I wanted to write something about the current New York City Subway Map:

It’s pretty bad. It’s beige, mostly. Beige and blue. It’s got a lot of weird charts and tables and pop-up bus routes all over it that no one looks at because it’s ridiculous to think about buses when you’re trying to read a subway map. It looks like this:

Back in the 70’s New Yorkers used a subway map designed by Massimo Vignelli. It was pretty funky looking—unapologetic high modernism with lots of straight lines and 45° angles. Manhattan was so distorted it looked like a big fat geometric blob. Also, every single subway line was represented—instead of just having a single line to represent the 4,5, and 6 lines, you had three separate lines stacked side by side. And each line had its own separate color (magenta, almost magenta, green, slightly darker magenta, blue…) It looked like this:

It was really cool looking and entirely unusable. The idea of representing every line may have been a good one, but because New Yorkers walk around a lot, a subway map has to have some relationship to the physical world above ground and Vignelli’s map had none. The circuit-board-diagram-as-subway-map model may have been OK for fat Londoners, but when you have to squish the long rectangle of Central Park into a square to make your map look nice, something is wrong. Vignelli’s map looks as though it would take days to walk from the east side of Manhattan to the west.

But to this day he is unrepentant. Here’s Vignelli in an outtake from the very fun film, Helvetica, wanting to push his design even further toward absraction.

Helvetica came out a few months ago. It chronicles the competing design philosophies that emerged worldwide in the last half of the 20th Century and tells that story by examining the use of the very ubiquitous typeface, Helvetica (slightly eclipsed these days by the Microsoft copy, Arial.)

Strangely enough, the original Vignelli map wasn’t set in Helvetica but a late 19th Century look-alike called Standard (to confuse matters even more, Standard is a version of the typeface Akzidenz-Grotesk.) Today almost all New York City Subway signs are set in Helvetica. Other big cities like London and Paris do their signs up in their own custom typefaces but New York is having none of that—we’re too cheap, I guess. To cheap for a unique identity…

But back to maps. The best alternative offered up to the current subway map is from Eddie Jabbour’s Kick Design studios. Jabbour’s Kick Map combines the best of the Vignelli map with the best of the current design. Why the MTA decided to pass on the Kick Map (he presented it to them a couple of years ago) is beyond me. Here’s what it looks like.

Here’s the even better looking pocket version.

It’s so cold outside. I’ve lost my love of Winter. A cold snowless Winter…

[EDIT: Arial was actually designed for Monotype (not Microsoft) in 1982. It was first bundled with Windows 3.1 in 1992. Also, the Vingnelli Map looks like it was done in Helvetica although the original signage was in Standard.]

This weekend I flew to Las Vegas to perform my act at Caesars Palace.

I know—it’s weird. And slightly implausible, but I will try to explain.

A couple of weeks ago, I was notified that I was a finalist for The Andy Kaufman Award. At Dyna’s urging, I had submitted the Kaufman-esque “Welcome to my Study” to the online competition and now I was told that I was going to be flown out to Vegas to perform it at The Comedy Festival along with 7 other finalists.

Hearing the news, I flew into a panic. I was pretty sure that “Study” would bomb big on stage, seeing that it was never intended for the stage and is funny largely because of its weird edits and intentionally flatfooted camera work. Me pulling stuff out of drawers on stage = loser.

So I quickly and nervously cobbled together an act that had a “Study” vibe to it, but was intended for the stage. I came up with a deadpan slide show with musical commentary called “A Catalogue of Fruits.”

So I was carrying a huge, heavy slide projector and carousel filled with generic pictures of fruit as Kaveri and I flew out of JFK on Thursday morning.

We touched down in Las Vegas and it was there I saw that Nick Gibbons—a Texas transplant to New York and creative force behind a lot of funny online videos (including some Channel 102 stuff)— was also a finalist. He was bummed that Dave Thunder wasn’t with us; I was bummed that Rob Lathan wasn’t with us. We were bummed—bummed, but happy to be in Vegas.

Vegas was great! Kaveri and I had an awesome mini-vacation. The room that they put us up in was gorgeous and huge—look at little me in the enormous bed!

Look at Kaveri!

Look at the ridiculously opulent lobby of Caesars Palace!

Las Vegas is like one big architectural joke—as artificial as Disney World, but for adults. Mister Glasses wouldn’t have liked it, but I thought it was great. The hotel New York, New York is particularly fascinating, with its crazy mashup of New York landmarks and vernacular styles.

Is the Whitney Museum really a landmark?

But just like with guilt-ridden sexual encounters, what happens architecturally in Vegas should really stay in Vegas—the architectural mess imposed upon the public spaces of America by the disciples of Robert Venturi and Michael Graves makes me very sad…

Sometimes in Vegas, architectural parody actually transforms magically into the real thing and you feel deeply moved. A case in point is the beautiful swimming pool area at Caesars Palace, with its Roman Villa and Temple to Apollo motif. Swimming in the three enormous pools, surrounded by mosaics, marble statuary and Cyprus trees, you somehow actually start to believe it. It’s great.

I didn’t get a picture of the huge pool area, so this photo from my hotel window (which was intended to show that there was a large construction area right near by) will have to suffice:

It was while swimming in one of these pools (not pictured in the photo), that Kaveri and I bumped into Seth Morris and Owen Burke. Somehow, Seth Morris looks like he was born to relax in a pool.

Here is a picture of the two of them drinking in the private lounge for performers:

Who else was wandering around the halls of Caesars Palace? Um, Nick Kroll was there. He directed a sketch show I was in a while back and now plays a caveman on a sitcom. Unlike a caveman, Nick Kroll seems to pop up everywhere you go. He must spend his time hopping from party to party.

Kurt Braunohler and Kristen Schaal were there. Yikes, they’re funny. I had seen them host the Hot Tub Variety show in New York before, but in Vegas I got to see them do a bunch more bits and they were amazing. Kaveri was crying.

I also bumped into Drew Droege who I know as LaShanda from the Channel 101 show “Classroom.” It turns out that he’s super nice. It also turns out he’s a teacher and performer at the Groundlings which is cool.

Andre Hyland, from “Cool José” and “Movin’ Moms” was there.

Maybe because the HBO folks didn’t want to pay to fly out a bunch of people from New York, the Andy Kaufman Award was a mostly LA affair—lots of people I didn’t know, but everyone basically tied to the same “alt comedy” circle of UCBT NY and LA. So I got to meet the very funny Paul Rust (who was a finalist):

Poor Paul—the tech guys missed one of the sound cues for his act, completely ruining one of his (two) bits. I think I heard him say onstage to the audience, “You know, it’s times like these when God seems to be telling you to quit the business.” Which was funny. He recovered really well.

Who else?…Chad Fogland. Um, there was the girl who was hanging out with Paul whose name I don’t remember right now. Shit. She was really good. She sang and did a puppet show.

Also, there was this woman named Mary Mack, who sang Eagles songs and had a thick Minnesotan accent. It was awesome.

The guy who won the whole thing was Brent Weinbach who was great and insane. Also, he made a point of telling me how much he liked my routine and we talked about how I made the “Why Fruits?” song. So that makes Brent cool.

So how did my routine go over?

It went over really well! I’m not joking—“A Catalogue of Fruits” was a hit. I had put it up at UCBT a week before and it went well, but it went over even bigger at the Andy Kaufman Awards. I played to a packed Ballroom of about 350 people. The lighting and sound system was frighteningly professional. Hopefully, I’ll be able to post a video soon.

Most touchingly, after the show was over, Andy Kaufman’s dad came up to tell me how much he liked my routine and that there was a lot of Andy in my performance. Wow. I was drunk at the time, but I nearly cried.

I saw Carrot Top in the flesh.

Everyone involved in the show—especially the HBO people who organized it—were staggeringly friendly. I don’t know. I have nothing bad to say.

The one thing that didn’t happen was that agents and producers didn’t surround me after the show and say, “Mitch—we really love the semi-autistic character you did up there and we want to put you in a show!” Oh well.

Ten years ago, the United States Mint came up with the cute idea of issuing a series of U.S. Quarters to commemorate all 50 States.

Each State was in charge of coming up with their own design and most of them ended up doing a pretty shitty job. If I were running the U.S. Mint back in 1998, I would have laid down a few more ground rules.

Like “no pastiche.”

Most of the State Quarters have this sad “designed by committee” look to them, containing every possible image associated with the State so as not to offend anyone. Quarters are pretty small, so when you start trying to squeeze four or five things on the back, no one can even tell what the hell they’re looking at.

Arkansas’ Quarter is pretty offensive in this regard, with its “diamond floating above a swamp” motif:

And then there’s Louisiana.

South Carolina’s is pretty bad too.

Why couldn’t these States have just bitten the bullet and picked a single image? If Arkansas had just picked a big diamond, They’d have coolest quarter out there. Louisiana’s Quarter would be great with just a big trumpet on the back. Instead, their quarter looks like dump. Why couldn’t they have been more like Mississippi—a State that ranks last in nearly every single category but Quarter Design?

Or North Dakota:

Or Connecticut:

So, rule #2 would be “just one image” (which is more-or-less implied by rule #1.)

Also, no one cares about the shape of your State. Nearly every design is guilty of including their State’s silhouette somewhere on the Quarter to little effect. Just give us a big racecar Indiana:

Strangely, the quarter that breaks no rules and still ends up looking like crap is Wyoming’s half-assed Cowboy:

A few of years ago, art galleries in Chelsea decided that Thursday would be the official night for opening receptions. Maybe they all got together and made a pledge, maybe all the gallerists’ biorhythms got synched-up do to their close proximity, maybe they all just wanted to get away for the weekend. But whatever the reason was, it’s now official—Thursday is the night. Bad news for me, because I almost always teach on Thursday nights and find myself constantly bummed that I was unable to attend so-and-so’s opening.

But I was able to go to some openings a few weeks ago and here is what they looked like:

Most of the galleries pictured run along 27th Street between 11th and 12th Avenues—that’s the cool place for galleries to be these days.

One of the galleries pictured is John Connelly Presents. John Connelly Presents has a real thing for Grolsch:

They serve Grolsch Beer at all their openings. I find myself desperate for a Grolsch every time I’ve set foot into JCP. It’s madness. And it’s not even a particularly good beer. But what it lacks in taste, it makes up for in design—the very satisfying metal and ceramic clasping cap makes drinking a delight. And I’m sure I crave it so much because the people at John Connelly love to hoard over their Grolsch, passing it out to a few chosen people at irregular intervals.

But last time I was at John Connelly Presents I was able to get a Grolsch.

I own a pair of ESS Heil amt-1 speakers.

You heard me right.

Back in the early 70’s my speakers represented the pinnacle of audio technology. Thirty-five years ago, long-haired Audio Dorks stood around classy showrooms and salivated over the bell-like clarity of my “Air Motion Transformer” tweeter technology.

Three years ago, Kaveri and I were given these cool speakers from a friend of ours—originally a hand-me-down from his audiophile dad. We were thrilled.

And so we treated them very poorly—allowing our frisky cats to use the speakers as scratching posts and tear the thick material that covers them to shreds. And pretty soon the speakers looked like shit.

So about 2 weeks ago, I decided to recover them with this cool fabric I bought at Mood, the fabric store made famous by reality television.

Now the speakers look like this:

I am crafty.

“Welcome to My Study,” the strange little show that Dyna and I threw together for last month’s Channel 102 screening has enjoyed a surprisingly long after-life after being killed by the audience.

It became a sleeper hit, of sorts and among its fans were the Big Honkin’ production team—creators of the current 102 show, “The Defenders of Stan.”

So it was flattering (and kind of baffling) when those guys invited Dyna and me down to DC to meticulously recreate “Welcome to My Study” as part of a show they were doing for a big broadcasting company. Their show is about the behind-the-scenes goings-on at a cable access station. “Welcome to my Study” is one of the shows on that station and Dyna and I play Mitchell and Michele, the strange brother and sister creative team behind “Welcome to my Study.” So we got to act like weirdos for several hours and got paid for it.

The Big Honkin’ guys have access to a big sound stage and were able to make a great version of the original “Welcome to my Study” set that looked like this:

In fact I kind of prefer it to the original set.

She’s coming over for dinner. I’m braising lamb.

“Braising? In Summer?”
“Yes.”

The Lamb Lady at the farmers market said, “braise it.” She also said the lamb was “slaughtered yesterday.”

Speaking of slaughtering lambs, it was strange stumbling upon a bunch of fake Goyard handbags hanging in the Canal street shops. As the gays and socialites will tell you, Goyard is a luxury French handbag company. And I used to work for them. Actually, I didn’t really work for them, so much as I was contracted out by Barney’s to monogram their bags.

—Staggeringly expensive bags made by a company that prided themselves on their exclusivity. I remember the salespeople at Barneys saying to customers, “unlike Louis Vuitton you will never see a Goyard knockoff sold on Canal Street.”

Yes you will. Here you go, public:

Back in the day there were art bars—the Cedar Tavern, Max’s Kansas City, Fanelli’s—but I’d be hard pressed to name a bar in New York these days where artists rub elbows (The Pencil Factory?) Also, artists don’t punch each other in the face anymore, which I suppose is sort of a mixed blessing—no one wants a punch to the face but I bet it would be fun to see an artist just punch a critic in the face at a bar. But if you put yourself in severe debt going to grad school, there’s the legitimate worry that you might ruin your career if you punched someone important. Best not to punch, really. Also, the philosophical stakes in the art world just don’t seem high enough these days to warrant a punch.

But even though there’s no real art bar in New York, there’s a comedy bar and that bar is the Peter McManus Café. It has delightful green booths. It has crazy old ladies. It has cops and other middle-aged men with moustaches. And then it has a bunch of young comedians.

It’s not as lame as it sounds.

I’m there every Tuesday night.

But, my God, it’s taking so long to complete this last “Sexual Intercourse; American Style.”

I’m throwing a party when it’s over. You’re all invited.

The first draft of the spec script was finished a couple of weeks ago (agents: that’s how fast/funny I am). Thanks for the suggestions.

Here is a picture of me and my smokin’ hot girlfriend, Kaveri: