This Is A Digital Painting Of Mrs. Ho, The Cook From The Wonderful Film Clue.  Mrs. Ho Was Played By

Alexander Graham Plane 1978

As the era of novelty telephones took hold in the 1970s, third-party phones of all shapes and gimmicks began finding their way into homes.   Most telephone companies were still discouraging the practice of customers connecting third-party phones to their lines, but interestingly-shaped phones caught on regardless.  Canadian phone company Northern Telecom addressed the issue with their own cute airplane-inspired phone.

The Alexander Graham Plane, part of Nortel's “Imagination” line of contemporary telephone designs, was one of very few novelty phones of the period to be actively manufactured and made available by a telco.

Acrylic on canvas, 7x5″.  From my series of paintings of historical telephones.

Today’s daily doodle is the Dreadful Flying Glove from the film Yellow Submarine, my favorite thing with which the Beatles were ever tangentially involved.

Even if, like me, you’re not all that much of a Beatles fan, see this movie at least once.  It’s beautiful.

Me as world-renowned and universally-beloved superhero, Italian Spiderman. Unfamiliar?  Watch this, read this.

Thrift shop clothes: $8

Fabric paint: $5

Cut-up cat mask: $6

Bagged wig: $10

Dodgy pornstache: model's own

Unlimited admiration and caffè macchiato from every woman who happened to glance in my direction: senza prezzo

Photo by Sidepocket

My performance at "Say Everything" yesterday, August 13, 2015, chatting with intrepid interim hosts Davey Stevey Dave and Babe Parker.

"Say Everything," the unique interactive standup showcase where comics eschew prepared material and just have a freeform chat with the hosts and the crowd, happens every Thursday evening at Paddy Reilly's Music Bar in Manhattan. More info at www.facebook.com/sayeverythingcomedy !

Digital portrait of a woman named Courtney I used to know, done in August 2005 with a smallish camera phone photo as reference.  Her hair was really those colors.

I didn't have a drawing tablet back then; all points and vectors were placed manually with a mouse.  That method, combined with the fact that I wasn't entirely comfortable doing vector-based art at that point, resulted in this being very slow work.

Also, OMG LENS FLARE!!!@#$%^&*

More The Wicker Man nonsense.  My extra-derpy Nicholas Cage from my earlier piece is now a brand mascot, paying tribute to another memorable line from that cinematic bee-sting.  Would you buy your next bottle of God Damn Honey from this man?

Inspired by the ending of this rather brilliant Wicker Man YouTube Poop.

Original photo by Flickr user TheTruthAbout (cc by-sa)

"Bell Odyssey" - This phone-phreaking-themed parody of David Bowie's "Space Oddity" was written by RBCP for issue 39 of the Phone Losers of America zine, which was released on July 27, 1996. Thirteen years later to the day, I released my own performance of the song.

The release date was entirely coincidental; I randomly got the urge to record the old track, spent a few days putting it together, and just happened to finish and release it on July 27, 2009.  RBCP later informed me that it just happened to be the song's 13th anniversary.  I blame the ghost of David Bowie; he isn't dead of course, but that's certainly never stopped him before.

Soon after I posted this, my colleagues at Off the Hook surprised me by using it as the closing song on the July 29, 2009 episode while I was away from the show.  RADIO AIRPLAY!

The genuine phone company recordings used in this track came from ThisIsARecording.com.

This song is downloadable as an MP3 from PLA's songs page.

My contribution to the Ghostbusters collab, now slowly being released at whoyougonnacollab.  I'm in some insanely brilliant company here, everyone's contributions are great!

I’m in a hurry, so let’s not dawdle. @rob_t_firefly

Callie and Izzy is an upcoming webseries it’s been my pleasure to be part of.  The show is by Nicola Rose, with whom I’ve previously worked on The Media Show and the musical Aisle Six.

More info coming soon, keep an eye on it!

Grace Hopper (December 9, 1906-January 1, 1992)

Rear Admiral Grace Hopper, USN, Ph.D., or "Amazing Grace" as she is often known to her admirers, was a computer scientist and programmer whose pioneering work on early computers as well as her amiably no-nonsense attitude when teaching continues to inspire.

She is known for distributing "nanoseconds," lengths of wire spanning the distance light travels in that amount of time, at her speaking engagements.

Acrylic on canvas, 7x5″.  From my September 2015 set Luminaries of the Hacker World.