The Lady in the Blue Dress

As promised from my previous post, a gallery of random and in-no-particular-order shots of my many Lee Harvey Oswald dolls, and his many and varied “life experiences” in the New Lease of Lee’s Life as I have dictated it:  one of levity and fun and bliss, with an occasional non sequitur thrown in.  : )  Major non-sequitur:  Lee somehow  becomes my boyfriend.  Or at least questionably close, but in the wholesome-est of ways.  Real Lee was straight as an arrow, though open-minded, whereas Real Paul is a bit of bent arrow.  But in my (our) dream-world, we transcend gender roles and are happily accepted by all.  

Lee is my sweetie, and Lee is sweet.  His world is one of cinnamon rolls and bunnies and plaid, and once we are together, time-travel, fox-trots, and toys.  : )  Boy, can he rhumba.   And somehow is chest got HAIRIER once he got to know me…

All of the dioramas and most of the dolls pictured are fashioned by myself, and there is a story (or a video spoof!) behind almost ALL of them.

For Lee, I wish the best. 

Enjoy!

Finding Lee Harvey, Red Square, 1959:  Time-traveler Sam Becket (right, of “Quantum Leap” fame) has taken me back in time to meet Lee Oswald.  We spot him fleetingly.  I approach, but as he is perhaps leery of my Hot Pink Marabou Babushka/Cossack hat, he retreats.   I’m just trying to fit in with the whole Russian-look, is all.  Did I do something wrong?  I am confident we will become friends later.

In the meantime, Lee is happy to introduce folks to Minsk, where he is living at this time.  A Kiwanis club!  Oh boy!

I see him again!  “Er – Lunch in Leningrad, Mr. Oswald?”  He does not know the man in the spotted jacket and funny pink hat (though Lee’s is bigger!) and darts around a corner.  What do all those funny signs mean, anyway?

I mean him no harm.  I just want to meet him is all.  He always looked so handsome and nice in all the books.  I just want to meet him.  Maybe on some level he senses this.  And it’s cold sitting out here.  I bet it would be warm in his place…

Eventually, one thing leads to another and, even in the dead of winter Behind the Iron Curtain, we go stingray surfing.  Lee (well, I named him Wee because he is small) is more practiced in this than I.  Bun-Bun tags along, too.  Wee Harvey likes Bunnies (after all, he was named after two of them!)

Mcdonald’s in Minsk by Moonlight:  Wee Lee Harvey and I warm up to each other a bit.  He loved the Happy Meals.

The quaint locals didn’t seem to mind.  Occasionally I tossed them a chicken nugget.    : )

And then there were those cozy nights in the Russian Tea Rooms.  Lee asks the folk duet to play “Georgie Girl.”  (I told you the two of us eventually start transcending timelines together…)

Motocross in Moscow!  Such a free spirit, this boy!

Ice skating (sans skates.  It was slippery there).

Russian Orthodox Christmastide.  Our first holiday together!  I don’t know what the funny flyer is in my hand, or how it got there.  Hm.  And how cool that they had Ding Dongs in the USSR!

As the night wore on, a wild table dance ensued.  Lee was not prone to such abandon (vodka-spiked Ding Dongs?) as we were both very gentle souls, but it was cool cuz we got to smash plates.

Back to the U.S. at last – Wee Lee and I share a midnight snack in the sleeper car.   : )

To Be Continued…

Good day, friends.  My name is Paul, as most of you know.  What follows in these next few Lady in the Blue Dress Blog Posts will be a Story in Pictures, largely reflecting the “Alternate Universe” in which I have given Mr. Lee Harvey Oswald a New Life.  These are via action figures I have fashioned of him, miniature scale sets, and a whole cast of characters (and extras!).  A life like one he never had, and, I would like to think, a fun (if not at times peculiar) one!

To start at the beginning would require a lengthy dialog in itself, so I will attempt to simplify matters before we get on to the pictures.

3 and-a-half years ago, I had a revelation.

Lee Harvey Oswald, the real-life Lee Harvey Oswald, was cute.

I came upon a few of his younger photos, the ones preceding “the usual” photo(s) most of us know, and thought “Dang.  He’s cute.  Does anyone else see this?”

 Oh, how I love this one – and I plug this one into nearly every post about Lee…

Oh, and:

  Wow.

I have since found many who DO see this cuteness, far more than those that would say ”that’s creepy” (often people mistake him for a young James Dean, or some other pop-50′s pin-up boy – which is FINE with me!)…

But, as with all things, it’s a matter of personal preference, and Paul Wilson thinks Lee Harvey Oswald is cute.  Handsome, even, but mostly cute.

I searched and found more photos, I began to sketch him, I painted a vague military action figure-guy I had laying around to look like Lee.  He was my first official “LHO” doll, and not bad for a first effort, though he looks too much like “that” picture, the unfortunate mug shot.  He was later redessed in a silly suit, to soften him a bit, and dubbed “The Wizard of OZwald” and placed in a dummied-up product box, like one might see if he was sold at a Toys R Us retail outlet.

Though the Wiz-proper is out-of-box, he just HAD to give that annoying Dorothy a sock in the chops.  Apologies to all, but although I am gay, I absolutely ha -  uh- do not care for –  Judy Garland.  : )  The Ozzie in the box is a Wizard-to-be-, I suppose, learning the ropes.

When I initially completed him, a few months into my latent fascination with his looks, I brought it to my mom, set it in her hands, and said “guess who,” and watched.

Sadly it took her forever, and LOTS of hints from me, until she got it, softening the blow to my endeavor by saying “I was in the hospital with YOU when all that was happening, I didn’t pay a whole lot of attention to the television, but, now that you mention it, yes, I see it…”

I was born two days before “all that,” in “that” year.  So.  In the days when newborns and their mothers were kept in hospitals for weeks on end, she just didn’t happen to really take a good look at Little Lee…

I went further, I sought more male dolls (all vague-military-action-figure-guys, a mere Ken didn’t cut it) and made MORE Lees, all while I was furiously sketching and painting him and reveling in his cute-ness, AND reading about him.  I wanted all the mundane, banal, but personifying and endearing information on Lee Oswald.  His favorite colours.  His favorite foods, his hobbies.  What it was that made him human, a real person, beyond what many think of as “that guy” who “did that thing.”  I’d already read all of that in high school.  Sadly, 99% of what’s out there about Lee is about “that.”

Still, I found a FEW things I so desperately wanted in one book, “Marina and Lee,” which dealt with the rocky married life of Little Lee (yes, I think he was little- little and small) (makes him cuter), and in reading all the bad-stuff learned a lot of good stuff by default.  The author was not set on “humanizing” him in a positive light, but I opted to seek and see only the good ways this was accomplished.

I was VERY taken by the few incredibly romantic paragraphs about how Lee and Marina met.

Most sources say “a trade union dance” in the Soviet Union, but ”Marina and Lee” detailed it – it was a dance at The Palace of Culture, in Minsk, Belarus.  She was enchanting in a poofy skirt of Chinese red with white “slippers,” he dapper and snappy in a charcoal suit complimented by a smart white tie.  They met, danced the night away, and within weeks were wed.

A random documentary I happened on at about this same time described this, and showed the Fine Arts Palace (that in itself romantic), and some current-day shots of the interior, grand with columns and skylights and stained glass, and dripping with chandeliers.  Stock black-and-white footage of a dance was shown, as the voice-over of the man who was with Lee that night described the scene – it appeared incredibly glamorous, and absolutely in keeping with how *I* pictured that magic night.

No “trade union dance” (even it that’s all it was), but a Grand Fete.  A BALL!  Yes, a Ball…

(Aside:  HERE is Lee [far right, in his endearing plaid] actually standing in the Palace courtyard with some tourists.  What the circumstances were and how he happened to be there I have no idea, but THERE behind them is the very place Lee met Marina…):

Anyway – - what if it could have been me that night, instead of Marina Prusako-something-or-other?  What if I had been there that night, that Friday night, the 17th of March, 1961?

Hence begins the whole saga.  Or, The Epic, as I shall refer to it, as this concept it a lot to wrap gray-matter around.  Please try and follow…

As My Epic went, as far as how *I* won Lee, I bumped Marina out of the picture (literally – maybe I tripped her), and *I* somehow charmed handsome young (little) Lee, and WE danced all night (and Spread our Wings and did a Thousand Things, etcetera).

This is where things get blurred in this alternate reality – did Paul appear to Lee as a wickedly stunning woman (Marina x 100?), or, as mere Paul?  As in, myself, just a not-so-remarkable guy with a goofy Russian “Cossack hat” of pink marabou fur and a loud spotted jacket?

Yes.  It’s a hot pink ladies’ pillbox.  I was about to shoot a video spoof some time ago, in which I needed to be “Russian,” i.e., a KGB-guy.  My other actors had the “good” hats.  All I could find at the last minute was this pink thing.  And it became my “trademark” Russian-look.  ALL to please Lee, of course.  The Spotted Jacket came later, since it is something I just – really liked.

OH dear.  THERE he is.  My gay KGB-guy.  This was the original ensemble, a heavy wool ankle length coat slathered with KGB logos, layers of sunglasses, and that VERY spur-of-the-moment stupid hat. 

…and with that stupid pink hat, a key component of Gay Paul entering Straight Lee Harvey World was established.  The Stupid Pink Hat lives on in video skits to this day.  The video this still was taken from is entitled “The Lee Harvey Oswald Affair,” the only “live action” spoof starring me as as this guy, and an actual cute live male made up as Lee.  It’s very silly and on Youtube as we speak.  (And yes, it is QUITE the affair – An Affair to Remember, in fact…)

So, back to The Epic, that night at the dance, and who and what Lee saw me as – well, in that regard, I took FULL artistic license from there on.

At first it was myself as a woman who charmed Lee, a woman named Dottie Kimble, in fact. 

Dottie:

 Yes, that’s me.  A bit of a cry from the other two pics, but…

To backtrack a bit:  Dottie.   In reality, as in REAL reality, I created a 1950′s Donna-Reed June-Cleaver drag character for myself, and I named my character Dottie.  In a vast body of art I did in the 90′s, I dressed myself (selves) as various members of a Perfect 1950′s Nuclear Family, the Mr. and Mrs. Richard Kimbles - Mom (Dottie), Dad, two daughters, and a son.  I did a huge series of “family snapshots” of these characters, all composited together into elaborate “photomontages” (NO photo shop, I didn’t even know what that WAS back then).   Once done, I pasted them into a vintage photo album, later turning the images into large prints and exhibiting and selling in galleries.  In the charming supper-time scene below, Dottie is wearing the (way-cool-I-wish-I-could-still-get-into-it) polka-dot dress:

Dottie was my favorite.  Below, she is in black, getting a BIG D*MN KICK out of something at one the Kimbles’ many cocktail parties.

And though by this time, over a decade later, I was through with her, she remained in my heart, and now SHE would become the vehicle in which I met Lee Harvey Oswald that night in Minsk, in The Epic.

But how to stage this?  I didn’t like dressing up anymore, the face-shaving and the makeup and the struggling-to-get-into period dresses I had long “outgrown,” and WHERE would I realize this, as far as sets and props and extras, and, most importantly,

WHO WOULD PORTRAY LEE?

THAT is how I fell back into the world of “fashion dolls,” as Barbie and Ken are so oft referred.  I had been staging humorous video bits and dioramas since high school using a vastly growing collection of dolls and miniatures, and this would come into play yet again, though on a scale like never before.

In addition to the one or two Lee dolls I had, a Dottie Kimble doll was now in order.  I had this idea to create The Epic on film, depicting my tweak of history.  Using almost ALL my dolls, I would realize my story complete with lush sets and scenery and wardrobes and a cast of thousands, a glorious epic rivaling “Dr. Zhivago,” set against the romantic backdrop of early 1960′s Russia…This would be quite an undertaking.

In the meantime, an early Dottie Doll:

(Well lookit that!  A matching hat (sort of Babushka-ish on her!), and somehow her dress matches Real Paul’s jacket!  Uncanny!)

In realizing The Epic, it began when my then-computer crashed, allowing for several days while I waited for a “recovery disc” to arrive in the mail.  I started feverishly painting Russian building facades on everything, creating the exterior (and interior, of course) of the Palace of Culture, turning lengths of PVC pipe into majestic columns and accumulating everything from the benches in Red Square to tiny elaborate table settings for that wonderful night at the dance…

But the story?  How does Paul fly back to 1961, and how does he turn into Dottie, and how…

Simple!  Sam Becket (the time-traveling character in the 1980′s TV series “Quantum Leap,” as played by VERY sexy Scott Bakula) would take me there.  I already had a Sam Becket doll, also fashioned as an OOAK (doll-parlance for “One Of A Kind”) from some vague military action figure-guy.

At the top of The Epic (tentatively titled “Dancing with Oswald”), he would appear to me in a cloud of blue lightning bolts, here at home in my backyard in the current day:

(Yeah, a Paul-doll.  Hat.  Jacket.  Gray in the beard.  All of it).

He would then whisk me to 1961, albeit regrettably, trying to tell me Lee Harvey was NOT all that, and by messing with him I’d be messing with history (that whole space-and-time continuum thing Time Travel theory loves to bandy about).  Of course, in my work with my Lee and Paul dolls, ”history” is not defined, and it never is, ever.  Fantasy Lee (and myself) inhabit a world of Eternal 1950/1960 something, and a year is rarely specified, and few current events, save for Sputnik, are discussed.   Nothing of The Real World of that time, save for what I choose to include to make it more fun – has any place here.  My fantasy-work is already kind of out there (oh it gets a lot weirder! But in a GOOD way) and admittedly edgy, but pure tastelessness is strictly out of bounds.

This is all about play.  Art, and, Happy, and Play.    : )

I got about a third of ”Dances with Oswald” taped and edited, but I pooped out by the time I got to the dance scene.   I had all the extras dressed and ready, the ballroom ready to be assembled, but…I just burnt out!

NOT burnt out from handsome Lee, not at all, I fizzled in just trying to realize this wee epic on no budget in the middle of August (try shooting snowy scenes of the Kremlin in 115 degree heat out of doors!), with a slow computer editing system and a camera I was not all that familiar with.  I did, however, take MANY “publicity stills:”

The Epic begins after Sam (who kept insisting he was NOT Scott Bakula) and Paul arrive in Russia (where it’s ALWAYS snowing!) on 17 March, 1961, the day of the dance.

~~~~

Sam and I make it through the blizzard to Minsk (“A Nice Place to Live”):

And look, there’s even an Optimist’s Club and a Ladies’ Bowling League!

“OH, SAM!  Now I KNOW we’re really in Russia!  Heaven!”

Angst and a little Pathos.

A  RUSSIAN TEA ROOM:  Some discussion prior to the dance. I suggest to Sam that if I dig Lee, I MIGHT just want to run off with him.   Sam is concerned.  Not only because I might actually act on this and mess with history, let alone with Lee’s mind, but because I brought a digital camera with me to get some hot pics of him if I got the chance…

It is at this juncture Sam warns me that there MAY some elements out there that want to harm Little Lee.  I say we must STOP them at all costs, THEM being:

“oh, I dunno, KGB/FBI/CIA/MAFIA/NAZIS/SPIES and other assorted Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves.  I only know because I thought I’d read it in a book somewhere…”

Nasty guys (and gals).

Finally, at the Palace of Culture – the dance is going on inside- IS LEE IN THERE???

Sam and confer in heated whispers outside the doors.  What the Baddies don’t know is that I switched out all their nasty toys into plastic ones.  Oh, and that they are standing in Superglue – so glad I brought some along! 

In hindsight, as far Paul’s part in The Epic, I think a lot of it had to do with which version of myself I wanted to go with.  I wanted to be ME with Lee, not pretending to be a woman (Dottie) the whole time, and hoping I was tricking him, until we got romantic and – well.  You can imagine (or, not)…

In real life, by this time, all my family, friends, acquaintances, work friends, KNEW I adored Lee.   I thought it was key, then, that I be myself with Lee, a guy – just as I am with all others in the Real World – that is, out and out OUT, gay as a three-dollar-bill and all of that.

Real Lee Oswald, while gay-friendly back then, and most sympathetic to minorities, was NOT gay, but – in Paul Wilson World, he could be anything I wanted him to be…In fact, I could re-name him, too, to further separate Real Lee and Paul’s Lee while keeping his general concept the same – as of late he has been Wee (as in Little=Cute) Harvey Oddball.  Oddball, because in my videos he is quirky and quiet and often a bit goofy, but always the hero – and he accomplishes this in peculiar ways.  Odd.  Oddball.  And they rhyme…

But at first, before his re-invention name-wise it was just Ozzie n’ Me:

One of our many recent Vow Renewals.  Mr. and Mr. Paul Harvey- er, Lee Stanley Os- um.   – Just,  er -two happy guys.

I decided a lot of why I halted production on The Epic was because I was not sure how I would transform into myself within that storyline (as a doll, of course, and oh boy, making a doll of one’s SELF really messes with the head) and maintain some semblance of sense in my Pretend World.

ONE image was taken, a “screen test” shot if you will, in the ballroom set, suggesting a dichotomy, a clash of interests with one interest in mind, as Paul vies for Lee, and Paul as Dottie (or is it Paul, and really Dottie?) also works to win his attentions.  Obviously Dottie and I are one, as suggested by our wardrobe.  And there’s Lee as he was that night, in the dark suit with the white tie, per the book:

Who will win in this unusual tug of war?  Seems everyone is torn – or is about to be, if a fight ensues, and let’s hope not, that’s 100% silk chiffon!

But I can imagine who won out.  Another test-shot, for one scene that did get shot and edited, and charmingly so:

Lee ended up with me-as-Paul-the-guy, naturally, and sneaks me out where a carriage awaits us.  Any threats of bad guys were thwarted by Dottie’s wicked handbag-weilding, or accidentally knocking the no-goodniks into the punch fountain.  This scene went on to show us riding down the quaint cobble-stoned street while “So This is Love” from “Cinderalla” played.  In the process, more Bad Guys show up at various intersections, but our horse tramples ‘em all to goo, while the music continues and Lee and I hold hands and gaze into one another’s vinyl eyes, in ignorant bliss.

Any and all romance is just that in my Dollcumentaries – sweet and ignorant – nothing tawdry - the most suggestive things might get is when we snuggle at a drive-in, or share a dance in the diner…I mean, maybe Wee’s top will be off, as I love to show off all his chest hair, but by and large our union is Vanilla and Safe and Nice, just as it should be…

If only I’d finished The Epic.  *sigh.*  The other big drawback was I was shooting it in HD video, which reeeeally dragged my computer down, and editing took FOREVER.  Too, as this was so long ago, my editing skills were not as honed, and trying to fix what is already done would be tricky, as I am not computer savvy AT ALL.   And I have SO many more Lees now, and props…I got probably half or two-thirds done before aborting.  Maybe it will surface in flashbacks or something in a future film project…

But that was then -  the whole Epic, the meeting-in-the-USSR thing is blaze and in the past and not really ever explained.  Dottie most certainly had something to do with it, but Paul was the one who “got the boy in the end!” – and this is now, and by this time?  By THIS time?!  I was onto OTHER things!  Lee and I living in 1950′s Bliss!  Lee and I buying a 1957 Chevy!  Wee and I playing host to cocktail parties in our far-out fabulous 50′s Jetson’s style pad! Wee and I sailing on board the S.S. Poseidon!  Wee and I…oh, the adventures are endless!

What will follow in subsequent Oswald-related posts will be galleries of stills of not only Lee (Wee) and myself (Wee Paul) in a never-changing arena of domestic bliss, our various adventures abroad, and so on, but a lot of candids of my collection of Lee Oswald OOAK dolls – all 12 of them!  All with slightly varying expressions, depending on the “scene” set-up I desired for a video skit or photo op. 

Some images may be captioned, others will be left open to interpretation.  So stay tuned, I hope you enjoy our wee adventures!

Well gosh golly.

It’s been forever since I have posted, largely because I couldn’t remember HOW.  “Blogs” are still SUCH the Fancy Hi-Tech Concept to me (I don’t even know what the word means, I thought it was like “log,” as in a journal, with the play of “bla,” as in “bla bla bla,” thrown in.  “Bla+log,” “BLOG.”  But I don’t think it is…) – anyway, after some Tech Support, I am back.

It was awhile ago since I reported my initial “dive” back in Paul Wilson Poseidon World, as far as deciding to do another almost-full scale production of 1972′s “The Poseidon Adventure.”  The set, AND the concept, has come a long way since then, but there were a few unexpected asides.

First, a glimpse of the finished Barbie-and-Ken (one-sixth) scale ship’s Dining Salon, now standing in (and eating up) my living room:

Dang.  That’s a lot of home-made custom chairs.

Another:

So as you can see, a lot has happened since whenever that last post – “Back to the Poseidon Drawing – BORED” occurred.

I just got lazy about writing about it all, and opted for an easier way – videotaping the process.  If interested, go to the “Paul’s Youtube Channel” under my The Lady in the Blue Dress banner, and search “Let’s Build a Poseidon Adventure Ballroom!”   There are three installments, but I think the titles may vary somewhat.  You’ll figure it out.  Once I get thoroughly enmeshed in a project, I don’t often stop to take pictures, let alone video, but more than a few people have said “How do you make your little sets for your movies?  We only see the finished product, it seems the construction is only half of the picture!”  So, to address this, in the making of this little movie on a tiny grand scale, I tried to remember to pause at key junctures, stick my camcorder on a tripod, and paint/construct/hot glue/ and otherwise duct-tape everything together on videotape, then post installments online.

In completing this no-string budget project, which was completed in – oh, I think November? – I came upon obstacles along the way (if I knew how to insert video links in blog posts I would so you could see), such as RUNNING OUT OF CHAIRS.  I knew I would have to make more than the eight I had, and after making upwards of thirty of them out of clothes-pins and foam rubber painted gold, I set up what I had so far on the olive green bedspread (borrowed from mom) that acted as the SS Poseidon’s floor, ONLY TO REALIZE I NEEDED at least HALF again as many.

!!!!

So.  More trips to Michael’s, more spray paint and clothes pins, more hot glue sticks…and more PATIENCE, because I was sick of cranking them out.  They lay spread out before me in a leering assembly-line MASS, looking at me like a crowd of eager, spoiled children in want of free hand-outs, maybe candy and toys from a department store Santa Clause.

Soon they even MOCKED me, as I would repeatedly burn my fingers while applying hot glue to make the legs stay on, only to watch them gently cant and collapse when I thought the glue had set long enough…

But as you can see, I got them all done.  I could use about 20 more, but @#!! that.

The “hero” chairs, that is, the NICE ones made from applying gold backings to actual Barbie factory-made chairs are the ones in clear view of the camera, it’s the ones BEHIND the tables that are the home-made ugly ones made of clothes pins.  I will have to bear this in mind everytime I do a video shot from any given angle, to have the “good” chairs facing the camera.

You can see Poseidon (I called him “S.O.S. Poseidon) made it up onto the wall, indeed with a spray painted Spork.

And there’s those hateful Egyptian figures and related art on the cardboard walls.  And the art deco railings.  And even a champagne stand (though it was so tacky I ditched that awhile ago – looks nothing like the movie’s).

The light fixtures flanking him are – yes – toilet paper rolls.  Actually paper towel rolls, as the TP rolls were a little too short.  They came from mom’s house.  So did the finials attached to the tops and bottoms of the rolls.  Oh and all those little dishes, too (yes!  The tables are set!).  All from mom’s.  Same with the -

-oh.  You’re like “all from Mom’s?  What is that, like a cheap miniatures shop? Surely they could do better than toilet paper rolls…”

No, as in FROM *MY* mom’s.  My mother.  My mother who, born in 1929, is literally a product of the Depression-Save-Everything-Era.  This can be both a blessing and a curse, as you might imagine a house stuffed full of boxes of twist-ties, boxes of styrofoam meat trays, and boxes full of BOXES.  However, this past summer and early fall, when I embarked on this journey, her collections of miscellania became precious treasure-troves of objects she was glad to part with (in most cases) and I was thrilled to have.

Lids from every to-go meal’s hot-sauce or condiment cup we ever had in our whole lives became scores of dinner plates, some even appear to have charger plates underneath them, which was even cooler.   Push-pins, many still on the card from 1960-something, were spray painted silver and inverted, effectively tacking down the tiny tablecloths down AND acting as salt and pepper shakers.  Others, which were clear, became arsenals of stemware and glasses, mixed with what few miniature champagne glasses I had, to create some sparkle at each place setting (CAN YOU BELIEVE IT, the company that MADE those ubiquitous plastic champagne glasses – AND bottles – WENT OUT OF BUSINESS.  Imagine my horror…).  And the lids to dishwashing liquid bottles – the little things with the flip-up tops? THOSE looked great when painted gold and stuck on stuff (like the paper towel tubes).

Here is a close up of a “nice” tabletop, using mostly actual Barbie plates (painted WHITE of course, no bloody Hot Pink in MY set, thank you) and even some desserts are in evidence:

The centerpiece is much as it appeared IN the movie, an unidentifiable MASS of sparkly stuff and striped things and vague ribbon.  JUST TRY and tell me what they are, when watching the movie!  And yes, someone is having a LARGE piece of cake, and please, no Shelley Winters Fat-Jokes.

Actually I KNOW, from studying production stills from the film or “candids” of the set, what the centerpieces consisted of (large multicolored paper flowers, small foil party horns, and barber-pole striped blow-outs with some unfurled streamers tossed in).  Keeping this in mind, one can watch the movie and actually kinda-sorta make them out.  I opted for a blob of Easter grass (from mom’s) glued to a single fake flower (from mom’s) and decorated with pom-poms and snippets of striped chenille strands (from Michael’s).  For a n0-budget summer project (SLOW work season for scenic painters, which is what I do in Real Life), Michael’s made a killing because of me.

The wee silverware was a must – it HAD to be silver, and individual pieces (hellish as that was to “set” a tiny table with, in hindsight I should have used tweezers to do it), so that when I capsize all this, you will see them slide (the far-away silverware “settings” are basically photos of my little place settings, cut out and set next to each plate).

But for close-ups, I couldn’t really “cheat” a lot on the table-top dressing, when everything tilts, it all has to go, each and every individual spoon, knife and fork, no silly color-copies of place settings.  It’s gotta be like the real thing:

All components had to be individual units, nice as it might have been to just GLUE it all down to a tabletop, I didn’t, because of this need for it to slide and separate on film.  And “break” (as evidenced by some of mom’s cut up condiment cup lids on the floor).  The confetti consists of tiny styrofoam balls (so they would “float” in the air), and multicoloured metallic glitter). 

Ah, destruction, I love it.  However this does NOT mean I have wrecked it yet or finished the little parody, no, no, this was a trial shot to see how it would look when under the duress of a canting floor, the dishes and glassware at the point of no return.  After I took these stills, all was cleaned up and put back together nice.

There we go.

Ah.  A shot taken as if you were actually standing in the room, looking towards the entrance/elevator doors/whatever those were supposed to be (it would seem such a grand room would have had a major-ly cool staircase, but nothing in evidence when looking at the movie).  The deco “urns” flanking the doors are thrift-store parfait glasses, painted yellow (on the INSIDE, so the shine of the glass would be retained).  The tree was a big dumb dunce-cap CONE formed crudely from flimsy drug-store poster board.  I say DUMB because there was probably a great, mathematical way to do it, but a mathmatic I am not, so I ended up doing a lot of cutting and taping and fudging and it’s STILL not straight – oh well.  But I like the way it turned out visually.  I had (thankfully!) one ancient package left of teal mylar “rain curtain,” as the party store (also out of business!) called it.  Attaching that in strategic places, and doing a careful criss-crossing of small-scale gold garland accomplished the desired effect.  The ornaments are plastic snowflakes and wrappers from chocolate coin candies.

The table bases, as evidenced above, were MANY non-perishable food cans, not from mom’s, but straight out of the market, and still containing product, as they have to be sturdy to sit up and not tip over upon merely looking at them (cool as that idea may seem given what’s eventually going to happen in here).  Again, lots of brown spray paint (who KNOWS exactly what’s in those cans) to obscure the labels or silver underneath, and paper plates (with the rims trimmed off) act as tops, hot glued down; gold napkins or very fluid gold fabric tablecloths draping them.  Many of the condiment-lid place settings are held down with a clear thumbtack.  I don’t want stuff sliding around prematurely!  And once I get a rowdy bunch of partying PEOPLE in there, well, you can just imagine.

Which brings us to

Guests.

I already have the entire cast, from Shelly to Ernest to little Eric Shea (as the annoying little brother character), I had fashioned them ages ago.  I updated and cleaned some of them up a bit, now that my doll-painting/altering skills are a little more honed. 

For example, my older-model Linda Rogo (Stella Stevens) doll kinda really sucked, and she is a MAIN, HIGHLY revered character in the film, so out with the old and in with the new.  I re-vamped my years-old home-made “Francesca” from “Ghost Ship” doll (she will only ever now be Linda Rogo, there is no turning back, but I am over Francesca), and here is the New & Improved Linda:

Yes, she is in a sleazy pink men’s tuxedo shirt, with no bra.  But us Poseidon fans know why.  I am pleased with this one, it makes my old Linda look like Raymond Burr.

But then I realized, WOULDN’T it be more fun to have Key Extras in the scene, too?

Like, well, like Bun Lady:

Most die-hard Poseidon Adventure fans are aware of the fabulous Bun Lady.  She does little more than sit at the purser’s table while he prattles on, looking interested – no- FASCINATED – and most gracious through the whole bit.  She has a gentle, serene quality about her that we all love, she is so kindly and just radiates an amazing – well, GRACIOUSNESS is the only word I can come up with:

SO gracious,  and that BUN – hence her nickname, as a LOT of the Poseidon Extras have been dubbed over the years, for lack of better ones.  Everyone knows exactly to whom the words “Bun Lady” are attributed, even if they’ve never taken any special note of her (though she’s kinda hard to miss).

Aside: I had the marvelous personal joy of talking to the real-life Bun Lady in person, yes, the very actress seen above, through her kind son and now good friend, after having met them both at a TPA Club Screening (TPA=”The Poseidon Adventure”).  Her name is Kathryn Janssen.  She has been in many, many movies, generally as a Bun Lady – she has had speaking parts, yes, but she is often seen inhabiting a seat in an airplane, walking around a western town, seated amidst a panicking audience in “Young Frankenstien,” or meandering around in yet another doomed ballroom, that of “The Towering Inferno,” and lots of others films.  She is remembered by the general public as the frantic Mrs. Van Hoffman in 1984′s “Ghost Busters.”  A large event is pending in a fancy hotel reception hall, and she is overseeing it.  However, what she is hearing behind the closed doors is the destruction of said room as the Ghostbusters are – well, Busting Ghosts.  Ms. Janssen was a joy to talk to, still sporting the Bun and exclaiming, with delighted incredulity, “you mean I’m known by fans of the movie because of my HAIR?!”  She, like many other integral “background” or “atmosphere” people, had no idea what impressions they had made on us over near-40-years.

So, I thought, WHO to make into a Bun Lady, and could it be done?  Certainly not with a Barbie.  No.  Have you ever really looked at one?  Even now, not so much the “Teen-Aged Fashion Model” as she was introduced as in 1959, she STILL looks weird and wrong.  Look at her profile.  She has the bulbous, protruding forehead of a 4 year old girl.  And that face.  Just imagine a HUMAN looking like that.  We’ve all become so jaded to Barbie that we probably, most of us, would think “sure, what else would you use for a ‘woman’ doll than a Barbie?”  Again, look at one – aside from the obvious absurd proportions, we forget her frightful face.  Ear to ear smile, huge eyes, barely a nose – I liked them better when they were b*tches, the pouting females of unknown-age in the early 60′s, but even they look largely unnatural.

So what to do?  Few companies, and certainly no main-stream ones, make mere mortal, “real” women.  That is, aside from pop-culture movie characters or what have you, no generic JUST every-woman dolls.

Then I remembered a doll I had found in an antique store years ago.  It was a G.I. Jane.  Not based on the character in the movie of the same name, but a companion to G.I. Joe, and just as macho.  When I saw it, I realized that with a facepaint and some softening (a lot of softening!) I could make a doll of my mother out of it.  She was only $19 (the doll, not my mother), so I picked her up (the doll, not my…) and went to work on her.

So when it came to the tall order of Bun Lady, I thought: “If I could find another…MAYBE, just MAYBE…”

So, to Ebay I went, and there she was, and she started at $69.

!!!

Luckily I found, after a lot of scrolling, more, finally settling on a sensibley priced one, Mint in Box (as if I cared) for  $16.  I mean, it wasn’t like this doll was made in 1962 or anything, she is really quite recent and NOT gold plated.  $69!  For Pete’s sake.

I even wrote Bun Lady’s son, who is aware I am doing this whole Poseidon-thing, and said to him “TODAY I BOUGHT YOUR MOM.  I BOUGHT YOUR MOTHER ON EBAY.”

He replied “Well, we’re flattered, but we hope she wasn’t too much!”

And here is a token before and after:

Still shackled to her box, and looking a little shell-shocked; and

In place for her close-up.  : )   And of COURSE she gets her own movie-star chair!

I would liked to have gotten her features even softer, but.  I fare better with masculine features and sexy guys with hairy chests, I think.  Women require a special touch, and given that there are so few good ones around and I haven’t done any, I do better with the guys.

(Okay looking back at that LAST sentence I SEE how it looks, and I am just going to leave it!)

Here she is again, exactly as seen in the film, not cropped (sadly Real Bun Lady did not GET a close-up):

She is just so cool.    And if she only knew some of the monstrous methods I had to employ to create The Bun, and make it silvery like that:

Oh my.

But we won’t tell her.

However her son, at least, is aware that the fancy diamond hair clips were in fact re-created using crumpled up Ding Dong wrappers with glitter glued to it…

There were other extras too, some of whom can be seen above, in the backgound, at the Captain’s Table.  The woman’s head directly over The Bun would be India Lady, and the volcano of hair with a party hat on it to the left is Cousin It Lady (I told you they all had nicknames!).

I fashioned as many as I thought necessary, and then some, including, of course, the largely faceless Lady in the Blue Dress; and a new addition, Terry (Ernie Orsatti), Pamela Sue Martin’s boyfriend (seen at extreme left).  He was a tiny bit more than an extra, as he had some more intermittent screen time, a couple of lines, AND he is the man who falls into the overhead light fixture when the ship has completely capsized.  Maybe THE iconic image of the whole film, and he was the stuntman/actor that did it.

I figured at some point, if I was going to glimpse the purser’s table such that audiences could marvel at my Bun Lady, the OTHER occupants would need to be present as well.  Two of the folks with their backs to us are stars (Pammy-Sue with a party hat on, as is her aforementioned annoying-little-brother), and the purser (a personal friend, I learned later, of Kathryn’s) sits addressing little brother and the table in general.  The woman in orange, eh, don’t know her, so I won’t mess with her.  We’ll just say she was in the John at the time in question…

So I made a crude purser doll, as one doesn’t often come across rotund or particularly jolly male action figures, but I found a fairly buff army dude that I just put a large sloppy jacket over, with some gold braid on the cuffs; and for Terry I used a Cartoon – i.e., Prince Eric from “The Little Mermaid.”

Now, another secret about TPA – as I said in my previous Poseidon post, there is a larrrge contingent of gay men making up this film’s fan base – and Terry  is generally regarded as THE Hot Property.  Sure he has big 70′s hair and sideburns and a frilly-fronted shirt, but it was the 70′s, forgive him – but he’s FOXY.  And it’s just SAD that he had to die in that d*mn light…

Anyway, as I have always crushed on Prince Eric, I thought his Big Hair worked, and with a bit of shading, dimpling, beard-shadowing, and shirt-frilling, I could get a Cute Terry to go with a Bland Susan for their brief dance floor scene:

Gosh *I* would SO DATE that doll, if I say so myself…

And yes there are premature PEOPLE already popping up in the background, I know, so – well let’s just CUT TO THE CHASE.

Well – it’s…close?

I know I kinda jumped the gun here, there’s a LOT more I could go into about the Making Of as far as the room, which is really what these past Poseidon-related posts were supposed to have been about, but do you REALLY want to read all that?

As I said, the videos about it are on Youtube.  : )

More about the guests and having to find a JILLION BLACK KEN TUXES for HUGE BUFF ARMY MEN dolls later…

-Your Captain

It’s ba-ack!

Yes, the giant windows that get smashed out, the Poseidon statue, the Christmas tree, the chairs, THE EXTRAS…

All that make up the crucial dining room decor of the 1972 disaster classic “The Poseidon Adventure.”

And it’s going on in my kitchen.

Again.

For the uninformed, I am The Biggest Poseidon Adventure Fan in the Northern Hemisphere, though I don’t claim to know all there is- I still have no idea how much it grossed or what the cost was to make it and I never met Shelley Winters – but it is an understatement to say I have been obsessed since I saw it at age eight or nine, and it became Part of My Life.

My original Once-Owned-by-a-Real-Theater-in-1972 Poster (complete with crease!)

It’s an interesting phenomenon, actually, as many dyed-in-the-wool fans can attest, if you love it, YOU REALLY love it, and it’s not a passing fancy.

Too, the demographic is intriguing – it seems the fan base is 83% gay men – hmm.

Yes, we all love Stella Stevens’ bitchy “Just panties, what else do I need?” remark, and snickering at poor old Shelley as stout Jewish grandmother Belle Rosen, but it goes beyond that for me…

 A “typical” grouping of Poseidon Fans recently recreating a pose struck by the original 1972 cast, on the bow of the Queen Mary.  I am of course the most ridiculously dressed one at far left, wearing a blue ladies’ peignoir not unlike the one Stella Stevens wears in the film.  OF COURSE I just HAPPENED to have it with me!  Another fan is dressed as Gene Hackman’s character, in the distinctive turtleneck & navy blazer.

While another post could be attributed to the Hows & Whys of Poseidon Mania, and my case in particular, I am keeping this post to the NOW – as in TODAY.  With only a mimimum of expository back-tracking preamble…

Quite simply, I am re-creating MY favorite aspect of the movie, the opulent grand dining salon of the S.S. Poseidon, here in my kitchen.  It is by no means human scale, of course, but Doll Scale.  That’s right, “eleven-and-a-half-inch Fashion-Doll” scale.  Barbie and Ken would have a blast rolling around in here come New Year’s when the tidal wave turns-turtle the majestic old ship (based on the original Queen Mary) – except Barbie and Ken won’t be setting foot in my salon – it’s all about my current muse, Lee Harvey Oswald -and myself in tow – literally falling into the movie, and dealing with the consequences. 

From another project – but similar in look – here, Mrs. Rosen (Shelley Winters) and Mike Rogo (Ernest Borgnine) find a grumpy Lee Harvey Oswald (Lee Harvey Oswald) lolling post-disaster in a giant champagne glass.

This is all for a video project which I will no doubt slap on Youtube once done, but once it’s all set up, I am sure I will be taking many still photos of the whole mess.

I don’t know exactly how it will go yet.  Just that it will. 

Maybe Lee and I will end up like this -

Another project involving Me, Lee, Chaos, and Carnage.  And KISS as well.  We have a lot of fun together.

So anyway, that familiar old S.S. Poseidon dining room set.

If I speak of this with a seemingly jaded edge, it is only because -

-I have done this SO many times before.

Not doll-scale remakes of the film, but CREATING THAT SET.

Most notably for a near feature-length satire I did in the 90′s, on good old VHS, all on my own, using what I had as far as set pieces, costumes, and props.  My budget was limited, and NO one was available on a consistent basis to play the parts Ernest Borgnine, Stella, Shelley, and Gene Hackman made so memorable, so, *I* played them all.  And then some, reprising the roles of many key extras as well.

No CGI was involved, no special effects to get “myselves” in the same frame, just a lot of head shots, and occasionally a willing pal to play The Back of a Head (think Patty Duke talking to her “twin” in “The Patty Duke Show”).

Plus it took 5 or 6 years to do.  Maybe 7 (and another two after that to clean up…)

I had “real” jobs and domestic daily acts intrude on my fun, and the act of changing from one character to another for a day’s (or week’s) worth of lines from, say, Carol Lynley as the singer (remember “The Morning After?”), to Red Button’s meek haberdasher character, was a huge time investment in itself.  And remembering my OWN LINES was really hard, which is just – stupid, since it’s ALL my deal.   And the sets, oh, the sets – I had nothing but a partially enclosed carport at my disposal, my poor partner had to park out in the SUN forever after.  Being that I paint murals and setpieces as a profession, I brought that to my film and created several detailed canvas backdrops to create the illusion of a grand perspective, whether it was my pet dining salon, or the engine room, or the inverted galley, or…

But that set, that gorgeous dining room set, before, during, and after the chaos - I loved it as a kid, as a teen, as a college kid, and as an adult kid.  And still do, or I would not be creating it YET AGAIN for a silly 10-minute YouTube spoof…

I reiterate “again” only because, as a child, I, like many others, had a “Poseidon Box.”

This magical toy was always home-made, using a cardboard box, all of our Fisher-Price Little People, and whatever artistic ability we could muster to re-create the salon’s decor.  ALL based on memory, because this was before TV broadcasts of the film, let alone VHS tapes.

Doll furniture and a small Christmas tree and sometimes tiny plates and “debris” could be employed, depending on the level of detail desired, and, once assembled, you -

turned it upside down.

And reveled in watching your tiny people fall this way and that over and under chairs and tables, much like in the movie.

Once close friend of mine actually flooded his with hose-water.

Then -

Well.  That was pretty much it.  You set it all up the way it was (or in my friend’s case, MADE A NEW ONE) and did it again.  And again…

Naturally I did this, and even fashioned a break-away skylight a Little Person (many used Weebles, too) could fall through.

This began a pattern, as all through my schooling and years thereafter I did drawings and paintings and obsessive recreations in all media of that room, and the chaos that ensued there.  Of course I acted it out, too, whether I was jumping off my bunk bed along with a handful of Muppet “extras” or shimmying down the playground slide with a heap of paper plates and toilet-paper “streamers.”  In high school, friends and I held Poseidon theme parties on New Year’s Eve, and I delighted in creating everything from the Poseidon statue mounted over the Captain’s Table to the skylights, fashioned out of craft paper and tempera paint.  In college, while taking a cool video-production class (which also changed my life), I managed to coerce the class into doing a mini-spoof of the film, again requiring dressing a large room in the college Memorial Union building into that dining room.  And wrecking it.  And LOVING it.  The one-man video I created years later (all on Youtube, by now, in 8 installments) was the Grand Culmination of these years, and the end-all as far as the extent to which I single-handedly and lovingly created that set AGAIN. 

Dang, I bought CHAIRS in thrift-stores that most closely approximated the shape of those seen in the film, and if they weren’t the right color, I PAINTED ‘em that color (yellow-gold).  I got pale yellow table clothes and painted the floor of the carport with green concrete paint and texture-painted it to look like carpet (you don’t even see it).  I painted THE most realistic and detailed murals of the dining room I had ever done, NOW using a fabulous collection of still photos from the film I had accrued once I learned such things existed.  I could of course watch the movie, too, for the ultimate in finishing touches – like the Greek motif in the glass panels seen in the railings and the exact nature of the Christmas tree garland (I went through 7 second-hand store trees doing that project).  And then of course all that silly Egyptian nonsense slathered on the walls of what was supposed to be a Greek ocean liner (in reality, the designers at 20th Century Fox used left-over murals from “Cleopatra,” and I guess hoped we wouldn’t notice).

My efforts paid off with a few screenings, and some local press, and then a renewed interest when the (shhh) “remake” came out in 2000-something.  But I never sold copies of it (hello, copy rights!  Ripped-off music a go-go), I gave them away, if people wanted them, it was really just a cathartic labor-of-love for ME, to finally sort of BE the movie.

Yet I was STILL painting that set, related to activities with a Poseidon Adventure Fan Club (yes, there was one, just like Trekkies, we are).  Such fetes were almost always benefit screenings of the film aboard the actual Queen Mary, which had me doing (on a voluntary basis, of course!) backdrops to decorate the convention area and/or hang behind the assemblage of panelists and guests.  These were often stars of the film and, once or twice, the esteemed director himself, Mr. Ronald Neame.

Years of joy I have derived from this movie, to the point that the mere phrase “Happy New Year” and ANY reference to “Auld Lang Syne” is synonymous with the film, and nothing else.

Sometimes I pop the DVD into the computer, just to look at the New Year’s scenes and the capsize, then leave.  : )

BUT I GOT TO KNOW THAT SET INSIDE OUT.

Not that I didn’t already, but…I know that fictional, long-since-deconstructed set better than my own home!

AND NOW I AM -sigh- DOING IT AGAIN.

I reeeeeally just wanted to BUY a ready-made Mattel Barbie n’ Ken Poseidon Playset, but, as one does not exist yet, I am resorting to painting it yet one more time for this latest Lilliputian venture. 

I am cheating whenever and wherever I can, like instead of painting the familiar gold-and-turquoise Happy New Year sign, I merely printed out a still shot of it from the film and scaled it correctly; but there is still stuff I just – HAVE to do from scratch, like this:

Pretty sad, yeah, but, it’s a start.  As usual, budget dictates I use whatever is around the house, and those tri-fold cardboard presentation thingies have been used and re-used countless times to the point where only the layers of paint are holding them together.  Lee and I stand in what will hopefully soon be the Grand Salon. The perpective is skewed, as these “walls” will be set way back away from the action, which will probably take place mostly at the Captain’s table (I have no script for this, I’m just making it up as I go along!).

So okay:  I really, REALLY hate those abstract Egyptian characters flanking the big window, but – they are evil necessities – you can sorta see them here, in a still of the actual film set:

And when I say “sorta see them,” I mean it!  They are VAGUE!  VAGUE and heinously elusive, and I HATE trying to “fill in the blanks” as far as what they actually are supposed to look like.

Fortunately, LOTS of stills show those damn things, but in PIECES.  That is, you see a little bit of one in the background here, another sliver of one upside-down and in the shadows there, and so on.  So the trick is to amalgamate all of these and somehow create one sensible whole, and they STILL look stupid.  Gad, the head of the figure on the right resembles Barbra Striesand on Steroids, if you could see the nose on that thing…

In truth they really ARE stupid, as they are abstracted sort of hieroglyph-ical BEINGS, for lack of a better word, and their heads and faces are just – well, I can’t use that word, it is no longer Politically Correct…

To complicate this, they are rendered in some sort of gold and copper metallic mystery material, which causes a different “look” from any angle you look at them.

I hate them.

I’d love to say I could draw ‘em with my eyes closed, as often as I have had to render them, but JUST enough time passes from rendition to rendition that I forget, and have  to re-invent the wheel each time.

The walls, the wood paneling, the marble columns, all of that, are a breeze.  Time consuming, doing all that woodgrain and veining, but I know it by heart.

Another VITAL aspect would be

THE CHAIRS.

Those “Poseidon Chairs” (I know there is a name for that style, I suppose, like “Hepplewhite” or “Duncan Phyfe,” only not).  (Or maybe something like “Empire,” only not).

They are SO instantly recognizable to all of us fans, not only as a stylistically familiar aspect of the salon, but because they are NOTICEABLE, particularly when the ship is upside down, and two-thirds of the chairs are still attached to the ceiling.  This has confounded generations of TPA fans (reason: older ocean liners had chairs tethered to the floor, so they would not fall over; just as tables were bolted down, so too, in a way, were the chairs), but that’s just how it is, and so they stand out.

And I am just in love with those chairs:

I guess cost-conscious producer Irwin Allen did too, as he re-upholstered them in blue and used them in his next epic, “The Towering Inferno…”

And here are my minis, only a third done.  The distinctive backs are yellow construction paper, sandwiched over the back of a spray-painted formerly-hot-pink Barbie chair (I had to buy like six dining room sets to get EIGHT damn chairs):

I know, they look cheap and sad, but all things have their humble beginnings.  With the addition of some sponged-on darker gold to add texture and shading, and when they are assembled, of course, they will fairly Sparkle (at least for a quickie video…)

Yes, and POSEIDON lies nearby, awaiting a means to attach his head.

He is quite visible in the salon as well, as seen in this cool rehearsal shot of the capsizing:

(By the way, see that lady in the blue dress?  Guess what?  That’s my favorite extra.  AND the name of my Blog.  Hm.  Coincidence?)

He was a KEN, one of the lean, jointed versions that usually cost more, which I have a heap of from various doll-projects.  He was spray-painted metallic copper, with a light dusting of turquoise “patina” after that; and the head was a staring, unsmiling thing off of a knock-off dollar-store “Ken.”  I dappled some hot glue on it to create the beard and head-band thingie, and spray painted it the same way.  I just have to attach it now, most likely using the little plastic cylindrical nozzle off of (ironically) a New Year’s party horn to go down into the neck-hole.

Likely I will keep the cheap plastic fork.

I just like it.

My Poseidons of the past are usually greatly endowed and possess VERY obvious Male Secondary Sex Characteristics, such as abundant underarm and chest hair, but I am keeping my set a little closer to the film (save for the FORK) (gosh maybe I should opt for a “spork” from Taco Bell?), since I want Lee and I to stand out conspicuously against a backdrop most like that of the movie.

Oh, and – yes, the Key Players will be present as well, I imagine, as I made a set of Poseidon dolls for myself ages ago, as seen here in a “publicity shot” from another video project of earlier this year:

The premise of this one, made in time to post on New Year’s day, was the cast of the film waking up in an ordinary house, after a wild party the night before.  Sort of “Land of the Giants meets The Poseidon Adventure.”  Oh how Shelley fancied those cocktail weenies…

So that’s where I’m at, as of this writing.  Basic set and prop construction.

Tiny metal plates from a dollhouse miniatures store are outside baking in the sun, after being spray painted glossy off-white.  I am ill from the fumes, yet hungering for lunch at the same time, which is kinda gross.

The other halves of the chairs and a decorative urn similar to those seen in the film are out there drying too.  I hope we don’t have a dust storm this afternoon…

More as it happens.

The mere name brings up dark memories of notorious criminals and assassins, an assorted sampler-box of unsavory characters with three-part names – John Wilkes Booth, John Wayne Gacy, etc – serial killers and murderers, cannibals and baddens.

But many familiar with exactly who he was, mentally cut to the chase when visualizing him, to the “Ugly Mug” known the world ’round – the man who they say assassinated John F. Kennedy.

Keywords as of late: “THEY SAY;” and “MIGHT have.”  It’s about time!  Time was when ”the man who assassinated John F. Kennedy” was every day “fact,” now, thankfully, but a bit late, they are thinking – and saying – otherwise.    What a gorgeous day it could be when Lee is Free.  Oh that sort of rhymed- but the sentiment is there. 

However I have digressed from the mission of this post.  Beyond the mere physical, I think Lee was cool in lots of ways.  And given that I am going to discourse on why this man was truly a handsome one and nothing less, I am going to follow through with my thoughts.

I choose not to dwell or analyze that “Ugly-Mug” shot emblazoned on the over-forty set the world over –  in fact I am not even going to post it, we all know what it looks like – rumpled, disheveled, unshaven and grumpy.  Sure, *I* can see the man underneath, but most don’t look IN to that photo, and have never seen photos of him appearing otherwise.  I shouldn’t say “we all know (what that photo looks like),” sadly many don’t; and I am often surprised when a few people BELOW forty DO recognize it (go figure!  Sometimes they DO touch on certain events in American history!).

Let’s cut to my chase.

Look at THESE, taken well before fall of nineteen-hundred and sixty-three:

1961:  Lee was capable of a smile and not “that smirk.”

Lee could exude youth, almost a “soft pretty,” though he is about 23 here (he lived only 24 years).

Circa 1956:  Back to High School – a young, happy, laughing Lee Oswald.

And one of MY favorites, which I have posted before:

1961 again.  OMG. 

It’s subjective, I know,  a matter of personal taste for some, but these precious few photos are a far cry from the “Ugly Mug” of ’63.  To me, to this author, to Paul Wilson, this is The.  Most.  Beautiful.  Man.  THIS picture captures it.  And what if he were looking right at us (me)?

THE.  MOST.  BEAUTIFUL.  MAN.  His eyes even got bluer when he looked at me just now…

Now I sound like a teen-aged girl gone ga-ga.  I won’t deny it, really.  No matter how seriously I might get started on the subject of Lee Oswald, in any capacity, it usually goes back to ga-ga before long, and often persons to whom I am speaking are lost…

While it may seem I make fun of Lee Oswald in many of my posts, youtube videos, etc, they are not meant to be mean, to poke fun – I like to think that in Paul-Wilson-World,  “My” Lee Oswald is a creation based on the concept of Lee, and as my muse, I make him do what I want and include him in a deliberately goofy-yet-idyllic Alternate Universe in which  I/we live a life of blissful, ignorant, absurd peace, with nary a mention of a gun or who the President is at any given time.   That, guns and Presidents, is just stretching the bounds of taste TOO far, even for me.  “My” Lee does not, and will not, know of such things.

Perhaps Lee Oswald is not one to be celebrated, as he was by most accounts a tragic figure, a lonely and troubled individual raised in less than ideal surroundings, no father figure, a mentally ill mother, uncaring relatives; truancy and indifference and loneliness characterized his early years – so, I don’t try to idealize the man that was Lee Harvey Oswald, I opt instead to focus on the good, as he was a human being, and he did have his GOOD moments, his GOOD times, his redeeming moments.  From much of what I have read and come to know of him, he was not the Devil Incarnate, just a – sad man who had perhaps experienced only fleeting joys, yet capable of love and loving, and cannot entirely be dismissed because of his questionable political beliefs and at times alleged icy personality, let alone the common accusation of the heinous crimes that ultimately led to his demise.

For some, he is not to be celebrated, perhaps, but most definitely acknowledged, in whatever positive light I can.

The point of this post is not to preach or redeem either. 

The fact is, I THINK HE WAS CUTE.

Dangit.

Yes, CUTE.

Honest.

This does not mean I have a yen for Hitler, Manson, or Sirhan Sirhan, as so many ignoramouses like to toss back at me when I unabashedly admit this, but I like who I like, physically, and as I learned about Lee, I thought “Hot damn.  He’s small, kind of a nerd, maybe, the smart kind that would play a mean game of chess and could fix your computer with one touch of a finger, and NOT that bad looking, not that bad looking AT ALL…”

Indeed, he was slight of frame, weighed about 145 pounds, and collected stamps.  He was dyslexic and vulnerable and afraid of the sight of blood (no remarks, please).  He was terrified of injections and loved bowling, fishing, and sweatervests.  He favored soft drinks over alcohol, and was very well groomed, from all accounts.

So.

Shall I continue?  Gladly:

This speaks volumes to me.  Hot, hangin’ out, happy, and – well, LOOKIN’ GOOD, Lee-Harvey!  I mean seriously, he is just - OMG.

Lee could Smolder, like 007 if he wanted, or 

-appear as soft and gentle as a pussycat, resting here in a train berth in ’61.

And it doesn’t stop here.

Lee Oswald was one of those young men who, as even my mother put it, could “photograph well,” i.e. handsomely, or NOT so well.  One of those kinds of faces.  Few of us are photogenic ALL the time, though there are those lucky ones who rarely “take a bad picture,” and though Lee was (is) by no means classically handsome, by the time his late twenties hit him, he was a most attractive young man.

Maybe not Love’s Young Dream (though some girls in his time thought so, an AMERICAN in Russia!  How handsome he was!), and not necessarily one’s type, per se, but – he grew on me.

And to my delight, many agree, often mistaking some of his photos (when I thrust them under someone’s nose, with no explanation) for James Dean.

And that’s saying a LOT for little Lee Harvey Oswald!

Sometimes he just had it goin,’ and unfortunately, there just AREN’T a lot of photos of him that aren’t blurred, overexposed, black and white and faded, or enough pleasant candids that do him a lot of justice.

Sadly, what film-footage that does exist, the infamous news reels of him being paraded around the Dallas Police Department, DO catch some of his interesting facial features in “real-time” movement, especially when a flash goes off and emphasizes a certain angle, particularly his jaw line, which was not all that strong under some circumstances, but is solid, defined, and just HANDSOME as all get out in this pic:

This was taken seconds before he was sho – became Immortal.  Such a strong neck, and relaxed eyes.  If only that scar from mere days before, and that swollen left eye, sustained when he was wrestled to the ground by a mob of mean blood-thirsty policeman, weren’t there…but…

And I like the hint of a 5 o’clock shadow.

All his features are dramatized here -

- I blurred out the background elements to concentrate on him – again, that great neck, the soulful eyes, the mouth that was just his mouth, the way it was, and NOT the “smirk” many interpreted he took on as a snide “I did it and I’m proud” look.  That’s just Lee, there.  And that sexy swirly smattering of chest-hair!  I’ll address THAT later.

Lee had soft, blue eyes, which few images reflect, save for image # 3 and #4 above (though black and white, the eyes are obviously light).  Fewer than 6 color photos of him exist, none of which show anymore than black DOTS for eyes, and so, some years ago, I telephoned his still-living brother, Robert Oswald, and merely asked him.

That in itself is a story, but Mr. Oswald very kindly told me they were blue.

I suppose I could have read this from any of his selective service cards or passports IDs or what have you, reprinted in ANY authoritative, definitive, chock-full-of-pictures books on Oswald, but I wanted to hear it from someone who knew, and who knew Lee.

This image, which I call “furtive bright eyes,” suggests that they are light -

Taken with a movie camera around the same time, again furtive, curious -(drat that scar) and that soft mouth.  He has quite the shnozz here, but I like shnozzes, so it’s okay; and I like the way his hair curves in back.

This one I simply call “Pretty Boy Lee:”

Nice defined jaw again, and he appears to be a poser.  Like he knows the girls are watching, or GQ photographers are nearby.

And who doesn’t like a guy in uniform?

Yes, he was in the Marines, and made it to Buck Sergeant (whatever that is).  But in full-dress uniform, yow.

And even in his standard issue uniform, well, look at that face, definitely one to Send Home to his Girl (though he didn’t have one yet):

I wouldn’t be writin’ any Dear Johns to THAT young ‘un (this was about 1957 or ’58, a mere pup at 18 0r 19 and a bit too young for me, but still – he’s got it goin’ and it gets better).

Skipping ahead again to late 1962, he fairly smolders again:

That same afternoon, this was taken:

Even if he was NOT grouchy, when he wanted to, and quite unintentionally I am sure, he could Sizzle.  And those rolled-up sleeves, and those arms…

And some photos are just endearing, like this one, taken in Russia at some point in the early 60′s:

I suppose the setting makes it somewhat idyllic and softens the fact for some that it’s – Lee Oswald – but again, the gentleness in the face, the graceful relaxed wrist – he’s just – cute and small and I want to pick him up and squeeze him a little bit.  All 145 lean pounds of him.

Another relaxed wrist, and a very masculine-casual pose, taken late in his Marines career:

He loved those plaids, and sweatervests too, and in these rare color images, taken by a tourist in Minsk, Lee just happens to be in the shot (at far right), again in plaid, and doing that sexy thing that men did in the 50′s – rolling up the already-short sleeves to make cuffs, and further revealing his lean little upper arms:

Later, after the first child, Lee is doing the cuff-thing again:

And again, that sexy relaxed wrist and hand.  That rather porcine look Marina is flashing somewhat sullies the image, but, what can you do.  It’s a sweet photo.

And that head of unruly HAIR -

Lordie, he’s even sexy when he SQUINTS.

Now, skipping WAY ahead – THIS – is a famous, FAMOUS shot, the “shackled shot,” an almost defiant pose he struck before being led into some room after the arrest (there were many ROOMS), but it’s a clear three-quarter of his face:

He is indeed a mess, scars, mussed hair, unshaven, that swollen eye, and specks from the photograph marring the image, but the integrity of his features are there.  The defined chin and jaw, the graceful curvature of the nose (not quite so “shnozzy” here, see what I mean about him looking so different in so many photos?), the interesting curvature of the mouth, the clear eyes.

Now, with some, but not a LOT, of artistic license, I was able to “clean up” this very image, and adjust his eyes (now in technicolor!) so they are looking out at us.

This was originally a black & white print-out of the altered face, hand-colored using colored pencil, done not long after I phoned his brother, asking what color his eyes were, as I was exploring Lee from an artistic angle.  Before I was making dolls of him and such, I was seriously fascinated with his face.

Still am…

His notoriety had nothing to do with my interest in him as an attractive man; and though Lee is certainly not for everyone, that is fine,  more for me!  : )

MUCH more later, I am sure…

Lots of stuff goin’ down in Cal as of late -

Least of all being Wee Paul and Wee Lee Harvey’s Special Day.  Yes, Wee Paul (the author of this post, in doll form if you don’t know this already) and Wee Lee (as in Harvey Oswald, a re-invention of him for myself with one major variation from the real Lee – my Lee is [shh] gay) (and loves HELLO KITTY, though that was not invented until 1974).

Given that Lee Harv-  I mean, Wee Harvey Oddball and I are beYOND shacked up, we decided to renew the vows we took back when it was okay to be two people who were interested in the Same or Similar Sexes…

So, we went to the Fairvale Non-Denominational Non Judge-Mental Church and had a sweet, simple, out-of-doors ceremony.

It was lovely:

“I now pronounce you – uh – I now pronounce you  – TWO GUYS.”   (The flowers were plastic, but we didn’t have time to get TOO fancy; and I in mere casual wear).

Several – well the majority – OKAY ALL – the guests were men.  Lee and I could not figure this out.

And we knew so few of them – save for the snappy dressers.  We suspected a lot of them were wedding crashers, and others we just suspected. 

Only one (1) KGB guy in evidence.

Premiere Kruschef was there, with his silly shoe; and a buncha fancy guys from Lee’s old U.S.S.R. stomping-grounds flew in for the day.   Dukes, Earls, Kings (and quite a few queens…). 

Quite nice, all in all -

And as far as where we went on our Second Honeymoon – first stop, the Whispering Pines Motor Court (Color TV!)

And once inside the room, well, we didn’t know what we were supposed to do in there.

We took our shoes off…

Well.

It’s a certainty.

Lee Harvey Oswald is going on a nation wide tour, along with his lover and a drag queen (and their Black baby).

Lee, me, and me (the latter in a 1950′s bouffant gown).

And a Black Baby.

I mean, there has to be something odd about the whole scenario, doesn’t there now?

Indeed, I learned it’s a go when I got word from the ICU (I keep calling it that because at first I could not REMEMBER that it is “ICI,” Independent Curators International) (I think).  That is, after the curator here in Phoenix sent along my notions for Lee and myself to the rest of the curator-gang in Portland and San Francisco overseeing all the works of several artists, some time passed, and they okayed it!  LEE is IN.

Of course they still want the original work they were interested in too, the aforementioned Fake 1950′s Family Albums, but I was able to make them see and understand how and why Me & Lee (and Me as a Woman) could fit logically into the scheme of things.

A can heave multiple sighs of relief that the painstaking efforts to make both a Clone Lee doll (as I STILL cannot part with my original, though he is SO cute) and a Clone of a Me doll were not for naught.

It was all a hurry-up-and-wait process, they even told me that when I called at one point to ask what was up – WHICH 2-D images did they want, WHICH videos did they want on a disk, HOW would the dolls and their diorama be kept safe, if they take them (keyword: IF)?

Finally I got the email I needed – a typo-laden note dashed off to the effect of

from Paul wilson//-    1 album.  vidoes {sic}.  three dolls

-and a signature – sort of -

all of which I interpreted as The Official Go as far as what I was serious about having seen in this Biennial.

I dashed out then and bought dupes of all the smalls, that is the periphernalia Me and Lee (and Dottie too) would need – gay rainbow tie-tacks that Lee and myself would be slathered in (though Real Lee was not “a homosexual,” per the parlance of the era, for us to work he kinda has to be!), little HELLO KITTY stickers to doll him up with, a duplicate set of Lee’s toys (a merry go-round, a duckie, a ferris wheel with – hee – some teeny Black babies I glued in each basket) and a NEW PRINTER, so’s I could print out some of the miniature HANDS OFF CUBA flyers and Communist propaganda to be displayed as garbage, that is, Lee’s sordid past (vs. his gay and colorful Toys, including many of his Bunnies – Lee WAS named after two infamous rabbits, “Harvey,” of course, and “Oswald,” Disney’s early incarnation of Mickey).

As of late, I am most pleased with this:

SO bad.

SO bad.

But I love it – I made that a week ago with a crude Paint Program.  What better to suggest a gay Lee Oswald all my own, who now lives in the U.S. of A.?  The U.S. of Gay?  (And no, he wasn’t gay, or even bi, or that odd term “bi curious,” but MY Lee is anything I want him to be).

SO bad.

I haven’t decided yet if I will print it out BIG (using ALL my new ink cartridges in one fell swoop!) and hang it behind my diorama, or have it small, laying at our feet -

Had I thought of it earlier, he would have been boldly WEARING it, as a bath towel perhaps, which I would be gently helping him into or out of…

But as the image I sent the curators most resembled THIS, I will stick to it:

(I added the text for the curators).

STRATEGIC was the word for dicing up that seemingly-randomly-falling-apart undershirt Dottie (L) and I are stripping from his little trunk.  I mean, I KNEW what I wanted to show, and exactly where – a nipple here, a bit of a tummy-hair trail there.  An armpit, the nape of his neck.  A bit of an ab.

It was all quite by Design.

So, using the clone of the doll seen above, I will dress him thusly, and carefully tack the shirt in place with wee dabs of hot glue, as he is going to be shipped to five galleries in five states over the next two years (!!!), and must remain Picture-Purrfect.

As does Dottie, and the Me Doll.  And all that STUFF at our feet.

And somehow I have to make sure that cigarette in her gloved hand goes NO PLACE, and include some sort of instructions to the various galleries as to what to do if it doesn’t!  God, the work that has yet to be done…

Not to mention everyone’s hats (and stuck-on polka dots) remaining in place.   And the handcuffs and the flyer coming out of the garbage can arranged JUST so, and – oh, Lordie, I should just SEND ‘em a glue gun!

Obviously there is much to do yet, but I just had to get it out there.

LEE will be out there.

And soon a book deal, whereupon I might write something along these lines:

(Yep – I did that SOME TIME ago, and I’ll be Gol-Derned if that is not ONE of THE CUTEST picture of Lee – and yes, he’s legal in that image – that I have ever seen).

And this morning, while waiting for my latest Lee and Paul Youtube to load (“Paul & Wee Harvey go to a Movie,” go peek at it now), I was shaping and trimming and adding-to and manscaping my ORIGINAL Lee doll, as friends concurred the chest-hair on the Clone I made a week and a half ago was more realistic!  ARGH!  So OF COURSE I had to re-work the original to be as Foxy as the one I am sending out and away for 24 months.  More hot-glue, more tiny finger-tip burns, more tiny scissors snipping and shaping.

But damn he’s gorgeous.

Pictures to follow in another post, I’m sure…

Indeed. 

What COULD be better.

Yes, that’s me in the middle (ain’t I a doll), strolling down the Polka-Dot Road with not ONE Lee Oswald, but – TWO.

Yes, the Lee on the Left is my original – gosh, it must be going on two, two and a half years since I made him (in doll-world parlance, he is called a “re-paint.”  Maybe even a “face-up,” but I am not into it as much as some…).  His prototype was/is a character out of a movie, originally, a film I never saw, called “The Golden Compass.”  I saw the figure of “Lord Asriel” (or something like that) on the site that sold said dolls and thought  – “I can DO it, I think – I THINK he CAN BE LEE, I THINK HE CAN…” and I bit the bullet and shelled out ninety-nine virtual dollars for him in an “Ebay Store” (buying direct was too expensive, and I kinda want to say he was on the way OUT, as I recently learned he was discontinued in 2008).

Once here, I was almost afraid – well – I WAS afraid – to touch him.

There he lay, so neatly packaged in his sturdy paper-board coffin, tied down with satin bows and bolstered by custom-cut foam rubber packing.

He was 17″ tall.  Far cry from my Wee Harvey Oswalds that stood anywhere from nine to 12 inches high (yes I have lots of Lees – more on that later).

He had rooted hair.

My other Lee Oswalds had molded-on hair, which I could supplement with hot glue (which, when dry, is virtually vinyl) and paint over to get the color right.

But this guy had ROOTED, BLONDE hair.

The very image I saw online some years ago, and felt I could alter for the better.

I knew I was going to have to color it somehow, but…

So I went with what I knew.  Not being an expert at such things (I am a doll person, but not a Doll Person) (note caps), I just went with what the gut told me.  Paint it.  But keep it wet, to sort of stain it, so that the hair didn’t just harden into a blob, I mean, it was actual strands, like REAL HAIR, so why compromise the cool actuality of it by making it look plastic by globbing it up with Brunette Paint?

That’s about all I can remember, specifically, when it came to the creation of that doll, as I was SO happy with it when he was Done, when he was Realized, when he was MY Squeaky-Clean Wee little Lee Harvey.

(Before we go ANY further, just LOOK at that face – he wouldn’t harm a fly.  Taken in 1961 in Minsk).  (THIS was one of the many images that had me in love with him on a purely physical basis oh-so-long ago.  And then later, – well – some other post, maybe.)

And damn how I have grown to love that doll.  I mean, I made an even BIGGER one – a 28″ version – but I used a ridiculously uber-buffed big Army-man guy, and though it resembled Lee facially, he was a little too “Mug Shot”-ish and just – TOO damn buff.  Lee was lithe, a slender lean model-type who could wear anything well, I imagine.  To my delight, many people seem to KNOW this merely by having seen him in the infamous post-arrest film clips.  I guess the Scary Mean Dallas Coppers in ten-gallon hats made him look small.

But somehow I knew in my heart of hearts he was diminuitive.

Not a great picture, but – he’s just so Wee.

Then there’s this one (yowza!):

I digress. 

I often will, in this forum.

And for that, I do not apologize…

So, let’s fast forward, and explain that doll on the RIGHT we see up there, the Clone…

Last month I learned I got accepted into a traveling art exhibit, called “The People’s Biennial, 2010.”  In short, curators deliberately visited five off-the-beaten-path-as-far-as-being-known-for-art states, and Arizona was one of them, specifically, Phoenix.

At the urging of some friends who pointed out the fact that I fit the necessary criteria as outlined on their flyer (“seeking eccentric, unrecognized artists”), I agreed to attend a couple of their talks, and before I knew it two Fancy Curators were sitting in MY living room (one of my friends talked them into a “studio tour,” saying “if you think the downtown hand-painted sandwich boards outside the cafes are cool, you HAVE to see Paul Wilson’s house…”).

They were here a short time, and their interpretation/interest in my work was impossible to read, probably deliberate on their part, so as not to get any one artist (or sandwich-board sign-painter) too excited. 

They thanked me, they left, and for weeks thereafter we mused, and in following weeks, we forgot.

At least *I* did.

It was a Thursday, and I had a local curator (NOT related to this biennial, but the Phoenix Art Museum!) over as well.  How and why I was lucky enough to have her over is another long story, but she was here, was VERY cool and VERY Scottish and very perceptive, and registered visible interest in my work (I don’t do JUST dolls), however, politely left me with “…you have a large body of work here, and…I…”

And in my head I completed her sentence for her,  “-just don’t know what to do with it…”

She ended it with another sentence suggesting it was indeed all fantastic and she was in no position to simply OFFER me a show, mind you, but she would process all she had seen here and “maintain a dialogue” (curators seem to love that word, “dialogue”) and if she thought of some way to amalgamate or configure it, or (again, I mentally added in ”pigeonhole?”) otherwise find an angle, she would be in touch.

I was rather down after that, VERY down in fact, as I had heard this all my life.

“Your work is so – gosh, well, you just- THROW yourself INTO it, literally, you ARE the art in, say, this amazing series of self-portraits where you dress as all the characters of a 1950′s family, or when you take on ALL the roles of the cast of “The Poseidon Adventure” and shoot a remake of it on VHS, and now this Lee-Harvey thing, it’s all so fanTASTIC, and from the heart, and so pure, and funny, and thoughtful and edgy and…”

Yeah, yeah.

While I adore the sentiment and the praise, I have heard it for years, and most of my stuff doesn’t go farther than my front door, although I have been lucky in some areas, getting a lot of the “E” word – Exposure – as far as being written up a gazillion times, having work published, having my home on the local news (it in itself is an art piece, some say), and even making it to three national cable shows.  And while cool, it just.  Doesn’t.  Go.  Anywhere.

(Hear me SIGHING,  please).

It stagnates.

But this does NOT stop me from doing it – I love to do it, I HAVE to do it, it really is what keeps me going, what fuels and nourishes me.  And if someone takes to it, well, that’s neat…and I am flattered and all, and will only keep ON doing it, “it” being whatever I am obsessed with at the time, and, via artistic catharthis, choose to realize.

I have made more money poking my finger in pay-phones than with my art, but I am not really after Big Money.  Sure, it’d be bitchin’ to get a BOOK, or serious gallery representation, or even a calendar; and if the money was REALLY big, buy my mom a new house, like Elvis did…

Digressing again.

So. I was REALLY down after she left, the anticipation of having this ultra cool, really important individual in the arts community COMING TO MY HOUSE, and the actual time we had together, was much more exciting than what I was left with, that all-too-familiar feeling of “no-one-knows-how-to-display, let alone market, your stuff…”

I went to bed for about a week, then I got the call.

Actually an email.

Leaked from the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, saying I had “made it in.”  Into the Biennial, that THING where the fancy-people came to my house last March.  The news that all the artists (five or six from each of the five states) had been selected, and I was on the list!

Rapture!

Finally!  SOMEthing!

Friends and family alike were wowed and celebrated my fortune with me, all the while saying, “so what did they want?  Like, for the show?”

To which I had to reply again and again, “I- I don’t KNOW, I HOPE something of my Lee Harvey Oswald Love Triangle stuff-!  I mean, I heard that in one of these biennials they toured a Virgin Mary made of Human Waste, so surely a diorama of myself tearing open Lee Oswald’s shirt while another doll of myself dressed as a woman, holding a Black baby, ravages him too, couldn’t be TOO too controversial?!”

Well, the weekend went by, and finally I got an email and a call, and as it happened they had been taken with a body of work I did some time ago – in the early 90′s, a gigantic body of 2-D mages of myself playing all the members of an Ideal 1950′s Family, essentially done “the old-fashioned way,” using cut and paste of several photos of myselves as the different players, and then those images were placed in vintage scrapbooks, representing “family albums” of said fictitious 50′s family.

A Kimble Family Album.  That’s me and me and me and me in the snapshot there…

Part of a “Flow Chart” I created to show the curators how images appeared in said albums.  The snapshot I am pretending to insert represents the Nuclear Family Christmas.  Again, any and all people are myselves.  I even captioned them in that odd white ink they used in the dark ages…

I guess I hesitated a BIT too long when the curator in Scottsdale asked me if I was “happy with their choices?”  I SO wanted Me and Lee to have been touring, but -

I recovered as fast as I could, saying “why of COURSE, gosh, yes, why, just to have it show in your gallery alone, in SCOTTSDALE, let alone a two-year tour to 4 other STATES, I mean, wow…”

Long story longer, later we spoke and I was informed I could include some of my newer work, as long as it was related, if I wished.

Well now!  Maybe Lee and I had a chance after all…

One day I will procede, in another post (or six or eight) about the Hows and Whys of Me and Lee, and who and what “Dottie” stands for – Dottie is my 1950′s Donna-Reed alter-ego, my very own Mrs.-Beaver-Cleavor, and over the years she has endured.  Since I created her in the 1993 or so (I remember coming up with her name while bathing one night, “either ‘Fay’ or ‘Gay’ or ‘Gaylene’ or maybe ‘Dottie…’), she was the matriarch of the aforementioned 50′s family I documented in faux 1950′s snapshots, she starred in my videos, also with the family (all myselves), and even did parties (Dottie made me $5oo one night at a Trade Show, just being herself at a corporate event for Campbell’s soup and other big food brands).  Dottie was recognized in a line of advertising for the then-new Buca di Beppo Italian food restaurants, she (and some members of her family) represented the face of Buca, in the form of ads and postcards, posters and print ads.

Dottie, seen here in San Fancisco, 1957, loving the novelty cable car she just bought.

That happy marriage ended when Buca got BIG and went with other ad agencies and a whole new approach.

But Dottie never died.  Nor faded away…

Since I got tired of physically appearing as Dottie, putting on the makeup, shaving my beard, squeezing into vintage dresses that weren’t fitting so well anymore, I started making dolls of her.  THEY starred in the videos I did and slapped on Youtube, THEY acted as the fodder for a continuum of her never-ending mid-century antics. the Dottie DOLLS could do everything I did as Dottie and more!

Including shacking up with a handsome, hirsute, heavenly Lee Harvey Oswald.

An early shot of a Dottie Doll with a Lee.  This was before I learned to make either Dottie taller, or Lee SHORTER, so his cute diminutiveness and my physical domination would be obvious.

But this wasn’t THE Lee Harvey Oswald,  no, he was my reincarnation of Lee, the Lee that would now have a fun new lease on life, the Lee that so fancied Bunnies and Lollipops to Rhetoric and Wife-beating, HELLO KITTY to HANDS OFF CUBA, and Roses over Guns.

“MY” Lee was perfect. 

Well.  Not everyone’s ideal maybe, occasionally flushing a handbag down a toilet (quite by accident) or stepping on an errant bit of cereal while putzing about the kitchen and forgetting to use a wet finger to pick up the crumbs, and prone to sitting splay-legged on the floor with his fire truck and a plush toy; but macho enough to save me from everthing from overflowing toilets to the Joan Blondell Monster, a giant in the form of the actress circa 1964, who threw enormous dinner plates and cackled with wicked glee.

Lee was Dottie’s hero.

I mean, look how Protective and Husband-ish he looks up there, in his handsome red Eisenhower jacket in our cozy 1950′s time capsule.  Who WOULDN’T want that.

Lee was Dottie’s hero, yes -

And mine.

Since I invented Dottie, and I RE-invented Lee, of course I adore him too.

As it stands, Dottie and Paul and Lee form a bizarre union, a sort of Love Triangle, in which Paul and Dottie fight for his attentions, but not too much, as we are one in the same, of course, and whether Lee is able to figure it out is not relevant.  He loves me, he loves Dottie, he loves me AS Dottie, and if Dottie is really a woman, or a man, does he know or care?

And then there’s our Black baby.

But again – another post.

So, I had really hoped some of my latest obsession would have made it into this show, I mean, I am so THRILLED to be GAY and BLATANTLY in LOVE with “my” version of a - om - (let’s say ‘notorious,’ I hate ‘assassin,’ I don’t think he is/was, and besides, there is none of that suggested in my relationship with little Lee) oddball like Lee Harvey and READY to THROW it out there and just politely smack the world in the face with it…

A recent incarnation of the New Perfect Family, using my Handsome Medium Lee doll (the 17-incher), a Large Dottie and a Large Paul doll.  Oh, and I DID say Lee was hirsute, yes?  Yes, yes I did.

Not that I expect a resounding cheer, or a groan, or anything, just, knowing people have to wrap their brain around it for even a few seconds in an exhibit would delight me beyond recognition…

So, after hearing I could put “something new” in with the 50′s Family stuff, and knowing full well Dottie was the Common Denominator here, as she is always in 1950-something, as was/is Lee, then why not-?  I pitched it, and they seemed to “get it,” so, without any real carved-in-stone yay or neighs, I went and sought out ANOTHER Lord Asriel doll, because I was NOT surrendering my Handsome Hunky Lee for 2 years.  YES I have other Oswald dolls, but…

However if he WERE to go on tour, well, I would certainly want to represent him with my Very Best.

And that meant the Lord Asriel-guy, IF I could find another…

It took some searching, as he was getting harder and harder to find now, the ONE that I saw on Ebay a few weeks ago was at two-hundred and sixty something (that’s not to say there isn’t one there now going for $3, but…) and simply unaffordable.

Finally I located one in a doll shop in some mall in Northern California, and snapped him up.

He arrived soon enough, and I opened him, and there he lay in his paper-board coffin, tied down with satin bows and bolstered with custom-cut foam rubber…

And he had rooted -

AAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!  The rooted-hair thing again!  HOW exactly had I done that the first time arou – OH!  And he’s seventeen inches tall, and my original was so lovingly detailed; and OH!  This thing’s BLONDE and SMOOTH and MY Lee was brunette and hairy chested………….

I had to re-invent the wheel.

I had to re-build him, per the opening narrative of “The Six Million Dollar Man.”

Could I do it?

The image above, created prior to this writing, indeed shows I DID, but oh…

I was afraid to even take Lord what’s-his-face out of the BOX let alone try and recollect how I “dyed” his hair, configured the several paint colors to take his face from a way-too-youthful somebody-or-other named Daniel Craig; to alter him, to enhance him, to bring out and accentuate the lovely youthful musculature the doll company had endowed him with…

And the way Handsome Lee LOOKED at him when he arrived – like it was – some sort of THING -

In fact, after Handsome Lee took one look at this – this THING in a coffin with gay bows securing him, he flattened himself against the side of the box, his palms cold and sweaty, and TREMBLED:

Obviously traumatized, my Handsome Lee is a bundle of nerves.  I held him for a long time and told him it really was okay…

It was like starting from scratch, to make a CLONE, for all intents and purposes, an EXACT replica of my baby.

My beloved Handsome Lee, a.k.a. Handsome Medium Lee (remember, there’s that 28″ one), a.k.a. my Wee Harvey Oddball (as I very recently re-named him).  Sometimes Smallswald, but rarely.  Lee is quirky and cute and odd.  Oddball.

And this had to happen quickly, if he is to be accepted, as everything is packed and shipped away for the first leg of the tour in early August.

I started with the body hair.

THAT process is not at all unfamiliar to me, having done this for years with everything from the Common Ken to a recent incarnation of Anderson Cooper (though I know he’s plucked as a pale pink chicken, but *I* take license here).

It involves a brutal CARVING of individual hairs on the doll body using everything from sharp manicure scissors to an awl, then smooshing the desired shade of paint into the grooves, PRESSING it in to these grooves with all one’s strength, then wiping away the excess.  Essentially a rub-and-buff method.

It works best with hard plastic hollow bodies, versus the solid rubbery-vinyls – though it CAN be done, I opt for a dremel tool with the latter.

Yes, it might seem like painting it on with a brush or even using a fine point Sharpie would be easier, but it rubs RIGHT off when you try and yank a pair of pants over their furry little legs.  And Sharpie will bleed eventually.

Here’s a small (12″) Lee Harvey photographed in progress with chest hair carved in, and newly filled with paint:

I like his sideways-glance here  – sort of like that curiously broooding 1959 Barbie.

So grooves filled with paint it has to be.

But Medium Lee (Asriel) is BIG, and oh, all that carving, it was just – so – DAUNTING this time around, and ya can’t just carve random slashes and think it is going to look good once painted, no, there is an art to male body hair.  It grows a certain way.  There are patterns.  Even on the wooliest, most randomly fuzzy types (not MY types, but everyone has their favorites) have a PATTERN.

Try inverting your cat.

Or dog.

Peek at their tummies.

If they happen to be of the shorthair variety, you will note a distinct “line” running down their middle, almost like a seam, from their collarbones to inside their thighs.  And from that line, on either side, blossoms a mirror-image of the fur growth.  This is, in my opinion, very much along the lines of being Diametrically Opposed, only with fur. 

Or, in the case of the human male animal, hair (but many of us like to call it fur…).

Same with legs, arms, thighs, etc, there is a METHOD to the mad random-ness, and one has to have some comprehension of it before leaping into body-hair carving.

Here is a perfect example of the Diametrically Opposed Chest Hair Pattern Concept, except not on a cat:

I know – eesh – extreme, but the symmetry is violently obvious here.  And NO, this is not me, though it appears obvious the subject IS photographing himself.

So, with this in mind, hairs are carved – and it is NOT a quick, easy thing, even on a 12-incher like a Ken.  The legs being the most difficult, and the intricacies of the Sexy Furry Arm -

Note the stunning way it “meets” itself – nice.  And difficult to simulate on a doll’s arm which is about as long as your middle finger…

Gad, I am SO digressing, another post on Male Body Hair is obviously in order – but you can see a bit of what is involved, and I had to do this ALL TO LEE.

Now.

Lee Harvey Oswald, to the best of my knowledge, was NOT extremely hirsute – he had the token amount, but fewer than four pictures of him Totally Topless exist, and of course they are terrible, over-exposed, black and white, and unflattering – but he looks nothing like that chest up there, and I don’t aim to have him look like that, it just sort of – happens.  I guess there is a bit of not-so-subconscious wishful-thinking going on, but BELIEVE me, I DO start him out with just a nice thatch, and somehow it gets out of hand…

I am thinkin’ Real Lee looked much like THIS image I dummied up using a slender, lightly-furred gent I found in a Suggestive Youtube video, which I then added the only-existing CLEAR color photo of Lee’s head to:

God I love that.

Even the Grumpy Puss.  Total Bad-Boy look -

anyway…

Some photos of him, sadly the Arrest and Post-Arrest photos are all I have to go on as far as Lee’s Fur Factor, like this delicious one in which he was being wrestled out of the Texas Theater by a mob:

When I found THIS picture, which I had seen a hundred times cropped only to show the faces, UNCROPPED, I nearly died on the spot – LEE HAS A TREASURE TRAIL,  a.k.a. a PLEASURE Trail; a – a – HAIRWAY to HEAVEN, as a female friend noted (apparently that IS a real phrase, she and her little ‘tween friends used it in high school).

Again, another post on Lee’s Body Hair is ABSOLUTELY in order, and soon this will come.

Too, many of the post-arrest, being-led-down-the-hall-by-coppers images (similar to the black and white ones toward the top of this post) show a delightful tell-tale tuft emerging from the top of his bent out of shape tee-shirt collar.

He definitely had SOMETHIN’ goin’ on under there, he WAS twenty-four, after all, and Secondary Sex Characteristics had certainly had their way with him for a good several years-worth.

In a way it’s almost nice NOT knowing, I mean exactly what he packed under the hood and how much, so I can merely fantasize, and, if I want MY Lee a little (or a lot) furrier, than so be it.

My Lee might even be a little older, too, say, 29 or 30.

So began the hairing process, before I dared attempt the dye-process on his head-hair, LET ALONE THE FACE, which I was going to have to copy almost exactly.

I had gotten some new tools for this act, including some new dremel tips, a fresh awl, some new tiny scissors, and something I had never tried before (and will never try again), a wood-burning tool.

The awl and an old box cutter gave me the size and width of groove I needed.

Raw Umber acrylic paint was rubbed into the grooves, and he was done.  I think I did a limb or two a night, then set him down and unwound a bit before moving on with other, unrelated activities.

I could not afford to mess him up.

This done, I then used a varying palette of flesh-colored paint to shade and enhance, so that the doll no longer has that all-one-color look.  Often doll manufacturer’s molds have a lot of detail that sadly go unnoticed, dimples, forehead wrinkles and crows feet – because the “flesh” is all one solid color.  By going in with a small brush and some contrasting shades these details can “pop,” and make all the difference as far as realism vs. a store mannequin goes.

I also “paint on” features, such as a suggestion of a rib cage, or veins on the arms and hands, and appropriate shading where muscles and ligaments lie.  Much as I were doing a two-dimensional painting of a man, I am now painting these subtle highlights and shadows ON the man.

Lee had a beautiful neck, and that muscle leading from the ear to the center of the clavicle – I want to say “sternal mastoid,” but I think that is wrong (and I took anatomy and life drawing in college!), is just stunning, as was his defined adam’s apple.  Lee didn’t have the strongest chin and jaw, but that neck…

And so, this step completed, it is time to move on to some further Manscaping in the Fur Department. 

Or lack thereof…with my Fantasy Males, my jungles of Man Fur tend to grow a little wild…

As you have noticed, my Handsome Medium Lee has ACTUAL chest hair too.

This was something I do with the larger dolls, as it “reads” better in photos and videos (when light plays off of it) and also adds a terrifying aspect of realism to them that turns some on, while making others run away.  Far away.  It’s either one or the other, few are indifferent.

A photo of my Handsome Medium Lee taken last May, after a re-furring.  Having him dressed in confining suits and even loose casual button-downs smashes down the vitally sexy nest of armpit hair, so if fluffing doesn’t work, I just – ADD MORE:

Yeah, well, some of that chest-hair “symmetry” flew RIGHT out the window here, but hey.  I am seriously thinking of “trimming” this, my original Handsome Medium Lee, as the NEW doll’s chest TURNED OUT BETTER.

This OLDER image, while generous with the Fur, but before last May’s Fluffing, is probably a bit more accurate to Real Lee’s Fur Factor.  In this image, Dottie is teaching Lee the Four Food Groups:

Obviously he is seeing THROUGH all this nonsense, as he knows full well all of the Four Food Groups are realized right there in that TV Dinner.

Tufts and curls are key in a Lee.

Well, with any studly doll, as far as I am concerned.

Some criticize my abundance of Fur on my Fantasy Males, but, as I say, one can love it or leave it.

Lee does NOT, and never WILL, have hair on his back, as I just simply don’t go there.  There are those that do, however, and that is fine, but not for MY baby.

This Furring process uses actual “curly doll hair,” as sold in craft stores.  It is available in black, brown, blonde, etcetera, and is just marvelous.

Though it appears I have just slathered it on, again, there is a method to the madness – tiny individual “locks” are cut and pre-arranged on the body before delicate dabs of hot glue are dotted on the torso and the locks quickly pressed into place (many a burn to the fingers has resulted from this act, so I now prep my digits with duct tape – rubber “fingertip gloves” will melt).

Often it fails, and I get a Glob.  A messy clump filled with dried, whitish flakes of useless hot glue.

I yank it off (he does not cry out) and try again, and again and again, if need be.

Pits are the trickiest.  I don’t EVEN want to enumerate the terrors of effective, fluffly pit-locks. 

I mean, they have to look effective when the doll’s arm is down, AND up and splayed, and the way ball-and-socket dolls are built, not everything looks “real,” anatomically, so I have to adjust for this when it comes to pits.

In this Boudoir Shot of Handsome Medium Lee (yes, I love that doll so much we have PHOTO SHOOTS), the nice tuft of hair you see ‘neath his bicep was placed there for the photo, not actually glued down, simply because when the arm is down, that hair there would not make SENSE, and if arranged as it is here, his actual glued-down hair would not show at all.   Hard to explain.

VIOLENTLY Sexy.   Subjective, I know.   And yes, there’s HELLO KITTY, this is MY Lee, the Softer Lee, remember?  : )

So, I got his Actual Fur all in place, the most time-consuming process, and, what with a wicked hot glue gun dripping nearby, an often painful one, but not nearly as nerve-wracking as the FACE paint.

But there was the hair on his head to do yet (how many times DOES the word hair appear in this post, anyway?).

Thank heavens I did not have to STYLE it, Real Lee parted it severely on the left, and it just took some minor pushing and shoving to accomplish this on the Asriel-guy.  And though the doll’s style is long in back, I wasn’t going to mess with cutting it, I just sort of pinched it together and held it in place with a lot of paint…

I did it like I sort of remembered doing it years ago, blotting and tamping and keeping it all very wet and fluid (I was standing over the bathroom basin), and running the paint (again, raw umber and black) through again and again, and if it clotted, I immediately worked it out with water.

I know REAL Doll People can color-dye doll hair like nobody’s business, but, I am not a Real Doll Person.

And this was not one of those that had a mere removable wig, as other dolls in this company line do, no, Asriel/Lee’s is ROOTED.  So it was desperately important I not get any stray paint on his face or neck or ears, and if I did, all actions halted while I wiped him off with a Q-Tip.

I liked how, with the first Medium Lee, some of the blonde actually came through, not enough to look streaked, but enough to add a glistening highlight here and there, and I worked to achieve this again, and, happily, succeeded.

This time around I used a mustache brush to work through the hair again and again to ensure an even coat, AND keep the hairs AS hairs, that is, individual and combable – not that I would ever comb it any other way, or try and give him a mohawk one day, but because I wanted to keep the integrity of REAL hair.  I mean, if he’s gonna have pit-locks, well, then, it’s only fair his more widely visible head of hair LOOK like hair.

This done, I capped the paints and went to bed, heaving a sigh of relief.

Only the face-paint was left.

This preyed on me, this was harrowing.

I mean, I have done MANY Lees (well, only like eight or ten), but each one was a different doll which required some minor variations in the facial expression by default, but this time I had to make an EXACT DUPE, and I could not afford to make a mistake, given how much this dang no-longer-produced Lord cost…

And tempest was fidgiting (or, however that phrase goes).

I think I did it a day or two later, when I was in JUST the right frame of mind, had gathered up my patience, was not keyed up about anything or otherwise hurried, nothing pending the next day that suggested I retire early, etc., conditions were FINE.  So, armed not with photographs this time, but with my one and only ORIGINAL Handsome Medium Lee, I proceeded.

I guess in some ways it was easier, using the other doll (who was constantly accidentally h*mping his twin, but necessarily so, so that I could see them crushed side by side at all times) for comparison.  This way I could see, up close and personal, and copy each brush stroke exactly the way I had placed them years ago.  It was not unlike an abstract game of Follow the Leader, really.

The beard-shadow was a little tricky to emulate (I use a watered-down blue with a tad of umber in it), as it was at times too much or too little, but using my thumb as a either a sponge or an eraser, to tamp or to wipe away, I was able to get it almost exact.

And before I knew it, the hardest part was DONE!

AND I WAS HAPPY WITH IT.

And I had prepared in advance an exact set of dog tags (Lee had been a Marine, and whether he wore them all the time or not, there’s something to be said about them lolling around in all that chest hair), an exact replica of his outfit, his undershirt, shirt, everything, so all I needed do was dress him.

But of course I didn’t.

The look of the two of them Topless, standing on either side of the Paul doll, the literal DREAM of a Lee-Harvey Double-Date realized, was just too much.

Too Sexy for their Shirts.

So at this moment, as of this writing, we are all still arranged as seen in the opening photograph, strolling merrily down that  Polka-Dot Road (which is, incidentally, my trademark dinner jacket, made in minature many times over for the three Paul dolls I own).

Twins the Lees may be, but BOTH are

The “Good” Twin.

So.  He is done; the Mad Scientist succeeded in Cloning Lee Harvey Oswald, and is most Pleased.

The new one, as I said, is on the right.  Though his watch is a bit too modern (that is the only thing I did not have an exact dupe of), the chest-hair is somewhat more natural, if he were a hairy guy that is, and he has a bit more of a smirk going.  It just happened, and I liked it.

Friends and family alike asked and warned me, “what if you like the new one BETTER?” and I had said “no way.  NO way, my Original Handsome Medium Lee is my one and only!”

But now…

I had talks with Original Handsome Medium Lee, as naturally he had jealousy issues from day one, when he saw that thing laying smooth and blonde and glassy-eyed in the box, assuring him that there would NOT be any favoritism, that the thing in the box was merely acting as an imposter, a dummy-Lee, an ambassador, a clone.

Still not entirely convinced, I told him, that if it made him feel better, I would NOT give the duplicate Junk.

No Junk. 

No Endowing.

Naturally, you have all been wondering if ANY of my Lees are thorougly anatomically correct, well, what do you think?! 

Yes, it makes it harder to get his pants on, and by no means is he some vulgar H*mosexual Fantasy wielding an Enormous Member, far from it.  It just – needs to be there, I’m going for realism, but don’t dwell in that area.  Chest and pit hair are where my priorities lie, but I LIKE KNOWING he has – that stuff - in there – and it looks nice when he’s in jeans.  But rarely do I see it, in fact never, save for when he is being completely changed.  I know you don’t beleive me, but it’s true.  I also keep him in white boxers at all times, so that boorish curiosity-hounds will have to WORK at it if they insist on trying to get a peek.  Rarely does this happen, but on occasion he’ll get passed around after a dinner out, say, or maybe a tipsy wedding-reception guest wants to have their way with him.  Generally they don’t get farther than lifting the cuff of a trouser leg to find the delightful visual feast of fur beneath (which really only serves to make them wonder what ELSE he has) and they don’t mess with undoing him, as it is work to unbutton a wee jacket, untuck the carefully tucked-in shirt, unbuckle the belt, undo the - well, you know.  In fact it’s easier to perform this in the heat-of-a-moment with a human, and a lot harder to do in miniature…

When he is in casual wear, with a button down and a v-neck tee underneath, I ENCOURAGE petting of his peeking tufts, either to creep folks out or tease and impress them that he is REAL and not a toy.   Often the curious politely ASK if they can touch his chest hair, what wee bit might be exposed, and I beam and comply, as I feel perhaps on some level this is appealing to some. 

All agree, of all my Lees, my Medium Lee is the best-looking, yet STILL resembles, and could not be mistaken for any one other THAN, notorious little Lee Harvey Oswald, and this pleases me too.  Sure, there are subtle aspects of other guys I dig in there, namely actor Joseph Fiennes, who has VERY similar features, and is Hollywoodishly more attractive in real life than real life Lee Oswald was, maybe, but…I like what I can’t HAVE!  (AS IF I could have Joe Fiennes…)  Others see a tiny bit of everyone from Harrison Ford to Parker Stevenson (all past crushes) in Handsome Medium Lee, and it only makes sense, I guess, since they are all my “types.”

So yeah.  New Medium Lee has Junk, but it’s only PAINTED ON.  It is satisfactory as a token attempt at dolling him up with male dirty-parts, and indeed, his pants DO slide on easier, yes (which is GOOD because the zipper on the pair of slacks I want him to wear BROKE OFF in my hand, so…).

Original Lee’s goods are NOT er*ct and naughty, merely – there.  I was not even sure what I USED as a _____ until I poked around in some of my “spare parts,” and found a few Naughty Key Chains I had gotten in an adult store in Chicago ages ago.  But how I adhered it, whether I used super-glue or somehow affixed it with a tab inserted into a tiny hole drilled into the doll’s mound, I do not recall.

Which is what makes Original, Handsome Medium Lee unique.  Not like any other.

And though I may re-work his chest to look a little more natural (my work HAS gotten better in the past few years, I guess), he is NOT leavin’ this house, even if the Met or the Guggenheim wanted him concurrent to the biennial tour, nope, nope, nope.

I love my Handsome Medium Lee.

I love his Clone too, in that “he worked,” and beyond that, well, he’s ready to go.  IF they decide indeed to take him. Yes, things are still a bit in flux, as one day they love the Dottie/Lee/Paul triangle, then the next day they think the family-album concept stands alone. 

THAT is fodder for yet another post.

But for now, I have a Lee on each arm, and am happy as a Pig in P*o.