Lee.org

On January 21st the Flaming Lotus Girls made a presentation to “MAG”, the Metal Arts Guild of San Francisco. Olivia, Jordana and Charlotte made presentations and I helped out.

They spoke mostly about their personal experiences with the group and why they make art. It’s really quite a good talk. Skip to the end of the last section to see some fun fire art in the parking lot of the Fort Mason Center.

You can watch the whole presentation here
http://lee.org/flg/MAG

(flash video done with Flash Media Player)

The theme for Burning Man this year is “The Green Man” which everyone keeps interpreting as “The Environmentally Sensitive Man” even though …. take a look at what Wikipedia has to say about the Green Man, you’ll notice that there is no mention of such.

Well, I overheard this email on the interweb (when your eyes glaze over, just look below):

Thanks for your email and inquiry: kudos to you for seeking out the best environmental option for your art piece. Our service is like public transportation: it takes less of an environmental toll when you have one vehicle mass transporting many things rather than many vehicles burning fuel inefficiently, also carrying many things. Our trucks are typically standard 53′ ones, and they do run on diesel, which is what all transport basically runs on as of now (although I’m pushing my company to look at potential biodiesel options–that’ll be sometime down the road, though). Our trucks are newer, so they have more efficient engines and lighter components than most other fleets. I absolutely care about limiting vehicular impact on the environment, and I believe this is the best option for mass transport to an event like this, even though trucks seem like huge consumers of fuel. I’m trying to get as many Burners on board for each given location: if we maximize the load in each truck trailer, that’s the most efficient (and cost effective) method of transport, so you could help out by talking with other locals about sharing a truck, thereby saving you money and limiting the environmental impact.

Just to give you an idea on shipping estimates from Oregon (let me know if this is an incorrect origination) to BRC would come to $1286.26 each way for 2000 lbs, or $1785.58 for 3000 lbs: this is for space on a truck, but I’m also working to get you a quote on a full truck as a comparison, so stay tuned for that. Are you bringing your artwork back, or will it be burned?

The estimates are based on distance traveled and weight–we also look at dimensions, but I just guess-timated since I don’t know your shipment dimensions. I’m not taking a margin (as a salesperson) because I don’t want to make money off burners–burners have done so much for me and it’s such a part of my community that that would be unconscionable to profit (besides–that’s against the ethic of the whole thing!). The company does have to recoup their costs, so that’s the lowest they’ll let me go on the LTL (or less-than-truckload) transport. I’ll actually be on the playa managing the unloading and reloading because the artwork is a really important part of it to me and I’ll ensure that your shipment arrives on time and intact.

Anyway–let me know what you think of the estimate, and I’ll get the full truck quote to you as soon as I have it.

Let me paraphrase the above treatise, “You’ve got a lot of stuff to move? For a price, we can put it on a truck and move it for you.“

If you are signing up for AT&T Service, I will split the referral fee that AT&T pays me. That’s 1/2 of either $25 or $50 per service you sign up for! I’ve used this AT&T coupon with a bunch of folks, just look at the comments below.

Here is how to get your share of this referral money:

1. Use the following website to sign up for AT&T service: http://att.com/referrals. (click on the picture to see exactly what to do)

2. Use this referral code: LE1013321. 

3. Contact me at so I can Paypal you the money. When you contact me, make sure you tell me:

• your Paypal email address
• the first name you used on the account
• the services that you signed up for (IE: “cell phone”)

---

AT&T says it takes 6 weeks for them to pay me, I’ll pay you shortly after that.I will split the referral fee with you on any of the services AT&T offers. Most of the services offer a $25 fee. Split 50-50, that’s $12.50 in your pocket, free money. At last count, the services we can get a referral fee on are:

 

• AT&T Local phone service
• AT&T long distance telephone service
• Cingular wireless
• AT&T Yahoo high speed internet
• AT&T Dish Network
• AT&T U-verse TV

You’re going to get the service anyway, you might as well get it a little cheaper.

I get a lot of requests. Please do not ask for me to reply when I get your email. Please do not ask me to tell you how long it will take to get your money; AT&T takes 6-12 weeks to get me the referral money. I will forward your share as soon as the money clears. I am trustworthy.

If you’re having trouble with the referral code:

Some folks have said that the code doesn’t work for them. This may be because they are submitting a phone number that isn’t an AT&T phone number. Maybe you could sign up for telephone service and then use that new phone number for your other sign-ups. Please contact me if you can confirm or deny this. Thanks!

Wordpress 2.0 and 2.1 are peachy kean but one annoyance is the odd hard-coded thumbnail size. Thumbnails are fixed at 100 x 100 pixels or something like that.

The Flexible Upload plugin lets you get past that silly limitation in the WP interface. So now I can specify silly tiny thumnails or gigantic, sumptuous thumbnails, as I see fit. It also has some other nice bells and whistles. :-)

I’m thinking that we’ve really got a great business model with Simply Safe and Secure… Every couple weeks to months we get some of the best promotion possible. The very earth itself calls out to our potential clients threatening to maim or destroy their lives if they don’t call us. As was the case at 8:40 PM tonight.

I posted this recently to the FLG Lipstick List and FLG blog.

Girl we’re busy! Here’s a lot of the work we’ve sunk our teeth into. A lot of what’s below is still tentative but you still deserve to know about it!

A Spring Fundraiser - We’re working on having a party sometime soon.

Calendar: at the Fundraiser, you’ll finally get to see the FLG Calendar. Here’s a little taste… http://lee.org/temp/calendar-sample.jpg

Stanford Class - Some time in April we’ll be speaking to a group from a class at Stanford.. (http://stanford.edu/~rcarr/bayart)

Yuri’s Night - We might have some flaming art at Yuri’s Night (http://www.yurisnight.net/2007/) on April 13th (not confirmed yet)

Arts on Fire - We’ll likely have some more flaming art at Arts on Fire in Pacifica at the end of April

Coachella - More with the flaming art (do you sense a pattern?) at Coachella on April 27th (http://www.coachella.com/) also not totally confirmed but whew!

Maker Faire - We’ll probably have a booth at the Maker Faire in San Mateo May 19-20 showing people how to make…. … … what’s the opposite of non-flaming art?

———-
Then of course there’s the Serpent Mother which should be making an amazing return to the Black Rock Desert at Burning Man 2007! We’ve got such plans for her and her egg!
———-

More with the unconfirmed dates is a trip to Amsterdam and Robodock at the end of September!!

And lastly, a proposal of ours has made it past the first cut for a grant from the Creative Work Fund (http://www.creativeworkfund.org/)

And the summer hasn’t even started yet.

The Flaming Lotus Girls submitted our proposal to Burning Man for this year’s project! We are refining the Serpent Mother. She is going to be totally sweet.

To see more, view the Serpent Mother 2007 Proposal

The proposal itself has a lot of sexy art. Here are the Serpent Mother Proposal Credits

Johnson’s Arkansas Barbeque


2646 San Bruno Ave
San Francisco, CA  94134
415-467-7655

Really good barbeque!

Charlotte and I have filed with the state. Our new earthquake preparedness service is to be called Safe and Secure SF.

Our business cards read:

Personalized Earthquake Preparedness Services

We help you be prepared! Safer interiors, safety plans,
food & supplies, financial info & data backup.

One (or more) of my snazzy Wordpress plugins is making my WP2 install run slowly. So I’ll be fiddling with Wordpress plugins for a while. I’ll display another theme for a while until I figure out what’s up. Here’s a pretty theme as a replacement, Thirteen.