Shameless Self Promotion III: Present Magazine

Me and some of my pictures and some of my photoshoppin' skills are being featured in Kansas City's Present Magazine this week.

You can see some of it here:

Present Magazine: Take Your Shot: Lucas Hutmacher

Obama-infomercial

KC Zombie Walk

Some things i learned yesterday at the 2008 KC Zombie Walk:
1. Zombies still take care of their kids
2. Zombies often enjoy a cigarette.
3. Zombies follow traffic signals
4. Zombies can laugh
5. Zombies are forbidden to touch anyone.

Here's some pics to prove some of the above.

Sam's Pictures

What's the worst thing that could happen when you hand over your camera to a 'going-on-11' year-old? Most people would say that he would drop it and break it. Most photographers would laugh and say that he'd teach you how to take pictures with it.

Next time, just break the thing Sam.

Obama

It's not often that the probable-next-president speaks three blocks from your house for free. Here's a couple pictures from the day. More to come when I get my 'photo'legs back under me...

Side Note: If Obama is a 'fag lover' does that make him gay? I would think 'fag sympathizer' may be what you guys are trying say. Awful lot of syllables to chant/spell/fit on a sign.

Observations From the Court of Lilliput

At 6'5", I'm probably considered 'tall' by many people's standards. In fact, I only have one friend that is taller than me and he plays basketball. So, in a large bellow'y answer to all of your questions about "what's it like up there?", I decided to create a series of Lucas-based perspective pictures.

So now, little people, climb aboard, join me up here, and try not to get dizzy.

My ReadyMade Article

8-Track Plant Bench

Clean out your parent’s station wagon.
by Lucas Hutmacher

When you’re a music fan who likes to create things, it’s difficult to find ‘experimental’ mediums, meaning mediums that can be destroyed and broken apart. If you do things with records, you’re likely to risk a yard-full of hipster protesters. If you choose CDs, you may end up spending more money and losing any retro type look you may want. Lucky for us, the world has not only lost interest in 8-track tapes, but they have actually started to despise them. For no other reason than the price, I picked up about 2500 of these little beauties at an auction for $1. Now I had to figure out what to do with them. I present, how to make a plant bench out of 8-Track tapes.

INGREDIENTS:

· Gorilla Glue
One sheet plywood

· One 2x4, cut to the same length as plywood
Stacks of 8-Track Tapes

· Black spray-paint

· Wood screws

TOOLS:

· Tape measure

· Saw of some sort for cuttin’ wood

· Screwdriver

MAKE IT:

1. Carefully measure out the top dimensions of the bench. While feet and inches is important, I would recommend measuring to the nearest ‘8-Track width’, with a little underlap.
2. Cut yo’ plywood to match yo’ dimensions.
3. Cut yo’ 2x4 to match the length of the plywood. This will provide some support to the bench for heavy plants or people who think they should stand on it during ‘king of the mountain’.
4. Spray paint the wood. It doesn’t need to be a perfect paint job. The paint is basically to keep people from asking you why there is plywood between the corners of the 8-Tracks.
5. Measure (in ‘8-Track height’) the height of your bench. This will tell you the number of tapes to stick together to create the legs of the bench.
6. The nicest and most little known thing about 8-Tracks is that they have grooves along the top and bottom. This allows for them to be stacked and prevents them from rolling around in the back seat of your camaro. That said, we will use these grooves to our advantage. Begin stacking and gluing the 8-Tracks together for the legs of your bench. Remember, tables and tablesque items generally require a minimum of three legs. If the bench is longer than four feet, I would recommend a minimum of six legs. Be sure to stack them all facing the same direction. I recommend stacking them up against a wall or something flat and vertical to ensure some straightness. Allow these to dry overnight, Gorilla Glue is like cement and will expand like a sponge, so avoid over-gluing.
7. Screw the 2x4 into the bottom of the plywood. Make sure the screws are flush. There’s going to be tapes glued onto the top of the sucker in a bit.
8. Place the plywood face-down and glue the legs onto the bottom. Let this dry overnight, and let it dry good.
9. Flip the sucker over and begin gluing your 8-Tracks onto the top.

{ TIPs}

· When measuring stuff out, make sure you get a total number of tapes required. You’ve already looted your dad’s car, it’d be a shame to go after your uncle’s car as well.

· Pre-plan any patterns and see how it looks.

· Glue the tapes in a way that has the ‘tape’ side pointing inwards.

· You can always add new legs to the middle if you feel that it isn’t sturdy enough

· Experiment with gluing a short ‘backrest’ along the back or an overhanging lip around the front to clean it up.

· If you’re a slob, like my mother thinks I am, consider getting a piece of glass cut to cover the top, this makes cleanup easy.

Here’s a few pictures of the finished-ish product along with some of the stars of the show.

Also, among the plants on the bench:
- Six growing Papaya trees (grown from a gutted-papaya)
- Two jalepeno peppers
- Two serrano peppers
- Bamboo
- One plant 'rescued' from Marsh's Apple Mart
- One plant 'rescued' from Home Depot.

Ten For September

Welcome October. You've got your work cut out for you. September was a lion. Here's ten pictures for you to cook on while you lace up your shoes. They dont even have Octoberfest in October anymore.

Best of luck to you.

- Luke