining us via speaker phone could be heard laughing rancorously, although I am sure she was not familiar with the reference. After this, readings were delivered by Shelley, Jeff and Kim. Jeff chose these pieces randomly from a wedding website without first reading them himself . They were both amusing and moving. Jeff then brought the whole thing home with the standard “by the power vested in me” lines, and the deal was sealed. Vanessa and I are now able to share health insurance ! Hurray!  The seven of us then went out to celebrate at Tremont 647 in Boston’s South End. We had ribs and tater tots, and lobster mac and cheese. It was the perfect mini reception to our pajama wedding. While we will always think of May 24th in Pittsburgh as the day we were married, our little party in the living room will always have special meaning for us. Good stuff.

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