TCR, making history... better!

Sooorrryyyyyyy…

Been a while, eh? I’ve been so busy.

You know how it is: you’re writing your blog, you black out, and when you wake up you don’t remember you were supposed to be writing. And then you get some other projects going, and suddenly a month has passed and you don’t remember the last time you ate.

In addition to my regular job (I’m now working at a lab where we remove all the unnecessary parts from monkeys—more on that later!), I’ve had a few pretty major projects on the burner. I’m writing a screenplay, for one. I’m afraid I’ve committed exclusive rights to it to another website, however, so even after it’s finished, it might be a day or two before I forget about that and post it here.

I’ve also been contracted to do the editing for an independent film, written by and staring two local homosexuals, and one of their girlfriends. As payment, I have requested that I get exclusive release rights (what goes around comes around), and so you’ll likely see it here before it hits your local multiplex. It’s a slow process though, and, to be honest, coming home late most days, covered in monkey blood, I don’t even feel like touching it.

Finally, I’ve decided to become a pioneer in the fledgling art/science of adding beards to presidential portraits. I’m not the first to notice that despite some fleeting 19th century interest, facial hair has very much been taboo among our commanders in chief. Many have speculated as to the reasons for this, but few have done anything to remedy the situation. I’m not suggesting that we petition living presidents to grow beards and mustaches—they’d loose all their bible belt endorsement deals, and so it’d never fly—rather, I’m amending some of the shittier parts of history myself.

It’s not easy work, and I’m still experimenting with the best methods. (Acid etching or computer editing? The eternal battle.) I’m confident, however, that my skills will increase with practice.

That said, here are two of my earliest examples:



Here we have George Bush Jr., our most recent former president. For all my amateurish efforts, I think it's already apparent that a nice beard would have served him well in office. Flying in the face (literally) of suggestions that facial hair makes a person appear untrustworthy, it seems to me that the beard goes far in addressing both President Bush's credibility problems (and whether those were truly deserved is debatable) as well as general drinkability. He's so much more... dignified this way.

I chose to go with a natural salt and pepper to enhance his air of age and respectability. There's no denying, though, that ol' W is something of a wild man, and so his beard also has a taste of the unkempt mountain man to it. Mission accomplished, sir.

And, with some hesitancy regarding the policies of the Secret Service, I present this new portrait of our current president, Barack W. Obama:



I had a little bit of trouble with this one, despite my strong feelings for Mr. Obama. See, I don't just add facial hair willy-nilly; I look for the traces of the presidents' natural stubble, and try to build off of how their beards _would_ be. And, as near as I can tell, President Obama is a natural goatee grower. And yet... I never would have pegged him as a goatee man. Nor do I see him as mustache-only at this point in his life. So what now?

A compromise: the goatee with a hint of van dyke. Natural and subtle, but with an undeniable air of sophistication. Much like the president himself, but harrier. This is a beard that, in all likelihood, speaks at least two languages and knows well how to light the dark corners of the female heart.

I don't know about y'all, but I'm already feeling this project. There's a lot to complete here (so many beardless presidents!), and I only have photoshop at work, but they said the same things to Columbus, and look where he went anyway. I'm in. Game on!

Note: My subject line, by the way, is in the process of being trademarked.Yet another project...