bookofjoe

Foamhenge

Peter Carlson wrote about it and its creator in a front-page story that appeared in the April 24 Washington Post Style section.

Long story short: Artist Mark Carlson created a full-size Styrofoam replica of Stonehenge in six weeks in the spring of 2004.

It took the Druids a bit longer to put up their version — four centuries, in fact — but let's not be haters.

You can see Foamhenge (above, with the artist and his dog Jake in the foreground) with your very own ojos in Natural Bridge, Virginia, "atop a verdant hill."

Here's Carlson's story.

Jurassic Lark

What Do Dinosaurs and the Civil War Have in Common? Mark Cline's Art

Mark Cline says his greatest artistic triumph is Foamhenge, a life-size reproduction of Stonehenge that he carved out of Styrofoam and erected in a field here.

But future art critics might conclude that Cline's greatest achievement is Escape From Dinosaur Kingdom, a roadside attraction that incorporates two classic tourist-trap themes (dinosaurs and the Civil War) in a uniquely Virginian way -- by having the dinosaurs attack Yankee soldiers.

Right now, Cline, 45, is strolling into Dinosaur Kingdom, wearing his ever-present white fedora because, he explains, "the white hat suggests the hero."

There's nobody around because it's a Monday and the Kingdom doesn't open on weekdays until after Memorial Day.

Cline flips a switch, turning on the sound effects, which consist of operatic music and dinosaur growls.

"This is called creating the ambiance," he says.

"You set the stage. You hear the screams. You get the feel."

At the Kingdom's entrance, a sign explains the premise: It's 1863 and Union soldiers have discovered a hidden valley filled with dinosaurs.

Now the Yankees plan to "use the dinos as weapons of mass destruction against the South."

Cline enters the Kingdom and walks past a fiberglass raptor sitting in an old wagon, past a fiberglass cow surrounded by eight hungry-looking fiberglass dinosaurs, past a fiberglass little girl fighting off a dinosaur who has attacked her treehouse.

Then he arrives at the Kingdom's pièce de résistance -- a life-size Yankee cavalryman on a horse trying to lasso a T-rex that's clutching a Yankee soldier in its fearsome jaws.

It's amazing! It's brilliant! It's hilarious!

It's also a real crowd-pleaser.

"The Southern people like it," Cline says, "and the Northern people have a sense of humor."

Next year, Cline adds, he hopes to open a Civil War-themed dinosaur attraction in Gettysburg.

Up there, he says, the Yankees won't be the bad guys.

"I'm thinking of doing Pickett's Charge using dinosaurs," he says.

"It's an alternate reality."

One day when Cline was a kid, he was riding in his father's car near White Post, Va., when he spotted a billboard advertising Dinosaur Land.

He begged his father to stop, but it was late and when they arrived, the place was closed.

Mark peeked through the fence at the ersatz prehistoric lizards.

"Dad," he said, "when I grow up, I'm gonna build these."

And now he does.

He builds sculptures of dinosaurs and skulls and monsters and celebrities -- sculptures that are displayed in tourist traps and theme parks and miniature golf courses and haunted houses all over this great land.

And he has fulfilled his childhood dream by building dinosaurs for Dinosaur Land.

"He's made, golly, 15, 16, maybe 20 dinosaurs for us," says Joanne Leight, who inherited Dinosaur Land from her father, who created it in 1963.

"His faces are so good, much better than the ones we had in the '60s. The eyes seem to follow you. The dinosaurs built for Daddy back in the '60s, they kind of just sat there, but Mark makes dinosaurs that interact with the environment. We have a triceratops that looks like it's gouging into the stomach of a T-rex."

Cline works his magic in a studio near Natural Bridge, about 40 miles north of Roanoke.

You can't miss the place: Superman is perched on a tower above a fence lined with Egyptian pharaohs.

Inside the fence, the ground is littered with fiberglass pterodactyls and random pieces of sharks and elephants.

"This place is a real mess right now," Cline says.

He points to a huge fiberglass frog.

"I made that for a guy who has a day-care center in Alabama."

He points to four fiberglass skeletons.

They're destined for Professor Cline's Haunted Monster Museum, which is right next to Cline's Civil War dinosaur attraction.

"These are not just any skeletons," he says.

"They're going to be the Marx Brothers' skeletons. Harpo will have a harp and Groucho will have a cigar."

In a storage area, Cline points to a cowboy wearing a hat and bandanna.

"He was my Headless Horseman," he says, "so when we rented him to a cowboy-themed dinner, we had to add a head."

On the balcony stands a statue of Michael Jackson that could be described as lifelike except that the real Michael Jackson isn't particularly lifelike.

"I built him in the '80s, when he wasn't so, um, controversial," Cline says.

"Since then, I had to make his nose smaller and I had to change his color."

Cline can't sit still.

He squirms in his chair like a little boy, then pops up and paces around his office, talking a mile a minute.

"I'm not considered a real artist by other artists," he says.

"But neither was Norman Rockwell. Neither was Walt Disney. It doesn't bother me."

Son of an electrician and a secretary, he was born in 1961 in Waynesboro, a town in Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains.

In high school he was a terrible student, he says, and when he got out, he bummed around the country, rafting down the Missouri River like Huck Finn and motorcycling to Key West, where he earned a living taking photographs of tourists sitting on his bike, posing with his homemade statue of a two-headed biker.

Eventually he drifted back to Waynesboro and tried to make a living as a sculptor.

"He stood up at the City Council with a proposal to make a huge Styrofoam statue of Mad Anthony Wayne, for whom the town is named," recalls Doug Harwood, editor of the Rockbridge Advocate, a local tabloid whose slogan is "Independent as a Hog on Ice."

Alas, the philistines on the City Council nixed Cline's proposal.

He traveled to Virginia Beach, hoping to find employment making monsters for that city's many tacky tourist traps. "They laughed at me," he says.

In 1982, he moved to Natural Bridge and opened a haunted-house attraction, hoping to cash in on the tourists who came to see the Natural Bridge, a rock formation once owned by Thomas Jefferson.

For a while, his haunted house did fairly well, but by the end of the 1984 season, he was going broke and sinking into depression.

"For four months," he recalls, "the only reason I had to get up in the morning was to struggle through the day so I could go back to sleep."

A few days after Christmas, he recalls, he traveled to a theme park called Holyland USA, in Bedford, Va., hoping to find work sculpting religious statues.

Rejected, he drove home through a nasty sleet storm and decided to end his misery.

He steered deep into the mountains, then climbed to a high peak, planning to jump off.

"But I hesitated," he says, miming the action of a man about to jump off a mountain.

"Instead of looking down, I looked up. The clouds were moving and the sun came through. I took a deep breath and I felt this high I'd never experienced before. I walked down the mountain a changed person. I realized that my only purpose was to help people and make them happy."

So he changed his haunted house into the Enchanted Castle -- a place with fewer monsters and more zany stuff like a bungee-jumping pig.

And tourists got to watch Cline create his sculptures, which enabled him to indulge his inner ham and entertain folks with his impressions of Elvis and Mick Jagger and Barney Fife.

It was weird but it worked.

Soon he was winning commissions to build sculptures for other attractions, including eight-foot statues of Yogi Bear for the Jellystone Park chain of family campgrounds.

In the mid-'80s he made a statue of Freddy Krueger, the psycho killer from the "Nightmare on Elm Street" movies, for a haunted house in Virginia Beach.

When businessman Jim Johnson saw it, he was awestruck.

"It was right on," Johnson recalls.

"I could tell he was extremely creative, and I went and visited him."

Johnson hired Cline to turn a tired old Virginia Beach wax museum into something with more pizzazz.

Cline came up with a ride that took tourists from ancient Pompeii to the Wild West to the Bermuda Triangle to a spaceship full of aliens.

To honor its creator, Johnson named the place Professor Cline's Time Machine.

"It was very successful," Johnson says.

Last winter, Johnson hired Cline to come up with a new attraction.

Cline created a pirate ride that includes a ship full of skeletons, a giant snake, a giant shark that eats a pirate, a giant octopus that fights a pirate for a buried treasure -- and, of course, dinosaurs.

Johnson named it Captain Cline's Pirate Adventure Ride. It opened this month.

"Mark's an artist," Johnson says.

"I haven't seen anybody more creative than Mark. And his prices are not out of line."

But not everyone is quite so fond of Cline's oeuvre.

Conservative Christians around Natural Bridge denounced his haunted house as satanic.

In 1997, when Cline staged a mock seance designed to end the losing streak of a local baseball team called the Salem Avalanche, a Christian radio station urged fans to boycott the team for promoting the occult.

On April 9, 2001, a midnight fire destroyed Cline's Enchanted Castle.

While he watched it burn, he opened his roadside mailbox and found a handwritten note.

It began, "In the name of the Father, Son & Holy Spirit" and ended, "Fire represents God's judgment. Behold -- The Judge is standing at the door."

Virginia State Police investigated the fire but never arrested anyone.

Cline rebuilt his studio and kept working.

In 2002, Leonard Puglisi, owner of the Natural Bridge, hired Cline to create Dr. Cline's Haunted Monster Museum in an old farmhouse.

Two years later, Cline built Dinosaur Kingdom next to it.

Last year, he built Foamhenge nearby.

"I guess he's always wanted to make a replica of Stonehenge," says Puglisi, "so I decided to give him a place to put it."

Cline says he just can't stop creating this stuff.

"It's my gift," he says.

"I don't know where it comes from. I'm not going to tell you it comes from God or the Devil or Alpha Centauri. But I have been given this amazing gift and I have to use it. I have to."

He's waxing lyrical about creativity when his wife, Sherry, walks into the office.

"I'm the bookkeeper, the secretary, the hairdresser and the housekeeper," she says.

"Without me, the show would not go on."

She met him in a bar in 1987, when he was doing his Mick Jagger impersonation with a local rock band.

"He didn't really impress me much," she says.

He asked her to dance and then they talked for hours.

"The next day he showed up where I worked," she says, "and brought me a long-stemmed red rose."

They got married in 1992.

Now they have two daughters, Sunny, 12, and Jenna, 6.

"Everybody thinks artists are weird and they think he's bizarre because of his creativity," she says.

"But we live in a normal house with normal things -- there are no skulls there. And he's a great dad."

Cline pulls his pickup off to the side of Route 11 and points toward his masterpiece.

There it is, sitting atop a verdant hill in all its fabled glory -- Foamhenge.

He hops out of the truck and starts up the hill. A soft rain is falling from a gray sky.

"It's all Styrofoam," he says, "beaded Styrofoam spray-painted gray to look like stones."

It took prehistoric Brits four centuries to build the original Stonehenge, but Cline works a lot faster.

"I built it in six weeks," he says.

"We put it all up in one day -- March 31, 2004. We hung a huge piece of plastic over it and invited people up for April Fool's Day and I unveiled Foamhenge. Unfortunately, we couldn't find a virgin to sacrifice."

He walks into the center of the circle of Styrofoam stones. Up close, Foamhenge is an impressive sight, certainly among the greatest of America's henges.

Stand inside it and you can feel its power.

Close your eyes and you can sense the presence of ancient Styrofoam Druids.

Perched on this mystical spot, Cline recalls the magical moment he conceived of Foamhenge.

"I was in a store called Insulated Building Systems in Winchester and I saw these huge pieces of Styrofoam and I thought: Foamhenge! " he says.

"And the idea sort of festered in my brain."

He sold the concept to Puglisi as a freebie that might lure tourists to Natural Bridge's other attractions.

But right now, Foamhenge is inspiring Cline to more cosmic thoughts.

"Styrofoam isn't biodegradable, so Foamhenge might outlast Stonehenge," he says.

"In 1,500 years, people might stand right here and say, 'I wonder what this was? Probably some kind of calendar.' "

He laughs and heads back down the hill.

"Because I make these things, people think I'm smart, but I just do them to make people happy," he says.

"But if people want to think I'm smart, that's fine. I've been called a genius but I don't like that word. It's overused."

He looks down the hill to the road, where two vans have pulled up next to his pickup.

"Look -- people stopping at Foamhenge!" he says.

He jogs down the hill and stops a few yards from a bearded man who has emerged from one of the vans.

"Here to see Foamhenge?" Cline asks, his face is beaming with joy. "I know the guy who made it -- me!"

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Directions and maps here.

Don't plan on visiting Natural Bridge, Virginia in the near future?

How 'bout never — would never be too soon?

No problema.

Take the virtual tour.

WaterDog Motion-Sensing Dog Drinking Fountain

Who needs a person to put out a water bowl when you've got RoboFountain?

From the website:

WaterDog® Automatic Outdoor Pet Drinking Fountain

You love your dog.

You want him to be happy, healthy and secure.

Having fresh, clean water available is essential to his health and overall well-being.

Providing this, however, can be a challenge.

Water bowls and other waterers quickly become stagnant, get warm and require constant cleaning.

They can also harbor diseases such as giardia, coccidia or mildew.

Your dog is thirsty and requires a clean fresh supply of drinking water to ensure his good health.

The WaterDog is an outdoor automatic pet fountain and is the most advanced method of keeping your best friend happy, healthy, secure and hydrated.

It is a simple solution to an age-old problem.

By using Ultrasonic Sensing Technology to detect the presence of your dog, the WaterDog knows when your dog approaches and immediately turns on a gentle flow of fresh drinking water.

When he is finished drinking and leaves, the water turns off.

By attaching the WaterDog to your outdoor hose spigot you can satisfy your dog's water needs.

The WaterDog is always available.

It could not be easier.

Features:

• Durable

• Water-tight

• Easy to learn

• Weather-proof

• Adjustable height

• 1-year battery life

• Installs in minutes

• Remotely locatable

• Works with any dog

• Flow-through spigot

• Heat- and chew-resistant

• Low-battery warning light

• Adjustable dispensing rate

• No tools required for assembly or adjustment

********************

Woof.

$79.

OLN becomes Versus — 'How about just plain Stupid?'

I didn't have to think up a headline for this post once I saw the one in today's Boston Herald (above).

It was about the OLN satelllite and cable channel's decision, announced yesterday, to change its name come September to Versus.

"Versus is the culmination of a [yearlong] process that included three outside agencies and sifting through ideas from inside and outside the network," wrote Russell Adams in today's Wall Street Journal article about the name change.

I've decided to add an extra session to this year's bookofjoe Brand and Naming Seminar™ just for the brain-dead employees of the "three outside agencies" and OLN's own in-house tone-deaf employees who aided and abetted this abomination.

Versus?

Why not Unisys, while they're at it?

Oh — that one's already taken.

World's Most Comfortable Shorts

Sometimes I leave the house for destinations other than the operating room or to go for a run.

Not often, mind you, but there are still some things that do require a physical presence and can't be done online.

Trust me, I'm trying to eliminate them all and someday I will but for now I do need clothing other than OR scrubs (for the OR - doh!) and my modified, cut-off-at-the-knee scrub pants and soft old scrub tops that comprise my default home outfit for waking, scheming, sleeping and dreaming.

I started wearing Thousand Mile's Comfy Shorts many years ago.

Back then the company was very small, offering these shorts in two colors and not a whole lot more.

Now they're big — really big.

But they seem small when you deal with them, so much so that even though I could order online now I prefer to call them and chat with the nice woman who's been their phone person since the beginning.

The shorts are made of very soft, comfortable cotton, have an elastic waist and last forever.

The pockets are huge and deep and the Velcro fly is very handy.

They come in Olive, Khaki, Black, Cool River or Putty (top).

I like the Khaki and Cool River.

$53.99.

Cricket Cola's 'Happiness in a bottle' throwdown — with Coca-Cola

We know who's gonna win that one.

Yesterday's Washington Post Business section featured a story by Michael S. Rosenwald about the unfortunate — for Cricket Cola — recent news release by Coca-Cola telling the world "that the world's most famous brand represents 'happiness in a bottle.'"

The label on the bottle of Potomac [Maryland]-based Cricket Cola says, "Drinking Cricket Cola can make you happy — We like to call Cricket 'Happiness in a bottle.'"

The story with all the details of Coca-Cola's swatting aside tiny Cricket Cola — owner Mary Heron said, "We're so inconsequential to Coke" — follows.

Cricket Cola and the Pursuit of 'Happiness in a Bottle'

A tall glass of cola has inherent powers.

It quenches thirst, of course.

Occasionally, cola will inspire a brief bout of hiccups, a risk outweighed by its power to refresh.

Cola also has been known to provide a nice jolt to help users get through the more boring parts of the day.

But Mary Heron, founder of Potomac-based Cricket Cola Inc., says her product, which is infused with green tea, has existential power -- it can make a drinker happy.

The label on the bottle even says so: "Drinking Cricket Cola can make you happy."

It adds: "We like to call Cricket 'Happiness in a bottle.' "

So imagine Heron's reaction when she read a story in the Wall Street Journal about Coca-Cola Co.'s new ad campaign that contained this sentence: "Coke wants to remind consumers that the world's most famous brand represents 'happiness in a bottle.'"

The phrase was repeated in a company news release.

Heron was not happy.

"I was just astounded," she said. "I was really stunned. I mean, are you kidding me?"

Heron's lawyer sent a letter to Coca-Cola officials asking them to stop using the slogan, to which Cricket claims to have established rights, and to compensate Cricket for damages (even though Cricket doesn't exactly have a trademark on the phrase).

The letter, reported by trade publication Advertising Age, noted that Coca-Cola already enjoys certain advantages in the soda distribution business, which the letter described as a "stranglehold."

"We're so inconsequential to Coke," said Heron, whose product is sold mainly at Potbelly Sandwich Works stores and in specialty shops on the West Coast.

"We are no one. But it comes down to the right to compete. We feel we have the right to protect our brand and our slogan."

Coke issued a statement saying the company does not use the happiness phrase in its advertising and that the tagline for its new campaign is "The Coke Side of Life."

The campaign "focuses on optimism, choosing a positive outlook and why people love to drink Coca-Cola."

The statement added: "We do not believe there is any basis to Cricket Cola's claims that we have infringed its rights, and we are disappointed that it is using this opportunity to gain publicity and to create negative press around our campaign and brand. We will look into the issues and respond appropriately in a timely manner."

And so it appears that both sides are not happy. Cola, anyone?

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I figured the least I could do for Cricket Cola — "The Only Green Tea Cola" — was give them a shout-out here.

w00t!

A six-pack costs $5.49.

Triple-Threat 'Son et Lumière' Alarm Clock

The son is that of a 95 decibel alarm (equivalent to being inside a moving subway car).

The lumière is the lamp you've plugged into the back of this diabolical device: it flashes on and off while the alarm stops your heart.

The third leg of the 'triple threat' is an attached vibrating bedshaker that restarts your heart and shocks you into consciousness.

What a pleasant way to start your day.

Need more?

Well, thankfully Catherine Zeta-Jones hasn't yet — at least, not as of this post's preparation — been asked to flog this product so you can read what the website has to say about it in peace.

Wake Assure Vibrating Alarm Clock

This extra loud vibrating alarm clock is designed for people who may have difficulty waking up with normal alarm clocks.

Even if you are a sound sleeper or have a hearing impairment the Wake Assure alarm clock will wake you up.

Wake Assure digital alarm clock has a large 2" display that is easy to see.

Wake Assure is ideal for individuals who have low vision or don't want to put their glasses on in the middle of the night to check the time.

The Wake Assure has many different alarm settings:

• You can be woken by the audible alarm — adjust the volume up to 95 dB as well as the tone/pitch to meet your personal requirements.

• Place the included bedshaker under your pillow or mattress and it will shake you awake — the powerful bedshaker has no audible sound so it is ideal if you do not wish to disturb others. The vibration alerts you when the alarm clock is activated.

• You can also plug a lamp into the back and the Wake Assure clock will flash your lamp when the alarm goes off.

Wake even the heaviest sleeper by using all three alerting options —surely no one could sleep through that!

Features:

• Measures 4"H x 8"W x 2½"D

• Variable volume control for alarm sound

• Variable alarm tone control (high pitch tone to lower pitch tone).

• 9-volt battery back-up

• Snooze alarm.

Ideal for individuals who have trouble waking to normal alarms.

The Wake Assure makes a great gift for a college student living away from home.

$69.99.

Personalized Cake Pan — 'Receive proper recognition at the potluck'

About time, I say.

From the website:

Personalized Cake Pan

Receive proper recognition at the potluck (and leave with the correct pan)!

We'll engrave your name and message on our covered aluminum pan.

Whether "Homemade by Shirley" or "Return to Jane Smith"... the options are endless!

Specify name/message: limit 2 lines, 20 letters/spaces each.

Dishwasher–safe.

9"L x 13"W.

$16.99.