A couple of weeks ago somebody wrote me an e-mail asking about "Brian's Amazing Bread Carving Contest" from way back in September of 2000 (which was odd, because I didn't remember them being there). Then yesterday I accidentally stumbled across my Apple .Mac Gallery while looking for somebody else's and suddenly understood how total strangers had come to know about the bread. Somehow I had forgotten that I had put those photos on the web.

Here is one of the strips, which is tagged "My winning entry in Brian's Amazing Bread Carving Contest (still drunk) 9/15/00."

Here's the story... my good friend Meagan (whose home-made photo booth is responsible for all the photos you see of me at the beginning of each blog entry) decided to have an "Art Party" for some of her talented artistic-minded friends (no, I haven't a clue as to why I was on the guest list). On the invitation was written BYOAP, which stood for "Bring Your Own Art Project," which meant that you had to bring some kind of craft competition for the entire group of ten. After each round of competition, Meagan would award prizes for the best entry, and then take photos of the winning artist in her booth.

I brought paper plates, glue, dried beans, and paints (you put the beans in-between two plates glued together to make a shaker, and then paint it). Somebody brought modeling clay. Somebody else bought Shrinky Dinks. They were all simple projects that you could find in any kindergarten class, which is a good thing because there was heavy drinking the entire time. As the evening progressed, even simple craft projects become difficult when a bunch of drunks are trying to do them. As you can see by these photos, I was pretty hammered early in the evening (I think this was taken around 7pm!)... my shirt has already gone missing because I had gotten paint all over it:

As it neared midnight, Meagan's apartment was a total mess and everybody had been drinking way too much. But there had been only 9 competitions, and one prize remained to give out. Brian had not yet had his art competition! Well, Brian is a starving artist which means he had no funds available to purchase an art project... all his money goes towards rent and food. The only thing he had to bring was a loaf of bread and popsicle sticks, which he dubbed "Brian's Amazing Bread Carving Contest."

In our drunken state, carving bread with popsicle sticks was a near-impossible task. Most people just wadded their bread into a ball and then shoved the sticks into it. I gave up on using the stick, and used the cap from a liquor bottle to punch holes in the bread for eyes... and then used the edge of a glass to stamp out a mouth. Since my "Bread Happy Face" was the only entry even remotely recognizable, I won the prize (which was a Neil Gaiman "Death" coffee mug).

I was going to save Mr. Bread and spray him with shellac so I could hang him on my wall, but Brian ate him shortly after my booth photos were taken.