So. I’ve been pretty quiet for a while. Reports of my early demise were grossly exaggerated, however, despite a pretty horrible dose of the man flu, which had me laid out for a week or so. Post-recovery I’ve been engaged in a TOP SECRET PROJECT, which finally reached fruition last weekend. Unlike my last such project (bees + tiny cameras + dressing rooms), this one actually worked and had the added bonus of being entirely legal.
Don't cry for me, I'm already dead. (No, I am only sleeping!)
The creative juices got rolling when my girlfriend and I jointly decided told me our housewarming was going to be Mexican themed. “OK gringa,” I said, and that was that. With the girlfriend out of town for the weekend, I was issued strict orders to tidy the house, put up more outside lighting, unpack the last boxes from our move and tidy the study. Somehow this got lost in translation. What I really did was this:
1. Turned the study into a war-zone.
2. Devised a scheme to make home-made piñata.
The war-zone was pretty boring, so I’m going to write about the crazy trip that was making a piñata.
For the full list of things you’ll need to make the piñata, refer to Zero Light Seeds. Although, being an incompetent list-writer, Tracey failed to mention that aside from the glue, balloons and newspaper, you will also need a wire coat-hanger.
Once you have your bits and pieces this is what you will need to do:
- Identify a target
- Make the infrastructure for your papier mache marvel
- Combine spooj and paper to make an impenetrable barrier
- Fill your creation with life (and lollies)
- Get some drunk bastard to smash the heck out of all your hard work and kick the lollies over the balcony
Once you have done these several things you will end up with something that looks a lot like this:
El Burro wanted to remind the loco rocos that whispering was very inconsiderate.
Identify a Target
Identifying a target was a no-brainer. It was a Mexican themed party and everyone knows those crazy pseudo-Spaniards are totally loco. What better piñata to make, then, than Loco Roco piñatas! Even though that bit was easy, Tracey and I argued about which Loco Roco to make. She wanted to make a pimped out one with an afro, but she seemed to think an afro was made out of scrumpled up pieces of copier paper (she has led a very sheltered life). In the end we kinda ran out of time, so the bruises were for nothing.
Wendy, I can fly!
Make the infrastructure for your papier mache marvel
With our target identified, I just made Tracey blow up some huge balloons and we used them to create a “mid-bounce” body shape.
The project almost failed when we realised that not all musicians have massive lungs (Tracey plays the accordion in a gypsy choir)
You could use chicken wire, skin or other stuff. You probably don’t want to use chicken wire, though, because it’s a pig to break through, even with an aluminium baseball bat. Also, skin doesn’t really hold it’s shape so well and I can’t think of anything else.
Combine spooj glue and paper to make an impenetrable barrier
Tracey was adamant that it wasn’t spooj, but I’m still not convinced. The glue she brought along was STILL WARM, and had separated slightly. It had a most unusual taste, not at all like the glue I used at primary school (although it’s possible our “art” suppliers had different diets – I know Mr. Lock used to eat a lot of ham, which would account for the fleshy after-taste of English Clag). Regardless of its background, the “glue” only lasted about half a balloon.
Preparations for the crazy euro bukake party began in earnest
In a panic, we settled on a mix of flour and water. The recipe we used was from a dear lady in Michigan who was building a papier mache shrine to Shirley Bassey.
Tracey became furious when I applied the man-glue to the balloon using a fork. She is a very controlling person with a pebble for a heart.
Remember kids – go to Zero Light Seeds for more details and pictures and things like that. It really is a very good blog! Go look!
Fill your creation with life (and lollies)
I spent a small fortune on lollies. For three piñatas I filled a whole Coles shopping basket. That’s quite a lot. So much, in fact, that I was convinced I would be singled out as a deranged meth addict trying to feed my sugar cravings, and bought some pita breads to cover my shame. Once back at the penthouse, we crammed the eggs to the brim with their new lolly yolks.
We must all suffer for our art.
Layering and sugar-cravings met, we painted our piñatas. Tracey, who is a serious artiste, went for a complex blend of cadmium and burnt ochre (possibly sienna) to achieve a pleasant mottled effect on her piñata-to-be. I went straight for the mid-cadmium and applied a solid block of colour. I think Tracey secretly preferred my approach, as she got quite grumpy at this point. I could have told her it was beginners luck, but that would have been a lie. It’s a gift. SUCK. IT. DOWN.
The master at work.
We left the eggs to dry for another couple of days before the big day, leaving the facial features until the morning of the party. I left this to Tracey, as she has a much steadier hand than I do (plus the latest copy of Who had just arrived, and I was busting to find out how fat Tyra Banks had become over the last seven days).
She did a sterling job, and invested these previously lifeless, but beautifully crafted, eggs with a joie de vivre that was heartbreaking. Never has a condemned man looked so bouyant.
It is...alive!
CAUTION!! With your fully badical pinata now finished it’s likely that you will have formed quite an attachment. THIS IS A MISTAKE. Put it in a box and on that box write cruel things to yourself, like: “I never loved you anyway” “U R ADOPTED” and so on. This will cause years of bitterness and hatred to well up within you, severing the attachment and saving the piñata from a life of quiet misery. This is a good thing.
Sometimes you need to be cruel to be kind. I'm doing it because I love you.
Get some drunk bastard to smash the heck out of all your hard work and kick the lollies over the balcony
After all this hard work, we had grown very attached to our young Loco Roco. It seemed a shame to have worked so hard on something only to see it smashed to pieces by selfish and ungrateful drunk people. Luckily, the reserve piñata was our scapegoat/prototype. We figured we would see how people behaved with the crappy one from the $2 shop (which cost me $25!) and if we deemed them worthy, they could crack the skulls of our beloved Loco Roco.
No way was I letting this douche bag loose on my beautifully crafted piñata.
Sadly, our friends are savage animals and the sacrificial piñata lasted about 15 seconds. It didn’t even get close to being put on its special bamboo pole before it was kidnapped by the “alternative” section of the party. They toyed with it for a while before lashing out with their hands and faces until the poor burro’s entrails were gracing the balcony floor.
The brave loco roco lived to fight another day. The same cannot be said for my gardener, Pablo, who later died of illegal immigration.
Clearly, these criminal maniacs were not deserving of the Loco Roco, and so they sit, gracing either side of my TV until a more deserving recipient can be found. That’s right; we didn’t break either of our Loco Roco piñatas.
THE ADVENTURE CONTINUES…
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! So we could fully appreciate the quality of these downloadable games we were offered a demo of one of the “release titles.” I have included my artist’s impression of it, below.
