My favorite is Caesura.  What’s yours?

Coral Armour of the Tiny Tragedies was one of the first members of Etsy’s Dark Side that I came across. I remember this distinctly because it was last fall and I desperately wanted something from her shop but Henry said NO because he’s MEAN and clearly was home sick the day all the boys learned about how gift-giving saves relationships and earns occasional weeknight blow jobs. Anyway, I fell in love with Coral’s macabre art pieces, which mash together fake blood, pretty dolls, and sometimes even a dash of glitter, and somehow these things meet in the middle for a happy medium tea party. She even includes hand-written stories for each piece, and come on – if that doesn’t inspire you to stuff some green in the cleavage of her shop, then we can’t be friends.

Recently, she opened a sister shop on Etsy for her more whimsical, fairy tale-esque line of jewelry and snow globes called The Tiny Tiara, which has been getting noticed all over Etsy. And trust me, when something gets touted on Etsy that doesn’t involve owls, crocheted fruit cozies and fake moustaches, it is a BIG DEAL.   Her rings are huge and eye-catching, and that is exactly what I look for in digit accoutrements. I own one of the tombstone rings, but I am not satisfied with having just one. I need more! For all you people who try and cop out by saying, “I didn’t get you a Christmas present because I never know what to get you, but here, have a McDonald’s coffee card,” NOW YOU KNOW WHERE TO SHOP FOR ME.

Coral was gracious enough to sludge through some questions I tossed her way and I would like to thank her for putting up with it.

1. Here is the obligatory “How did your shop come to be: Evolution or Big Bang Theory?” question.

Evolution for sure! The early Tragedies were crude in their execution not only because I’m a self taught artist/crafter, but because they were created spur of the moment. They were very, very existential. At that time, I made them for myself, so there were no stories. It was all about symbolism, so they were very Jungian. For instance, one was a doll inside a box, surrounded by smaller boxes. One was a doll inside a box filled with mirrors, and the outer panel said ‘Don’t look inside’. They were kind of like art therapy for me. But I found that people prefer to not use their brains, and after looking at one of my creations for two seconds, their first response was either ‘Cool’ or ‘Cute’. Which drove me INSANE. Coming up with the name was Big Bang Theory because I had a show at a gallery and the owner asked what he should put on the flyer, and it was something I hadn’t considered at that point. So I thought about it for a few minutes and it just struck me! It was then I decided to write the stories out so that it would be obvious to people what was going on in the little scenes.

2. “The List” from your Tiny Tragedies shop tickles me in a way that makes me rethink my sanity. I want one so bad, with Henry’s name written about ten times, and maybe a little Miley Cyrus thrown in there somewhere. Give us your own personal shit list. Air that dirty laundry!

I can’t really give you a true life shit list because my dirty laundry is really pretty dirty. Let’s just say that in my dating past there are more tragedies than successes. In the general sense of who is on my shit list now, almost every single co-worker at my job as a part time waitress. And people who take their kids out in cold weather with no socks or jackets on. Oh and girls who are still obsessed with the color pink. And women who ‘Bedazzle’ their own clothes.

3. And you know those women keep a drawer full of puffy paint, too! Your Etsy profile states that you’re inspired by b-horror movies. What movie would you most want to reenact with your Tiny Tragedy characters?

I’m not sure I could just pick one, because when I say that I’m inspired by B-Horror films, I really mean that genre of movies were watched non-stop on the weekends by my dad when I was young. So somewhere in my subconscious is a vast landscape of badly acted death scenes and laughable monsters with even more laughable special effects make-up! I do have a special place in my heart for Vincent Price. Not only because of his films, but because his wife’s name was Coral. If I had to choose one though, I might choose The Blob because that film made quite an impression on me and my over active imagination. I lost lots of sleep after seeing that movie because I was sure the Blob was going to swallow me as soon as I fell asleep. I always really liked the gorey death scenes though. Those never scared me.

4. Finally succumbing to my heavy desires of stabbing my boyfriend Henry, I flee to Arkansas and you take me in for a weekend. What can I expect to learn about you and Arkansas after spending two days together?

First I would open a bottle of Chardonnay to toast your victory for angry women everywhere! Then I’d probably be paranoid that you would stab me next. After I got over my paranoia, you would see that I am pretty honest about myself. I don’t pretend to know everything, I have no interest in appearing ‘cool’, I don’t push my opinions on anyone, and I am relatively quick witted. I’m laid back, but also have a fair amount of nervous energy. I will be the first to point out my short comings and tell you straight off the bat that I have mild OCD, and will ask you not to be offended if I make some strange requests while you’re staying with me. I gather that I have a good sense of humor. I don’t like to think that I ‘make fun’ of people, it’s really more that I point out the more bizarre aspects of accepted social behavior. Then as punishment for your crime, I would subject you to an evening with my grandparents with whom I lived  for the first 8 months after re-locating here from California. Speaking of California, you will also note that I am terribly homesick and often say out loud without warning ‘I can’t believe I live in fucking Arkansas’. I’m a good listener. Watching people fall down still really makes me laugh. I spend a lot of time researching bizarre things on the internet like what living through the black plague was like, how shoes were made 100 years ago, and listening to sea shanties. I watch a lot of the History Channel. And I spend a LOT of time looking for supplies on Etsy that inspire me and give me ideas. Gotta keep my brain busy!

5. You have a second shop on Etsy filled with fairy tale-inspired rings and snow globes, which are incredibly unique but the polar opposite of the dioramas you create for Tiny Tragedies. Do you find that you need to have a certain mindset for each, and do you feel that you favor one shop over the other?

Part of that polar opposite thing is my Gemini tendencies! I definitely need to have a certain mindset for each shop. The Tragedies take much, much longer to make from concept to finished item than anything in The Tiny Tiara. A Tiny Tragedy usually takes 8 to 12 hours to make so it requires determination and focus! I can’t just slowly make one, once I’m on a roll, I have to finish it. I hate to admit it, but at the moment I feel more inspired by The Tiny Tiara. I think it’s partly because the items for that shop take a fraction of the time it takes to make a Tragedy. And I’m very much about instant gratification! I do feel guilty about it though. I love my dolls, and I would hate to ever have to say ‘I used to make dolls called The Tiny Tragedies’.

6. Favorite bands, give it to me.

My taste in music is pretty much stuck in the 90’s still. David Bowie, The Smiths, Radiohead, Bjork, My Bloody Valentine, Fleetwood Mac, Leonard Cohen, Jeff Buckley, Echo and The Bunnymen and Depeche Mode. I find that depressing music really does lift my spirits.

7. I have this thing where I need to know what everyone was like in high school, so you should tell me that now.

I dropped out of high school at the beginning of my Junior year so I wasn’t really there for long. I had a spiral perm! I was on the Dance Team, I was an aspiring singer. I spent the majority of my high school time commuting between my hometown and LA. I really only went to school to socialize. I had a pretty even mix of friends from every little microcosm of groups. Outside of school, I wrote a lot of poetry and painted occasionally. I was pretty outgoing and took every opportunity to make a joke. I was nominated as one of the most photogenic girls in my class. How embarrassing! I didn’t have a boyfriend because I was terrified of boys. I felt pretty lost most of the time. Oh and let me not forget to mention that I was an obsessive fan of the New Kids On The Block!

(This is actually Woodland Deer, I’m an idiot.)

8. Marilyn Manson is looking for a unique gift to give to his girlfriend (I should Wiki him to see if he even has a girlfriend right now, but who cares really). Originally, he wanted to make her a mudpie using Transylvanian soil made moist with gypsy urine. But because of time constraints (and a Romanian urinary retention pandemic) he turns to Etsy, which for the sake of this question is now a large auditorium filled with artisans, and gives each shop owner an opportunity to use five, and only five, words to describe their shop, at which point whoever piques his interest the most gets his Absynthe-soaked money. It’s your turn next, and you only get ONE CHANCE SO DON’T BLOW IT. What do you tell him?

Melancholy, black comedy, macabre, surreal, subconscious. I don’t know, does that work? Did I win??

9. You win! In fact, his ladyfriend just scored 8,000 points by accidentally-on-purpose poking out a hobo’s eyeball with your tombstone ring! Then she mopped up the blood with a blouse, which she’ll wear to dinner tomorrow night because that’s her style. Now, describe your personal style.

I love heavy, long, faux fur winter coats, big rings and big jewelry, lots of black, and anything that a wayward fairy tale princess might wear. I love avant garde clothing, a symmetrical cuts and such.

10. What can we expect next from the brilliant Coral Armour?

I have some ideas but I’m not finished putting the pieces together in my head yet. I want to go in a different direction with the dolls. Much closer to the way they were when I first started making them. It’s all still brewing in my brain, and hopefully sometime soon I will have time to devote to making them a reality. I kind of want to make a few different versions of The Peppermint Princess doll that I made last Christmas. That seems to be where I’m going at the minute. Still going to experiment with the new shop and try to keep the creativity flowing. Sorry that’s a really boring answer!

********

Somehow, I have a hard time believing Coral could EVER be boring.

Now you know the pertinents about the brains behind two very unique Etsy shops. If you’re anything like me, you’re wishing you could go hang out with her rightnowthisverysecond. But if you’re as geographically unfortunate as me, stalking her online will have to suffice.

• Twitter
• Thetinytragedies.com
• MySpace

Want more Freaky Features? The previous two can be found here.

**I may have let my personal feelings for the tombstone  ring get in the way when typing out its name, so don’t think Coral is some sort of egomaniac. I’m just really super obsessed with this damn ring and feel that every one should have one. So go!  Hurry! They sell as fast as she makes them!

This is just for my blog-hoes, you know who you are. (But if you’re anything like me, right now you’re stressing, “Wait – is that me? Do I count as a blog-ho?” If you’re reading this right now, then yes. Yes, you do. Even you, Janna.) If you decide you want a pendant anytime this month, you can have a $2 blog-ho discount. Just put “BLOG HO” in the message to seller upon checkout, and I’ll refund the $2 immediately through Paypal. Blog ho.

There’s a varied selection of pendants listed over at Somnambulant, and here’s a quick look at some of the newer ones as well:

So yeah. Happy October, my blog ho…..mies.

Mark your calendars! This coming weekend (2nd-4th October), Etsy’s Dark Side Street Team is participating in Etsy’s Halloween Weekend Deals, and offering fantastic discounts off everything in store- up to 25% off!!

To take advantage of these great deals, browse the shops linked below for details of the discounts available in each participating store, then use the discount code “WEEKEND DEALS” in the message to seller box during checkout. Further information is available in each store. Welcome to Etsy’s Dark Side, and happy shopping!

♦♦♦♦ ♦♦♦♦ ♦♦♦♦ ♦♦♦♦

Thinking of taxidermy, I immediately draw to mind flannel-jacketed Uncle Bruce watching the fishing channel in his wood-paneled den decorated with protruding buck heads and a coffee table otter.

But out in Tempe, Arizona, 21-year-old Morgan of SlightlyCurious puts her own sideshow-spin on the animal stuffing game. But wait! Before you get all up-in-arms about animal cruelty, here is the disclaimer she has on her MySpace page:

“While I’m no activist, I do not kill animals to create my work. They are roadside splatters, casualties of the seafood industry, or simply weren’t meant to survive. I merely take what isn’t stiff yet.”

I’ll admit, as a vegetarian I was a little “OMG” when I first saw Morgan’s shop. But that initial shock quickly turned into intrigue; there is an innate creativity flowing there that I can’t deny and I was excited to find out  about the inner-workings of taxidermy and to learn more about the artist herself.  

1. Taxidermists have always intrigued me, because how common is it for someone to realize one day that hey, they have a genuine need to sew up some dead carcasses, right? What’s your taxidermy story?

Honestly, I wish I had a more captivating story to relate. When anyone asks (and, invariably, everyone eventually does), I tell them the short truth – I woke up one day with a silly idea bouncing around in my head, and went with it.

But here are the details I usually leave out:

Having grown up in the Midwest, taxidermy was vaguely in the background of my childhood. We had a shoulder mount of a buck, a couple of stuffed bass, and that was the extent of it. Several of my relatives were hunters. When it was time to clean a deer, this was commonly done by hanging it upside down in the garage, splay-legged, glassy-eyed, and dripping blood into a kiddie pool. My kiddie pool, that I occasionally liked to fill with water and splash around in. But I digress. Without fail, I always wanted a turn hanging onto the hide of the deer to help pull it off the carcass. I spent a good deal of time running around barefoot, poking at anything that looked alive, or like it may have once been alive. Typical kid stuff.

Okay, I still do that. But I wear shoes, because my neighborhood is full of crackheads who don’t care where their syringes land.

At the time taxidermy piqued my interested, I was begrudgingly in college, kind of flapping around like a drugged fish and looking for any excuse to quit. Again. I kept going to classes, though, to use the campus computers to check out taxidermy schools. Then I remembered what a cheap bastard I am. The following Monday, I withdrew from classes, picked out a taxidermy shop from the phone book, and showed up there. The first person I came in contact with happened to be deaf. We spent the next twenty minutes trying to communicate via hand signals and his chicken scratch hand writing while the owner was in the bathroom taking a shit. That last part is important, because it pretty much sums up my experience there – unorthodox methods of communication, and watching the shop while the owner took a shit.

I lucked out, and the guy ended up being one of the most generous people I’ve ever met. I spend the next year and a half hanging around his shop, eager to learn anything I could. Unfortunately, he’s in the early stages of selling his shop and filing bankruptcy. Not many people these days have a few hundred extra dollars for that trophy mount.

2. What were you like in high school? Did you ever wear animal bone necklaces to freak out the preppy bitches?

Don’t we all just love to reminisce upon our teenage years? I pretty much kept to myself aside from a very small group of people who were mostly the “skater” kids. I got called “goth” a lot, even though aIl I wore was t-shirts and jeans and didn’t have any angst to speak of. Go figure. I was mainly unconscious of my appearance – I don’t think I owned a skirt or dress until I was at least 18, I never wore makeup, and was frequently mistaken for a boy. So no, I didn’t get up in the morning with the intention of freaking anyone out – that just happened on its own. It was probably a fairly typical high school experience.

Believe it or not I was actually interested in learning something, but everything was so dumbed down for the gangster kids that not many of the teachers gave a shit. At one point, I was going straight from AP Lit to regular ol’ retard English. Since then I’ve never had brain function come to such a dramatic, screeching halt. By my sophomore year, I was spending the lunch period as a teacher’s aide. I started going to school for only half a day my junior year and still managed to graduate early in order to save my nine remaining brain cells. So yeah – lots of words to basically say “nothing special.”

3. What I love about you is that you take something ordinary like Grandpa’s prized bass and give it a creepy, Burton-esque twist by sticking its head on the body of a squirrel. Pretend you were just granted permission to do this same procedure on two of your favorite celebrities, what would you do?

That’s a tough one, I’m guilty of being entirely out of touch with pop culture. But I would love to do something horrible to Criss Angel. While I’m doing charity work, I’d probably give Gordon Ramsey (Hell’s Kitchen) lobster claws. Sometimes it really seems like he could use them, even if it’s just to emphasize a point.

4. Is your work area anything like the grandpa’s work area on “Lost Boys”?

It’s probably more like the father’s shed in “Pervert!” If you haven’t seen that movie, it’s worth a look. The guy’s penis escapes and becomes a serial killer.

5. You’re driving down the road and see a beaver flattened against the asphalt. Do you literally scrape it up, dust it off, and take it home to work on, or is there some sort of dead animal store you go to purchase your supplies?

Living where I do, I would be fairly skeptical of the origins of said beaver. I have, in fact, made someone stop on the freeway so I could collect (what I could find of) a dead rabbit. Usually, if any scraping is required, the animal is just about useless to me. The more fresh and intact, the better. A lot of things I use are intercepted on their way to the dumpster from the taxidermy shop, or have been discarded by hunters. Because it gets so hot here, birds will occasionally drop from the sky, and I usually snatch those up whenever I see them. The neighbors are a little wary of me.

A lot of people tell me that they think of me whenever they see a dead animal. I’m not sure what to make of that association, but at least people are thinking of me. I had a couple friends bring me a “present” from a short road trip. It was a garbage bag of raccoon. He came back the next day and gave me a box of latex gloves.

6. I’m inherently nosy about the  music people like. What were the last 10 songs you listened to on your play list:

Afro Man – Colt 45
Murs – Bad Man
Of Montreal – Oslo in the Summertime
Oingo Boingo – Little Girls
Atmosphere – Say Hey There
The Doors – People are Strange
The Tiger Lillies – Banging in the Nails
Robbie Williams – Rock DJ (That video, oh my god. Go watch it. Go! I’ll wait.)
Mac Lethal – Mermaid Pornography
Looking Glass – Brandy

7. When you’re not stitching up animals, what are your favorite things to do in Tempe?

Go somewhere else. Ha! Really, I spend a bit of time practicing sideshow acts, some time cooking delicious food, lots of time fighting with my cat, some time sewing. Yeah, it’s exciting around here. If I’m feeling really adventurous, I may even take a walk to the liquor store. Or do some aggressive cuddling.

Lately I’ve been keeping busy helping out with the filming/production of our (by “our” I mean myself and the Cut Throat Freak Show) DVD. You can watch the preview here:

 About 2/3 of the way through is a bit of documentary about my taxidermy. /shameless self promotion

8. Any guilty pleasures?

Feeling guilty would imply I was doing something wrong, wouldn’t it?  Sometimes I like to drink too much and smash electronics in my back yard. If we’re neighbors, you should grab your microwave and head over. It’s probably the most entertaining thing happening in Tempe right now.

Other potentially incriminating activities include playing Minesweeper and Bejeweled, eating raw meet, patronizing Chinese buffets, public intoxication, and finding new old furniture in the dumpster.

9. I do have a Blackberry I’d like to smash.  I imagine you must get the occasional bizarre request, like “Please fashion my dead Betta into a bow-tie.” What’s the weirdest request you’ve ever got?

A stranger came up to me in a bar and told me his cat “has the FIV,” would probably die soon, and wanted me to stuff her. I gave him my card, but I haven’t heard from him. Either his cat is doing okay, or he was too drunk to remember having talked to me.

10. Your Etsy shop is a contestant on Jeopardy and Alec Trebek needs a synopsis for when he does the introductions. What do you want him to say?

Oh geez. Let me put on my game show voice.

“Our third and final contestant, with a freezer full of squirrels and a slight odor of formaldehyde… Slightly Curious!

And now, the host of Jeo-

What’s that?

I’ve just received word from our producers that the studio must be evacuated due to a health code violation. Thank you, and good evening.”

*****

Find out more about SlightlyCurious here:

• Etsy
• MySpace

I know I gush about her a lot, but that’s because Mrs. Evils is fucking fantastic. She’s the big sister I’d have aspired to be exactly like when I was a kid.

If we lived near each other, she’d never get rid of me.

I’d be all, “Andrea Andrea Andrea, make my hair pretty! Make my eyes bloody! Make me a grilled cheese! Help me dispose this body!” So I feel that I’d be doing a big disservice if I kept her pretty-creepy hair accoutrements to myself.

I’m a doofus when it comes to taking my own picture.

Like, it’s amazing that I don’t end up pretzeling my arms together. Because of that, I wasn’t able to get a very good head on shot of the flower’s focal point, but just know that it’s a SPIDER OMG.

She has one that has a gun on it.  I want it so bad.

Since last fall, I’ve been a proud member of the finest damn street team on Etsy: Etsy’s Dark Side.

There are hundreds are insanely talented and fascinating artists over there and it has been such a great experience getting to know some of them and just overall being affiliated with such a tight web (har har) of Etsiers. In an effort to give back, I decided to start writing features on individual members and I knew immediately who I wanted to inaugurate this budding venture: my friend Andrea of Mrs.Evils fame.

A few months back, I had mentioned Chooch’s (random) obsession with Ben Franklin and Andrea, because she is seriously amazing and thoughtful, took it upon herself to whip up a zombified Ben Franklin plushie.

Chooch of course loves it, and I think she should make one of every president.

I know at least four people who would snatch up an Abe Lincoln faster than it took that bullet to tear through his flesh.

Look for Andrea’s feature tomorrow, right here on this here bloggie-blog!

Whenever things go remotely well for me, I panic and wonder what sort of hellstorm is skulking around behind the shanties, waiting to shower me with hot coal, STDs and Jessica Simpson medleys. So my instinct is to do something nice for other people.

And this is where it could benefit YOU. I’m giving away one of my bathroom plaques ($15 value) to one lucky reader. They’re available in a variety of styles and the choice is all yours. All you have to do is comment here on this entry and make sure you leave a valid email address. The winner will be chosen at random using random.org.

The winner gets one custom plaque, in the style of their choosing (boy/girl or little monster guy) and any background color.

The choices for the title are:

• poo parlor
• craporium
• crapper
• the loo
• the john
• holy shitter
• chamber pot
• privy
• commode
• toilette
• the can
• your own endearing custom title

Commenting is open right now and ends Friday  3/27  at noon EST.

(For people reading this via a feed, CLICK HERE TO ENTER.)

The masterminds over at DiPoe have spawned a spanky-spankin’ blog and, after sloughing off the afterbirth, they are christening it by having a super terrific contest/giveaway. All you have to do to enter is comment on this entry over at their blog and then start clenching to see if they pick you. If you need anymore motivation than IT’S FREE, let me remind you that they are the brilliant duo who whipped this up for me:

The contest ends this Friday so get your names added to the proverbial hat before it’s too late, ya’ll.

When Miles arrived at the warehouse full of wanna-bes pantomiming karate chops and roundhouses, his only hope was to land a small part in a new video game. Sure, like all the other struggling no-names at the audition, he went to bed every night praying to be the next Pacman, the second-coming of Frogger. But his ma taught him not to get too over zealous, to walk into situations with humble expectations. So, when Miles chose a seat near two anxious auditioners with perfectly coiffed, yet varying degrees of spiked hair,  he wasn’t aiming for lead character. Not yet. Maybe he’d be one of the easy-to-obliterate level one villains, or maybe he’d wind up as background filler; he didn’t care. It was his dream to be immortalized in pixels, undulating along through a 1980s Casio soundtrack, thick and saccharine like pudding. And then maybe one day, he could move up to the big time, rubbing elbows with Mario and knocking back whiskey with camo’d Commandos and Max Payne.

Yes, Miles decided to aim low in the beginning. And since his aim was low, he never expected to meet the love of his life there, sitting in the dingy waiting room among men who smelt of beef jerky and musty, damp locker rooms. But there she was – sassy Sissy Sparkleburg – pinching her cheeks to make them flush, sprinkling an extra dash of glitter in her hair. She was gunning for the love interest, the princess locked in a cage suspended above Satan’s jock at the end level of the game.

They left together, after the auditions, and went out for some sexy pasta and boxed wine. Neither of them got the part that day, but Sissy got a positive pregnancy result the next week.

They range from 4×6 to 5×7, all on canvas board. They’re compact enough to make cute stocking stuffers. They fit comfortably between the anal beads and Astroglide.

I also want to take this opportunity to pimp out my teammates over at Etsy’s Dark Side. If you like the gothier side of life, they’ve got pretty much anything you need from clothing to ephemera to jewelry. I own rings from AgonysDecay  (Michael Myers, natch) and HandmadeHorrors (the cutest razorblade ever) and they come highly touted in my book. I haven’t purchased anything from her yet, but I’ve been ogling and hearting things over at LushPunk‘s shop so much that you’d think I’d just heard of Australia or something.

Porkchopshow not only has a great shop name, but would you look at his oddities? It’s like walking into a time capsule and I likey.

And a separate shout out goes to LaurenUrban, who makes the prettiest glass jewelry and plates. I own two cocktail rings, earrings, and a pendant from her and they are just gorgeous and swirly and mod. If you have a date with the Pink Panther coming up, then you need this pendant!

Turquoise and Blue Mod Fused Glass Pendant by LaurenUrban

I love Lauren!

Christmas is fast approaching. JUST SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT, YA’LL.

Hamish couldn’t believe he was turning 245 days old in less than a week. A milestone like that deserved a bash, a big gala dinner dance filled with feather-topped, high-kicking can-can dancers and waiters serving up dimpled buttcheeks braised in a succulent kerosene sauce.

It needed a photo booth. Fireworks. Handmade chocolates flown in from Belgium, inscribed with superlatives relating to his life thus far.

Keen. Brilliant. Star Athlete. Tantric Sex Master. All these things delicately traced into the the crust of truffles.

It needed music. A bright, up-and-coming pop songstress. A young broad with a supple body and a nightingale voice; a sprightly thing who would take the stage in a latex thingaroo, barely covering her hummahoos. He made a note to check MTV to find such a starlet.

The next day, Hamish left his hut to begin party planning.

Discouragingly, it took three days alone for Hamish to find dancers. Unable to find can-can dancers with altitude crushing kicks, he settled on a troupe called the Octogenas, who were usually booked every night by their nursing home to perform in the rec room, but Myrtle Methadone had just met her maker and no one there was in the mood to watch a crew of old biddies shake their wattles.

Never performing outside of the home, the Octogenas excitedly signed the deal.

The next day, Hamish learned the lesson that fancy party waiters do not fit his budget, so he gathered up a group of bar flies who used to play darts with his dad and feel up his mama. They didn’t own tuxedos, so he grudgingly allowed them to wear flannel.

A day before the party, Hamish resolved to forgo the personalized Belgian chocolates, pouring a bag of leftover Easter Hershey Kisses in a microwave-deformed Tupperwear bowl.

The up-and-coming starlet he found came packing a rider that included a Lalique vase filled with blue and only blue M&Ms, fresh water from a Moroccan camel’s hump, a kilo of angel dust, and a current copy of US Weekly. Hamish settled on a folk singer he had seen downtown, sitting on a curb in a heap of earth-toned fabric, who plucking a broken guitar and collecting pennies and trash in a fedora.

And then it was the day of the party. The Octogenas undulated in seductive paths carved out by their walkers, with Agnes’s left breast flopping about and slapping bystanders with the misfortune of standing too close. And then Bertha lost her grip on her walker, crashed into one of the flannel-clad waiters trying futilely to take a reticent swig from his flask. The rest of the Octogenas abandoned their gig to accompany Bertha to the hospital, where she would undergo a hip replacement.

The folk singer, Sunny Moonbeam, twanged away quietly on the stage, eventually putting himself to sleep.

As Hamish looked around, he realized that his party had put everyone else to sleep, too.

Snagging the bowl of Kisses from the buffet, he left his own party and went downtown, where he settled in for a fifty cent peep show. He officially turned 245 days old as a brassy-haired, tough-skinned woman contorted herself in eye-widening positions on a wooden stool.
____________________

The deets.

I was comissioned on Etsy to make a Charles Manson Christmas card, which I had been wanting to do since I started this line two years ago. There is almost too much to choose from with that case, though, and I kept putting it off.

Still, I accepted this girl’s request, and had three weeks to come up with something. The deadline was today. I didn’t even start it until today, but that’s good because pressure always works as a good swift kick to my ass.

So now I’m proud to introduce good ol’ Charlie into my line of dumb cards.

“Call up the Family from the Haight

Set a plate for Sharon Tate

Bring out the China and fancy napkins

And pour some egg nog for Susan Atkins.

Drape some flowers from the tree

And put out a tray of LSD

Slaughter the best pig from Spahn Ranch

(Hope the blood doesn’t make you blanch.)

I don’t want a belt or a sweater to make me swelter

All I want from Santa is Helter Skelter

So please, don’t think of me as a sinner

When I bring Charles Manson to Christmas dinner.”

I was fourteen when I met Pignaceous. I remember that because it was the day after I got my period. Mama says, “Darlene, you a woman now. Those boys at school are gon’ smell that on you so you best keep those legs closed, missy!

“

It was a humid day, that day I met the pig, and I was walking home from school. Now, on these walks home, I always got to pass the bus depot.

Lots of unsavory characters loitered outside, flicking ashes and wagging their tongues at me; but on this one day in particular, this humid day, a pig-man stepped away from all those derelicts and offered up his hankie so that I may mop my sweaty brow.

I thanked him. He tipped his hat to me. Turns out Pignaceous, that was the name he gave me, was a sheriff over in a Hawaiian town. Said that damn town got drowned in piping hot lava, all the way from the post office right down to the tobacco store.

Next thing I know, Pignaceous is walking home with me.

Next thing I know after that, Pignaceous is eating supper with my folks and me.

And next thing I know after all that, I’m waking up to find Pignaceous eating my folks for breakfast.

Now, I don’t mind so much, not like you’d think. See, Ma – well, she been known to swat my behind with a wooden spoon. ‘Specially now that Mother Nature made me into a Woman. She’s just certain I’m gon’ go and get myself knocked up by some boy on the AV squad, even though I been telling her time after time that those boys don’t look at anything that don’t got a hard drive and a CRT glare.

And see, Pa – well, he been known to get good and drunk off the sauce, real rot-gut brandy, and leave his boot prints on my behind from time to time.

‘Specially if I be forgettin’ to pack his pipe before he gets home from work.

So see, I don’t mind so much to see that fuckin’ pig tearing away the flesh from their bones like us country folk eatin’ barbeque ribs on the Fourth.

Now, Pignaceous, he DOES mind. He’s worried I’m gon’ turn him in, ruin his hearty morning eats. But I say to him, “Pig, you listen here. I fuckin’ hate my folks. You want to ravage their flesh? Be my guest. Can I get you the Ketchup?”
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This photo captures the creepiness that can only be found in a vintage Sheriff Pig. Give him your change before he serves you up at the next Hawaiian- style Person Roast.

Who doesn’t enjoy a nice luau?

This photo measures 8×8. It is printed professionally on fine quality metallic paper