We Who Are About To Rock Salute You

Our photographer was my ten-year-old son Benny. Our studio was Kim’s living room. Our lighting was a clip-on directional desk lamp which Benny was holding in his left hand. Here’s the first one. I wore this shirt because the neckline goes right over my collarbone in an extremely rock-ish way, and yet somehow the way I was sitting on the floor yanked the neckline down so it looks all saggy and strange. I photoshopped out the bookshelf behind us because with a background of literature we looked even more tortured and full of despair. Here we’re saying, “My pierced tongue ran away, my black nail polish turned pink, my spray-painted volvo got a flat, and my mom said, ‘I love you.’ Woe is punk-rock me!”

Soulful Ladies of the Eighties

Here’s another one. Keep in mind that we’re constantly pushing back against the fact that we’re both moms, neither of us has any vivid memory of being 23, and we have respectable church-going hair-dos. In this one, I’m afraid we pushed back a wee bit too hard and ended up with me in the psychotic killer range and Kim in the intoxicated range. Still better than wholesome average American housewives of course. In this picture instead of removing the background I smooshed it around. I forgot to bring any sort of lip-enhancement to practice that night, which also adds to my dangerous aspect — after all, what kind of homocidal freak doesn’t bring lip gloss to a photo shoot?

I ate your liver. I ATE YOUR LIVER! Run! Run!

Another choice. Here we’re trying to pull of the classic giant-forehead pose that all self-portrait takers on the internet love to do. Yes, everything looks better when you’re looking *up* into the  camera, but what Benny didn’t grasp was that the camera has to be, then, up above you, so you can be looking up into it, and not looking like a bunch of unworthy supplicants at the altar of the holy ceiling fan.

The ceiling! The ceiling! It likes me better than you!

This one is actually my favorite. I think Kim’s right good cheer nicely counters my manic teeth-grinding, and we generally look kind of interesting, if not fun.

I might kill you, but she won't.

So there we are. If you go to our Facebook page or our MySpace, you can see the other pictures we took, including our individual ones and the one where I look like Kim just pinched my arm and I got hurt in a feeling. Become a fan now, before it gets really crowded in there and you have to pull out your FFP credentials to convince the bouncer you’re a pal. This week’s challenge is to record an original song. Our current titles are as follows: Genius, Robot, If, Become You Too, Moon, Stutter, Can’t Decide, and My Monster. Which one would you like to hear?