Here's her message:

Friends and colleagues,
Summer greetings! I'm sorry for the mass email, but I have Blurgirl news that I wanted to share with all of you. Today, I'm launching my latest short film online. This film has also been chosen to travel around the world with the 2008 INDEPENDENT EXPOSURE, series this fall.
http://www.independentexposure.com/about/s...

The film entitled, 6º GEMINI, is an experimental short film about the insatiable drive for the power, wealth and domination of oil. The films' title comes from the Sabian Symbol system, which is a set of 360 images, one for each degree of the celestial circle. The Sabian symbol for 6º GEMINI, an image of grimy workmen drilling for oil, represents the avidity of knowledge, ensuring wealth and power at any cost, even that of human sacrifice.

The film also inspired a website that centers around all of today's issues regarding oil. It's a wild little piece that packs a punch! AND I won't mind at all, if you guys embed, suggest or pass the film along

See it all here:

http://www.whendoesitstop.com

You can also just watch it on Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJ9e1nET88I

Along with that, the Blurgirl website is FINALLY updated. Most of you have seen my past work, but if you haven't, you can now see my short films there, including 6º GEMINI under the SCREEN link.

http://www.blurgirl.com

http://picasaweb.google.com/evlbstrdjim/Ja...

See if you can spot the freepers!

The director of the play, a man named Hank who looked like Mutt of Mutt and Jeff

worked at the Armed Forces Radio and Television station on the base. He loved my death scenes and would howl with laughter at every rehearsal and performance, which only encouraged me.
After the play was done, Hank came to me to talk about a project he had in mind.
The only children's programming available to him was broadcast from the Cuban mainland. It was all old American cartoons dubbed in Spanish. (We also got sporting events days after they occurred, which made it fun placing bets with guys who'd been at sea.) Hank wanted to do a weekly children's show, but hadn't been able to find anyone suitable for a clown. He asked if I would be interested. How could I resist?
So, he arranged with my department head and my senior chief for me to have every Monday morning off to tape for the next Saturday, and "The U.S.S. Kiddie Hour" was launched.
Our hostess was Miss Patty. She always seemed to be hungover or sleep deprived, and had large, noticeably uneven breasts. I sacrificed a set of dress whites to make my costume, sewed orange hair into the dixie cup hat and put on combat boots, horn rimmed glasses and makeup. Seabag was born.
We would have five or six kids on each week, interview them, show cartoons and play a game or two.
We actually attempted to script the first show. We did retake after retake until the kids got cranky and we had to wrap.
It didn't take long for word to get around the supply department that I was now Seabag. There are many wild variations on the word seabag.
The cast and crew all got together to watch it that Saturday as it aired. And it sucked. It was forced and un-entertaining. I asked Hank to let me improvise the next show. He was a little nervous, as we had been out drinking together a few times during the play and knew how I could be. I reassured him that I wouldn't be drinking on Monday mornings and he agreed to let me try it.
It's amazing how liberating a costume can be. Sometimes, you aren't fully comfortable with a character until dress rehearsal. I considered the first show to be my dress rehearsal. The second one was much better. All I had to remember was which camera was on me and to watch Hank in the booth for cues. I stepped all over Miss Patty's lines, goofed with the kids and made self-deprecating jokes. I got real laughs from the kids and they applauded and cheered for the cartoons whenever I wanted them to.
Hank was much happier, though Miss Patty now became cranky. I don't know if he was sleeping with her or what, but she got him to let her be a little more free, too. I argued that the clown needs a straight adult foil. Oh, well.
We taped shows for several more weeks, and the waiting list for kids to come on the show grew longer and longer. The parents were more excited than the kids. I got into a routine of hanging with the kids before taping started to find out which ones were going to bust out crying or start jabbering their heads off and to get them relaxed and natural around me.
The improv also gradually got more "free," if you know what I mean. Soon, Hank was screaming with laughter, tears rolling down his cheeks, and you could hear him from the supposedly sound-proof control booth. There was a question about the humor beginning to get too adult, and we were asked to tone it down.
I was becoming famous. People, and their kids were starting to recognize me without my makeup as I went about my business on the base, to the exchange or the gas station. In the enlisted club I still got tons of shit from the other sailors, but there was a weird respect, too.
Then, someone had the splendid idea of a live appearance for Miss Patty and Seabag at a large picnic. This was fine for Miss Patty. She wasn't going to stand out like I was. But I agreed to do it. When I parked and got out of my car and started walking over to the cabanas, I heard a high-pitched squeal: "Seeeeeeeabag!!!!" About three dozen little kids suddenly turned and stampeded. This scared the shit out of me.
Kids were grabbing me, kicking me, trying to climb me, trying to kill me. I dragged the writhing mass over to the tables and did some shitty tricks I'd practiced being shitty at and got the hell out of there as soon as it was possible. Then I called Hank and told him no more live stuff. Kids don't think of clowns as being people. They apparently also think they're invulnerable. I was in some serious pain.
We went back to taping our regular shows and even did a Christmas show. But eventually my tour was up and I got orders for sea duty. The Communications Officer, who was in charge of AFRTS (pronounced A-Farts) went up the chain of command and to Naval Personnel to try to get me extended another year, but was unsuccessful. So we planned our last show.
Miss Patty announced to the kids and the camera that Seabag had new orders and would be leaving us. The kids all went Awwwww!
And, in my best Seabag the Clown voice, I said, "Aah-Yup! They need me in the Fleet."

It was brief, but glorious.
The End.

edit:
Mabus made me do this. She threatened to instill into me a fear of clowns. Now I must explain why I'm immune.

In high school, I was an art and theatre geek. It was all that kept me in high school. In the end, I didn't graduate because a hernia bestowed upon me during the weightlifting segment of PhysEd left me unable to complete one half of a credit.The Coach, who is still a nazi football coach at a local private high school, offered to let me clean the locker room in lieu of physical participation for the half credit. He didn't believe I had said hernia, despite the documentation of the physician, who was at the time the head doctor for the Kansas City Chiefs. The fucker hated me and I hated him. I declined his offer.

So, I needed a GED.

Now, the war in Viet Nam had just ended. I had absolutely no college prospects. I had auditioned for, and been accepted by the Actors Studio. I had also won some fine art prizes. I couldn't afford to pursue either one. My family was in no position to help me. I decided that a stint in the military was my only option to get to a slightly better future. Much like the economic draft we now have. The difference is that there was no war and no real national stomach for one. That alone made it more safe, although the military is inherently not safe. I next decided that joining the Navy was the best option. In addition to no battle assignments, I wouldn't have to shoot at people or have them shoot at me. Join the Navy. See the World.

The Navy recruiters arranged for me to taked the GED exam, and I passed.

I took that last summer after high school off. Completely. My parents never complained. It was probably the best three months of my life. But that's another story.

In August of 1974, I was put on a bus and taken to Great Lakes Naval Training Center, where they removed my freak flag and did their best to make me into a good, compliant Sailor. I learned to get up way too fucking early (O Dark Thirty), march, fire weapons and put out fires. And fold my clothes in a very certain way. Then, with the USN's expert testing guiding the way, I was sent to Meridien, Mississippi for Naval Supply School. I was to be a Storekeeper. The Army calls it Quartermaster. All of the terminology is weird. And that's yet another story I won't tell just yet.

After Supply school, I got my first orders. I was hoping for some really exotic duty. Something tropical where you could buy cheap electronics. But, no.
My first assignment was for a year in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. It was not considered one of your plum duty stations. Guam and Diego Garcia rank lowest after Gitmo. And only because it's closer. Also, the U.S. didn't have illegal prisons there at the time. Or fast food joints.

Fine. At the very least, I figured I could still draw and paint. It wasn't a ship, after all.

Nope.

The barracks down there were arranged according to the department in which you worked. (The Hospital Corpsmen had the best shit.) I got the room with the two biggest jock neat freaks in the Supply Department. They were stars on one of the baseball teams on the base. They strongly objected to painting with oils in the room. And they didn't drink. I needed an outlet.

Turns out, Gitmo wasn't near as horrible as everyone made out. There were Walk-Up Movies. Like drive-ins, but with canvas chairs set up, a hamburger stand and beer. And there was a theatre group.

They were auditioning for the musical "The Fantasiks," one of the longest running shows on Broadway (and also starring Kevin McCarthy of original "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" fame). I tried out and got the role of Mortimer, the Man Who Dies. Let's just say there was much physical comedy involved. We played for two weeks to great success, while I took metric tons of shit from most of my erstwhile peers.

To be continued. It's late.

The next morning/afternoon, whatever it was (we were very fuzzy at that point) we got started loading shit into every vehicle we had with us, including the sailboat. evlfthr insisted we get on the road that day. We had everything out in a few hours and thought, "That wasn't so bad." The hardest part was keeping all of the dogs and cats from around the trail...er...mobile home park out. Then evlfthr decided that those kitchen cabinets were pretty new and he didn't want to leave them behind. So, we had to take those down and rearrange the big truck to fit them in. Then it was time for more beer and to hit the highway. We each had a little walkie-talkie with us so we could coordinate on the road. We headed north for Oklahoma in heavy wind and rain. After turning right at OK City, we stopped in some other town and got motel rooms for the night. In the morning, we had a huge breakfast and hit the road until lunch. For that, evlfthr wanted to eat at some buffet/cafeteria place. So lunch took a very long time since we wanted to try everything they had. If we didn't like it we threw it at each other. (This was much better than the time fifteen of us walked into a Village Inn smelling from the skunk attack earlier in the day.)
The last leg of the trip was through the Ozarks of southern Missouri, with one more stop at a tiny little shack of a store for beer. And we finally rolled up to the house a little more than 24 hours after leaving Dallas.
We backed the big truck up to the house and opened up the back and started unloading. We got to the stuff at the very back, up in the space over the cab of the truck. evlbrthr K pulled a box out and a cat came shooting out of there. K just about shit himself, which we all found very amusing, although he didn't think it was funny at all. Republicans. And Jack, the one-eyed Labrador, chased the cat up the hill and into the woods, never to be seen again. The cat, that is. Jack came back.
The next day, we went into town to buy a shotgun for amusement.

edit:
Or was I supposed to tell you about the cat named Frank we used to have when we were but wee evlkds? We had heard that cats always land on their feet...

Now I feel compelled to tell the story of the cat.
My dad, evlfthr, used to live outside of Dallas in a trailer with his second wife. The trailer sat on stacks of concrete blocks. They were blessed by gravity and luck, because there was a lot of shit in that trailer. My mom would scold me, saying "It's a Mobile Home." She lived in a few, too.
Anyway, our repub evlbthr K, who works for the Evil Software Corporation as the Evil Software Guru in the National Headquarters of the Evil National Retail Corporation we all love to hate cashed in most of Evil Capalist Stock and bought a fairly sizable junk of property in the southern most part of the state. It was planned that evlfthr would move to this place, which was incredibly isolated and beautiful, and retire.

So, we had to move him.

We four evlbrthrs devised a plan. evlbrthr K would help me and TazKCMO rent a car (us being transportationally challenged at the time) using his Evil Corporate Credit Card. We and the fourth evlbrthr, M, would rendevous in Texas, where evlfthr had a moving truck ready to load along with his old Cadillac. evlbrthrs K and M each had pickup trucks. K was pulling his sailboat all the way from Phoenix.

We got there on a Thursday night. The place was already in the usual moving uproar, with boxes everywhere and evlstpmm barking out orders. Once the four of us and evlfthr, beer, whiskey and other fun stuff coalesced, and all of us.having driven for hours, nothing else would get done.

To be continued...

The doctor's prediction of my son's birthdate was Christmas.

As soon as I heard that, I decided I'd name him Jesus if he was born on Christmas day. And I said so at a social occassion that included my employer and fellow employees at the time. They expressed outrage that I would even consider such a thing, let alone brag about it. I challenged them with the pronunciation argument. I have met many Latino men and boys named Jesus. They didn't seem too upset about them.

Unfortunately, he was born twenty days before Christmas. It just wouldn't have had the same impact.

I am a Recovering Catholic, now an atheist. And, believer or not, the simple message Jesus is said to have taught is worth learning. Kindness and charity and peace. Not dogma.
Religion, as I see it practiced, is a self-imposed handicap.

I count my father as the original evlbstrd. My son is named for the both of us. He is evl3.