Jeff Keen

Why do we as humans always laugh when eating a nice bowl of mixed greens?

I think I made this in 2001. It was around the time prank calls using Arnold soundboards were really popular (I’ve got some of those, too), and I can’t remember if I made this at my parents place, or at the house I lived at for that one year in college.

Because, yes, in college, I mostly lived with my parents. Or as I liked to say at the time, “with an elderly couple”.

I’d tell people “I take the trash out, and do other things around the house for them, and they let me stay in their basement practically rent free. They’re really nice people. Sometimes they’ll even cook me dinner.”

It was a pretty good deal, and some people I told about it were amazed, and wished that they too could live with their parents an elderly couple.

And when that nice elderly couple found out what I was telling people, I feared the worst: that they’d be heartbroken, or angry. But they weren’t. They thought it was hilarious.

Because hey, you gotta do what you gotta do when you’re a nerdy 21-year-old Electrical Engineering major who works at a computer store and lives with his parents and still wants a hope in hell of meeting a lady who’d be willing to take her clothes off. So I lived with an elderly couple. I worked on campus. What major? Can we change the subject? Let me tell you about this elderly couple I live with.

Obviously this strategy worked wonders, and I had zero free time around the difficult and retrospectively useless classes I was taking to do silly creative projects such as this Who/Arnold mashup.

I was working on getting an old project updated, and I stumbled upon this beautiful artifact. #TTYB, or expanded: “Take that, you bitch!”

In this new age of hashtags, I encourage you to use this gem. And don’t limit yourself to apps/sites that recognize hashtags. I find hashtags are used best in mediums where they serve no special purpose, like email, text messages, and hand-written notes.

Update: Here’s another example of a fine use of this hashtag, in my recent instagram post.

Repair shop couldn't fix my beautiful turntable, so I took it all apart and fixed it myself. #ttyb

A photo posted by Jeff Keen (@jeffkeen) on Mar 5, 2015 at 5:29pm PST

In 2009, I emailed my friend Sam this 70 minute video review of the Phantom Menace. I figured if me, as a casual-sorta-fan thought it was real interesting, he’d love it.

I don’t think he ever watched it, but 5+ years later, he’s still replying to that email thread.

My favorite comment, 3.25 years later: “I really think I’m going to enjoy this”

Over Thanksgiving I watched Planes, Trains, and Automobiles for the first time (I know). But it reminded me of a video I started making years ago, which I have unearthed and accepted that it’s something I’ll never “finish”, and this is all that it is.

I’m not sure what it would have been, but I’ll tell you this: the first 25 seconds still crack me up consistently. The combo of the Insane In The Membrane intro and John Candy being obnoxious on a flight… that just does it for me.

I drove by Greene Auto on South 1st one day and loved the text on the side of the building, and thought it’d be fun to make a vintagey commercial sign on my garage wall, which I wanted to paint anyway.

I also thought “Auto Storage & Laundry” was a pretty good thing for the sign to say, my garage being where I put my car, and where I wash my clothes.

So I first came up with this design, which I really liked, but it looked too much like P Terry’s.

After several iterations, I ended up here. With the help of a projector and a couple of free nights, my garage wall is now a lot more interesting.