50 Questions (from MySpace)

50 Questions:

(This stupid thing was sent to me on MySpace. I'm gonna do it. Try and stop me!)

1. What is your name?
Doc Hammer. I was Eric Hammer for a while. In fact, that is my real name. Ya know, the one that is on my birth certificate. I used "Eric" for all my other crap that I did... Like the bands I have been in (or been), or for when I used to carve frames, or art direct a magazine... Shit like that. But In the grand spirit of drastic change, I am trying "Doc" on for size. I like the way it fits. I have a theory that you are only as cool as your list of nicknamed friends. So, you need a "Doc", or at least a "Smitty" in your life to really be cool. Let me be your "Doc".

2. What color underwear are you wearing now?
Black. They are Calvin Klein Trunks. I used to be all into boxer-briefs for their much appreciated support of my pendulous reproductive organs. But after discovering the "Trunk", I made the switch (change people... embrace it). The super-great thing about 'em is that they look like swim-trunks from 1935. They make me look like an emaciated Lloyd Bridges. And yes, I find that event desirable.

3. What are you listening to right now?
Placebo... Some song from "Sleeping With Ghosts" I think, not quite sure. It's an i-pod on shuffle.

4. What are the last 2 digits of your phone number?
71

5. What was the last thing you ate?
I had some Tai curry with fake (Tofu) duck last night. It was pretty good, but it was served on this huge plate. I was concerned that the open distribution of the food on the plate would make it get cold too fast. Why I have to make every experience in my life a new arena for anxiety and potential failure is unknown.

6. If you were a crayon what color would you be?
I'm a fucking chunk of wax... Consciousness would be unavailable to me. And let's say (for arguments sake) that I was given the "spark of life", I believe my only thought would be "Stop rubbing my head on that paper! It shaves my very scalp from me!"

7. How is the weather right now?
Yeah... fine.

8. Who was the last person you talked to on the phone?
Steph. A sitter who is booked to pose for me.

9. The first thing you notice about the opposite/same(if your gay) sex?
Carriage. Their overall appearance and the outline the create. How they hold themselves, their posture... shit like that. Then I guess I notice what the "thing" is. You know, the hairstyle choice, what kind of clothes the decided to wear that day. Then I end up on the head... And see if it is "paintable". It takes me a while to get to the secondary sexual characteristics when I first notice a person. Unless they have a remarkable and properly displayed set  of mammary glands. What? Like you never figured out what my "thing" is... Man, cut me some slack.

10. Favorite Food?
30 year old Gouda cheese. Cave aged. (This is not a joke. I would never hit "cheese" as a punch-line. That little "go-to" joke is as tired Rip Van Winkle.)

11. Favorite Drink?
Coffee... There is no contest on this one. And as for "soft drink"? I go Moxie. Yes, it tastes like medicine, I am well aware of that. But I'm telling you, it's so bad... it is good. You gotta try it. Just remember what coffee or wine tasted like to your adolescent palate. You can mature into Moxie. You just got to want it.

12. Favorite Alcoholic Drink?
Not a drinker... So I'm gonna take a chunk out of question 11 and go with Kalua. Or I could hit you with the drink I just made up... The Moxie Madman: A jigger of Moxie, one ounce of vodka, and a half packet of red Jello. Shake and serve over ice. garnish with a novelty pencil eraser of a monster's head.

13. Favorite place to shop?
Art stores... Come on.

14. Hair color:
Black and white. Or more like blond and Black. Nobody is gonna believe me here, but I still feel I have to explain why my hair is how it is. My hair grows in two colors. I believe it's a pigmentation problem or a birthmark or something. But my hair is naturally like this... Kinda. Because my eyebrows are black, I used to dye my whole head that color. Also, I used to enjoy looking like Dracula for some asinine reason. So, when my hair started to grow out, the blond started coming in. It made me look like I was balding or like my hair was floating on my head. The upkeep was an insane task I could no longer take. After an awkward period I call my "hat days", my blond grew out enough to no longer look ridiculous. And with the old black dye on the ends, and a natural streak in the font, I kinda liked it. So my hair now is me just creating a more "clean" version of a grow-out accident. As for the cut: I just go to Tiffany (Yes, I have a "Tiffany" cut my hair... She is way cooler than the name implies) and tell her "Sexy... Let's make it sexy."

15. Eye Color:
Brown. Not a big deal.

16. Do you wear contacts?
No. My vision is fine.

17. Top or Bottom?
Is this a sex question? Wow, it got all racy on me. And right after a question about my vision. Not very well paced, is it? Okay... Um, whatever is comfortable for both parties involved and works with the "moment" is fine with me. Honestly... What kind of person has preferences in such instances? They should be happy that somebody wants to share their body with them, and not get all picky.

18. favorite month?
I have no preference. I like the word "August" though. I always felt that it should be in the fall... It has an Autumnal ring to it.

19. Favorite Fast Food?
I will not eat fast food. The shit is disgusting. I don't even like thinking about it.

20. Last Movie you Watched?
The Life Aquatic, on DVD. And yes, I watched all the special features.

21. Favorite Day of the Year?
Stop it. It's questions like this that make me lose my steam.

22. Are you too shy to ask someone out?
Completely... I am too shy to notice when I am being hit-on.

23. Summer or Winter?
Fall... It is the season of change.

24. Hugs or Kisses?
It's dependent on the situation. You know how some of your friends insist on getting all continental on you when the say "bye", and give you a kiss? Yeah, that one is kinda too intimate for me. So in the casual "exit-dance", I go with the hug.

25. Chocolate or Vanilla?
Vanilla is kind of a gyp. It may be because it is usually presented as white, and it makes me think that whatever food it is flavoring is gonna be all bland. It lacks the "brown-gusto" that chocolate has. So I go with chocolate most of the time. But sometimes I get stuck with vanilla ice-cream at some party, and ya know... It's not bad. I might say "Hey, I should buy this someday, it has a refreshing cleanliness to it." Do I? No... I get chocolate again.

26. Do you want your friends to respond back?
To this? I don't think this has any questions that beg a response.

27. Who is most likely to respond?
People who have something they would like me to read.

28. Who is least likely to respond?
The lazy, the extra-busy, those without computers, the illiterate, arthritic people, lion tamers, the shamefull, the not-so-giving, ya know... that kind of thing.

29. What books are you reading?
I am trying to write Venture Brothers episodes. When I write, I don't like to read. I find that the language of a novel is almost infectious. I start seeing it creep into my writing. In an effort to be more me-centric and not get a head full of somebody's words... I try not to read novels when I am writing. I satiate the reading craving by either writing something that has no use (and that is where this very questionnaire comes in) or read dry-as-dirt books about painting/painters.

30. favorite TV Show?
Degrassi Jr. High (the Next Generation).

31. What's on your mouse pad?
Man, this must be an old questionnaire. Yet, I do use a mouse pad. I have a Mac laser mouse that doesn't track too well on some surfaces, so a mouse pad helps. My mouse pad is easily the ugliest, dirtiest, piece of shit that ever had the good fortune to be mass produced as a mouse pad. Black rubber with a sheet of vomit-green spandex glued to the top, and has cigarette ashes and oil paint ground into it. It came with a Radio Shack lap-top my dad got in like 1997. I love it.

32. Favorite board game?
All I do is paint and write... I try to fill the cracks with socializing. No real time for board games. But I will answer with "Pit". It came with an orange "front desk" bell.

33. What did you do last night?
I painted till like 2:00am then went back to my apartment. After a rousing episode of Degrassi Jr. High (the one where we find out Ellie is a "cutter". A classic!) I tried to sleep. The sleep thing became a futile waste of time when I got a good (this is relative) idea for a VB script. So, I got out of bed and wrote till like 5:00am.

34. Favorite Author?
I have no fucking clue... I love Balzac, Poe, Twain, Baudelaire (I know, more of a poet), Zola, J K Huysmans, Proust, the Goncourt brothers... You know the drill, 19th century stuff mainly. But I have also read every Raymond Chandler novel... So, I'm not a dogmatist.

35. Who inspires you?
People better than me at things I care deeply about. Nothing better than going to a museum and seeing a red-hot Rembrandt or Titian and feeling like a piece of shit. You just stand in the shadow of greatness and feel your knees buckle and your heart climbing up your trachea. I arrogantly feel that I alone understand what kind of oily miracle I stand before, and humbly give my choked-back tears as a sacrificial offering. I really should wear kneepads to museums. Ya know.. That's one of my biggest problems with a lot of contemporary art. When I stand before them I don't get feeling of looking into the eye's of god.

36. Butter, Plain or Salted popcorn?
Salted. I am thinking about that motor oil that they try to pass off as butter when you go to the movies when I say "Salted only".

37. Dogs or cats?
Whatever... I have a cat, Robespierre. Although that is a male name, it is a female cat. Almost everybody that has stepped foot into my apartment has had blood spill from the horrific blow of my cat's misguided protective impulses. She is not a bad cat. Far from it, really. She is the most beautiful calico I have ever seen, and sleeps in the bed with me, all cuddled up against my boney chest. She isn't one of those retched dismissive cats that live alongside of you. She lives "with" you. Sadly, she hates everybody but me. I guess it's not hate really, it's most probably fear.

38. Favorite Flower?
Tulip, primrose, lilly, and the oft maligned pansy. I have tattoos of all of them. I know what you are thinking: "Wow, tattoos of flowers... What a he-man!"

39. What do you say when you wake up in the A.M.?
"Why do we book voice recordings at 10:00? Everybody in the cast is a night person."


40. Do you still talk to your best friends from middle school?
Middle school was an awkward mess that my memory treats as a blurry vision of Colin McGratten punching the glasses off of Allen Snow's huge head. That's all I can remember. I think I blocked most of it out as if I were a victim of avuncular rape.

41. What's on your desk?
A G5 with a stack of external hard-drives (holding VB season one), two monitors (and for some strange reason, both of them have a dirty painting palette on top of them), the VB skull (a real human skull that I used for the VB title sequence and all of that crap), two spent packs of Winstons, a book of matches with a phone number written on it in sharpie (no name, and it looks my my handwriting... useless), an off-white pastel pencil, the worlds most gruesome mouse pad, and a black bakelite telephone from the 40s.

42. Rock Concert or symphony?
I don't go to "concerts"... I go to "shows", and if a friend of mine (or me) is playing, I go to "gigs".

43. Play or Opera?
Play. Nothing against operas. I simply can't afford them.

44. Have you ever fired a gun?
I have. No real story in that. I don't like guns... I don't like what they symbolize, I don't like the false sense of power they give people, and I am weary of those that like them.

45. Do you like to travel by plane?
No... I have Meniere's Disease. Go ahead and Google it if you give a shit. It's an inner ear problem, and it makes plane travel an extra-nightmare.

46. Right-handed or Left-handed?
Right handed.

47. Smooth or Chunky Peanut Butter?
I like that natural shit. You know, the kind that you have to stir because all of the oil has floated to the top.

48. How many pillows do you sleep with?
Two... I wake up with one.

49. City and State you were born?
Ledyard Connecticut.

50. Ever hitchhiked?
That is a strange ending question for this. It's kinda like "Okay, bye... hey, you ever hitchhiked?" Seems like a question that should have started this mundane MySpace missive (intentional alliteration, could you tell?). Oh, wait... No, I never hitchhiked.