Stainless & Granite: The Unenlightened Think It’s the New Black in Kitchen Design

In some households, the cacophony of couch potatoes screaming at the flat screen might smack of football season. At our house, it means I’m watching my favorite new porn: HGTV’s House Hunters, or its skinnier, richer and even bee-yotchier sister, House Hunters International.

Today was House Hunters International’s HGTV marathon. (I guess they don’t think my ass is big enough already, so they’re adding several hours to my non-aerobic activity). Imagine my delight and surprise when interviewing world-renowned artist Scott Hampton for Dave Dorman’s & my podcast, “It’s Comic Book Day” (free on iTunes, folks!) and discovering that he, too, shares my addiction. Scott summed it up best: “Who knew you could buy a chateau in the south of France for a mere $500,000?!?”

I’ve learned much from observing – and cursing out – these clueless home buyers. Are you selling a home in the near future? Take careful note. The new rules for staging homes can be summarized in a couple of bullet points:

#1. People today are way too stupid to notice the true and lovely bones of a home and the potential of its land. They will NOT see past the paint palette or wallpaper that somehow offends their precious sensibilities, so keep that wall cover neutral, folks! Just take your paint cues from some old Pottery Barn catalog (don’t worry, the catalog can be from 10 years ago and the design won’t have evolved at all) and be sure to fill a giant, useless and extravagantly expensive clear vase (say it like you’re from Connecticut and pronounce it “vaahhhzzz”) with useless balls that look like Martha Stewart rolled up some brown old grape vines after her Kobe beef herd shat on them. Wall colors can be khaki, ecru and egg shell. Don’t get too imaginative. Wall art must always be framed in black.

#2. The home could have a crumbling foundation and the most labyrynthine layout, but so long as that kitchen boasts “stainless steel appliances and granite countertops,” that home is…to quote our moronic ex-Illinois Guv Blago…”Effing GOLDEN!!!”

Every single time I see some uninformed couple walk into a kitchen and gush over stainless and granite, I scream at the TV. I’m confident Dave jests when he tells me I learned English from “longshoremen,” whatever that means. Surely Tony Robbins is intricately involved in some conspiracy…like the kitchen design lobbyists got to him, and the next brainwashing session he held down at his Fiji compound was dedicated to selling future home buyers on bad 1998 kitchen decor. Do these people just really not know what a pain in the ass it is to keep fingerprints off of stainless?!? Or how easily stainless steel appliances dent?!? Or how dated these kitchens are going to look in no time?!?

When I think of these house hunters, I can’t help but think of the lyric from The Police’s most excellent album, Synchronicity: “Packed like lemmings into shiny, metal boxes…contestants in a suicidal race.” But these house hunting lemmings are all converging toward one giant design suicide. From everything I’ve witnessed over countless episodes, home buyer individuality is deader than Paris Hilton’s welcome mat at LasVegas Wynn Properties.

All this talk of The Police has made me, in my true A.D.D. fashion, think of the hottest Baby Boomer on the planet, Sting. He should have at least a cameo role on my favorite vampire porn, True Blood. Don’t you agree?

Our New Podcast: Wednesday is Comic Book Day!

Hi Everyone,

Exciting news! My mother’s worst fear has come to light:  Me with a Microphone.  Actually, our new podcast will star Dave Dorman with me as co-host, but we all know who, of the two of us, manages to cram in the most W.P.M.  I used to think “motormouth” was a lingering moniker from my previous career as a TV writer/producer in  motorsports, but I’m realizing it’s not…so much.

The new Dave & Denise Dorman podcast is called “Wednesday is Comic Book Day” through Farpoint Media, owned by friend and client (and former Babylon 5 actor/producer) Jeffrey Willerth. We are relying on the help of producers Michael Mennenga and Denise Gideon to make the production levels ear-worthy. The content of the show will be a fun mash-up of interviews with our wacky cast of pop culture characters, comic book industry writers, publishers, artists, inkers, letterers, pencillers, colorists, retailers, indie guys and the occasional sidebar of something quirky that interests Dave, whether it’s surfing, technology or the latest episode of  TV’s “LOST.”

The podcast will be available via iTunes initially and we will post it here and on Dave’s blog, both of our Twitter accounts, FaceBook & LinkedIn accounts when it’s up.  Hopefully we catch your attention in one of those spaces.

Additionally, I’m so proud of Dave and his friends for their new scholarship offering. They are doing a great thing for some deserving young artist. Their COMIX ACADEMY is offering a full scholarship for their intensive, 6-day course, held in San Diego just prior to San Diego Comic-Con. The purpose of this course is to bring illustrators up to the level of a professional comic book artist, and then introduce them to pro comic book editors and help them get their careers started. As Dave always says, “If only I had this sort of opportunity when I was starting out…”

This weekend Dave will be doing sketches, remarques & signing autographs at the Planet Comic-Con event in Kansas City. I was slated to attend with him, but alas, my videogame project is in its final production throes and I needed to be on site to put those loose ends to bed. I wish I could be there, as it’s a heavy Star Wars-centric show. Dave will be doing a Star Wars panel on  Saturday afternoon; I will pay some lucky prankster $5 to stand up and ask him what Bantha and Ton Ton poo poo smells like…

I’m also finalizing an article for HD Roadie that I think you’ll all find pretty interesting.  I will be sure to post links when the production magazine picks it up.

This has been a great week for reconnecting with old friends, like Mark Voss over at Post Maridian in Chicagoland, a post production house I’ve worked with many times. He’s a terrific, funny and brilliant guy and we’re developing a creative collaboration outside of our everyday corporate work. As I know more, I’ll post more.  My guess? Horror related.

Many thanks to your eyeballs for their time & attention,

Denise

My First Coffee Spit Take for Today

Do you have that one stand-out friend in your life? The one you phone first thing most mornings to get your day started on a positive note? I do. Mine is Christina Bouvier, who has had a starring role in my life’s cast of kooky characters since the 7th grade. When you’ve known someone for 33 years, you can pretty much say anything to each other. We speak in shorthand. No need for formalities. No self-editing. Just plain old profanity-laden chatter that would send any man of the cloth running for his holy water. When my husband first got to know me, he said, “I never believed that women really talked like ‘Sex and the City,’ until I met you and your friends.” Mind you, our conversations don’t revolve so much around our own sex lives as they do our observations about other people’s sex lives, but no topic is off limits.

When I call, Christina shouts, “Go!” — her signal for me to start speaking staccato style, in an abbreviated download because we’re both always in one helluva hurry.

Christina Bouvier is a woman of few words, but hers pack a wallop. She ever-so-casually drops these bon mots that have me spraying my last gulp of coffee onto my computer screen. Now my laptop runs on Dunkin’, too. Take this morning’s phone conversation:

Her: “What the fuck is up with Stephen Colbert’s ear?”
Me: “Um, I think I read it was frost bite or something.”
Her: “Well, I wish he would stop tilting his head that way and hiding his God damned ear. Just show me the fucking ear already. I cannot even hear what he’s saying because I’m so focused on trying to see his God-damned ear.”

Christina Bouvier’s running commentary on public figures makes Kathy Griffin’s comedy seem like sunshine, rainbows and peppermint kisses. One night I was over there as the news was blaring in the background. It was toward the end of Pope John Paul II’s life, and the news footage showed him sitting on his throne during a church service, seemingly catatonic. Christina Bouvier, a former Catholic, briefly glanced over and said, “He’s just like that dead guy in ‘Weekend at Bernie’s.'” As I said, few words, but they pack a wallop.

One day, under total anonymity, I hope to get Christina Bouvier on a regular morning podcast so the rest of the world can enjoy that first coffee spit take of the day and hear what real women really say about real people. You know, like the not-so-PC conversations Gayle King and Oprah really have when that satellite radio audience isn’t listening.