Beer Show Info!

January 30, 2009

Happy Birthday, Bernie!
Our play, BEER, opened last night for a preview & it was a blast. I relearned how to form a Windsor necktie, put finishing touches on the puppets, and operated the slide show from above the giant beer cooler in the Metropolitan Brewery. AND they asked me to design the labels for their next line of Beers! Life's grand.

Deep Breath

Painting up a firestorm for these puppets...
We open in four days! Life is laying it on beautifully, and I'm healthily contemplating its fleeting qualities:

My Baby She Wrote me a Letter

The band from our BEER show offered to play a special birthday song for me! Here's a little sneak peak. That's me on keys, so drugged out I can hardly keep my eyes open:

Yea! We're gonna be famous!

Puppet City, population: BADASS

Drawing, Cutting, Rubbering into the Night

and it's CRUNCH time.
If you weren't a flower, I'd buy you some flowers.

Back to Painting Rubber Molds on the Dining Room Table

Life Explosion, Ludicrous Speed

Larry Koek and his beautiful Seabull (Siebel) in progress. Expect nostrils, cowbell, a giant ring, horns, and luminous color pouring from its crevices. It is his ecstatic contribution to our puppet show, BEER:

My current sketchbook. It is painted with the Metropolitan Brewery keg logo:

The distillery next door. Was it salvaged from 2000 Leagues Under the Sea? Science!

An unplanned birthday party. I ran into a fella I knew in high school, Benny. There was much dancing & guilty pleasure:

A Special Word from your Favorite Foaming Ginger

The puppet show moves along!

PLUS

I've got some old paintings up in the Beans & Bagels coffee shop located across the street from the Montrose Brown Line stop. They're mostly from An Army of Lovers will be Beaten. Hurray, something is up somewhere!

Love,
Bernie

Drawings for Upcoming T-Shirts

Some T-Shirt designs for our upcoming NeoFuturist play, BEER!

The Same Deep Water As You

Over a week into rehearsals & life is great. It couldn't be going better. The puppets, T-shirts, and animations plug along here in my bedroom studio. Laura and Steve brought Curtis a cake tonight, as it is his birthday. I'm up late drawing while Bucket the cat stares at me, in the mysterious way that she does. There is a pretty good chance that I'll wake to her cuddling all over my face in the morning. I don't think I left anything out... Oh yea, I'm listening to really old Cure songs right now for some reason. Please, please make fun of me.

The New Shape of Being Nocturnal

Old Bernie McG will be up all night making puppets...

I've broken out the dusty AIM messenger business if you're ever looking for an intimate talk with your favorite ginger as he sews, saws, paints, and sketches his way through January. My screen name is PrinceEclipse after a fictional rapper that I haven't made any material for yet.

And here's a picture of my friend Julie wearing her gear for riding the CTA late at night. She sewed a couple awesome pieces for us recently while home from New York. Hurray:

Puppet Mania & a Visitor

So!
In the last few days we've cast some very successful rubber molds:

We've made some wild foam shapes:

We've turned our living room into a studio:

There has been some healthy work-shopping:

There was a pretty girl wearing Steve's reading glasses:

And we had a glorious Emily visiting from out of town.
She is dressed as a butterfly napping:

Rubbing with Rubber

Dan & I are in puppet building overdrive!

It feels a lot like that effect in Star Trek when stars turn into long skinny lines and your hair is being blown back as if riding in a convertible.

Everything Changes the Year You Turn 27

Dropping a fresh digilog, lovers.

The GOOD news:
Our Sansculottes play, 13 Dead Husbands, made the Chicago's Tribune best Fringe Theater list for 2008. Read the article by clicking here

The ALSO GOOD, IF YOU REALLY THINK ABOUT IT news:
Old Bernie McGovern is officially Artist Full-Time. Yep, turns out, the economy affects us all. The unemployment office will be a little spicier this week. It's never met the likes of this ginger! But truly, it is good. Think of all the puppets to build! Yes...