elizaskinner.net - the jambox

Noah Scalin is a designer, webby-award winner, musician, and now author. I’ve known Noah since I was nine years old, when his little sister and I decided to be BFF. He was my first introduction to comic books and fully-embraced nerdiness. Noah has always been the coolest nerd I know - unabashedly excited about the things he likes, whether it’s comedy, graphic novels, or skulls. That attitude gets you shunned in high school, but - if you can hold onto it - it makes you a success as an adult.

Last year Noah started a blog project, Skull-a-day, in which he designed and photographed a new skull every day for a year. The website won him a People’s Voice Webby for Best Personal Website, and is now a book from Sterling Publishing. On Friday Martha Stewart even featured Noah and his book on her talk show! Way to go, nerd.

In between all his book parties and teaching (oh yeah, he also teaches socially conscious graphic design for Virginia Commonwealth University), Noah agreed to answer some questions for Geek Like Me. Why? Because we’re so tight:

INSANELY good friends.

(photo by Mica Scalin)

How’d you end up a graphic designer?
I grew up in a house with a room for making art, which I only realized when I got older wasn’t a standard house feature. So it was probably inevitable that I would do something creative for a living. I actually studied theater design in school, thinking it was more practical than just studying fine art (like my parents, who had to then get jobs as teachers). However, I discovered I liked making the prop book covers and show posters, more than working on the actual shows. So I finally figured out that the job I really liked was called graphic design, just as I was getting my technical theater degree. My dad, who taught graphic design for 35 years, was bemused, to say the least.

I would ask what your inspiration for Skull-A-Day was, but knowing you it’s pretty clear. You’re a rather skully dude with a very defined style. What were some of your inspirations for your overall asthetic?
I grew up loving Edward Gorey and Charles Aadams, so I guess they get some of the credit. The fact that my dad only wore black clothes for many years certainly helped too.

You love skulls so much. Why don’t you marry them?
I believe it is still illegal in most states, but one day the world will see differently…

Skull-a-day quickly became very popular - and like all things internet - you got a lot of unfiltered instant feedback. What was that like? Any surprises?
I must admit that, try as I might to not take comments from strangers to heart, it was very hard to not get caught up in appeasing the invisible masses. Luckily the majority of the comments were positive, which was nice, but the handful of negative ones drove me crazy! Why make the effort to be mean to someone who is just posting free art online? I’m sure there are much better things to do with your time. After a particularly annoying screed, I switched to non-anonymous, captcha controlled commenting, which made my life mostly better.

How many actual skulls do you actually own?
Just two if you don’t count the one in my head.

What did you do with your webby?
It’s on a shelf next to a vintage “Count Creepyhead & Friends” Play-Doh toy box.

What did Martha Stewart smell like?
Nervous sweat…oh wait, that was me. Um, crafts?

What are you most proud of?
My sister. And you.

What are you working on now?
Secret plans for world domination in the form of my anti-corporate band from the future: League of Space Pirates. And a second skull book.

SKULLS is available in bookstores now, and online (B&N, Amazon, and Powells).
Skull-a-day is still online at skulladay.com .
Noah’s website about socially conscious graphic design is another limited rebellion.

I keep forgetting to mention the work I’ve been doing for other people over the past few months. Well, perhaps not “forgetting” as much as “avoiding mentioning how often I am asked to play variations on a whore.” I don’t always say yes, but when it’s my hilarious friends or Conan O’Brien asking, I do.

1. I was a MILF for Greg & Lou.
We love these guys, right? We do. Even when they imply I am old enough to have children, which, let’s be frank, I am.

2. I f*cked a dog on Conan.
Seriously. I am so famous. Click the link.
(Sorry, I couldn’t figure out the Hulu/Wordpress embed plugin)

3….And then there is a video so embarrassingly whorey, I asked the Chubby Skinny Kids not to put it online. Then I changed my mind but they forgot to do it. Whatever - you can see it in their live show, “Banging My Dick Against A Wall” tomorrow night at the UCB.

Uuggghhhgghhghgurglegurglehhhh!!!!!

SO MANY BEAUTIFUL BEAUTIFUL PONIES!

*arms outstretched spinning around throwing ponies and sugar packets in the air*
*whispering* shhhh, shhh…I love you ponies.

Yeah, we get it.

You know Goose dies, right? Goose dies.

So, maybe you should get a new word. I’d even consider voting for you guys if you started calling yourselves “a team of James Daltons.”

I’m starting a new series called “Geek Like Me” - profiling the geeks, nerds, and dweebs that you should know about, but probably don’t. Up first, Sarah Natochenny!

My pal Sarah is a model - which is ridiculous enough on its own. But she is also an anime voice actor, and plays the voice of Ash Ketchum on Pokemon. This guy:

Weird, right? She spends her days yelping like a little boy and her nights slouching on runways. (Or so I imagine. )

I’ve known Sarah for years, and she lives up to all the nerd standards - she’s super smart, bilingual, awkward, and trippingly verbose. Plus, she’s been on panels at Comic Con! Right now she’s in an online modelling competition at V Magazine, so I thought it’d be a good time to ask her some questions about her impressively weird careers.

Ok, so which came first, the modelling or the cartoon work?
I’m a dangerously backward person. I also get randomly lucky. The rundown, started age 12: Lee Strasberg Youth Program, get an agent, random acting/improv, somehow land the lead voice on “Pokemon,” get cocky, grow an inch, refuse a college education, start modeling. I’m surprised I haven’t received any pension yet.

How do you prepare for your different jobs?
Modeling is less preparation and more lifestyle. Diet and exercise works for some girls, while others are genetic mutants who can eat pizza every day and still weight 100lbs. The day before a shoot involves green face masks and lots of tea. For Pokemon, sorry to say, I don’t really prepare. My director just briefs me on what’s happening in that day’s episode, I do a few awkward squeals to loosen up the voice, and it’s off to the races.

How are the audiences for your work different? Do you see any crossover, or worry about it?
You will probably notice I don’t model under my legal name. I use my lifelong Russian nickname. I worry a lot about crossover. My Pokemon audience is mostly very young. They can also be very vocal (there has been a lot of Sarah-hating over the last few years; one can enjoy some colorful comments at www.myspace.com/sarahisashketchum). I have never shot anything actually exposing anything, but with the implied nudes, I do worry. To generalize, fashion people laugh when I tell them I’m Ash, really because it’s just THAT random. Anime fans…anime is a fantasy house with no windows that is easy to get sucked in to…I think most fans are too young to understand that type of expression. I’m not a smiling beauty queen, editorial girls never are. Models are usually “atypical,” and in a world when Britney Spears is/was considered beautiful, I won’t even make an attempt to rock THAT mainstream boat.

What are you most proud of so far?
Being able to pay my rent in a non-rathole apartment by Union Square from a young age by doing what I love. I mean, immodestly. This interview is totally biased towards my successes, Eliza. I’m also adept in failure.

Believe me - I know, Sarah, I’ve seen you freestyle. But my interview style is “puff”? What are you working on now?
Modeling is a very short lived career. Right now, my main focus is definitely on that, and so far, it’s been quite good to me. I don’t have “supermodel aspirations…” a lot of girls don’t realise that models are not credited in most magazines…Unfortunately, my talent for it lies in editorial work…which hardly pays! Catalogs, now THAT’S money! I was a member of the NYC based improv group “Reality TV Live!” for a year, and have now joined a wonderful musical improv group. I’m using my rhythmic gymnastics background for an improv comedy video today, actually…it will be on my facebook soon! Voiceovers are awesome, and I plan to continue doing it. My consistent goal in life, however, especially after modeling, is to be a working actor in theater, film and TV. And of course, my talent for it lies in indie film…which hardly pays. I should probably develop some “movie-star aspirations…” I hear they get credited in movies.

Vote for Sarah (Nusya) in V Magazine’s Supreme Management Model Search, and help a nerd make good. - http://www.vmagazine.com/vamodel_viewprofile.php?model=11392

I mean, COME ON. I got some emails from angry Republicans over what I said about Sarah Palin before, but…COME ON!!! It’s like hiring a doctor who never read a medical textbook. YOU PEOPLE ARE SMARTER THAN THIS.

…but did you know my friends are too? Well, THEY ARE.

Case in point - my pals, Derrick, just made their first movie, Mystery Team! Here is the ass-kicking trailer.

 Sometimes you meet someone who fits together with you perfectly, who makes you want to tell secrets and eat popcorn and be a better person. And sometimes you meet someone who makes you feel like you’re slamming your head in a car door, on purpose. You can just feel how self-destructive the relationship is. It feels like the difference between ordering a glass of wine and grabbing a bottle of jager - you just want to get fucked up.

It’s fun but it’s bad, and like smoking a whole pack of cigarettes, eventually you get a stomach ache and think about how angry your mother would be at you for doing it and you move on. This is usually around the time where you see them haggling with a bartender over the price of a beer or they mention they’re fucking a gym teacher on the side. Suddenly it’s just done. Done done. When and if you do think of them, you hope/assume that they are off crying in a dumpster or crapping their pants on a public bus or something.

These relationships are somewhat unavoidable. I have seen it happen to all of my friends. Beguiled by flighty actors, brooding musicians, and pre-occupied video artists, they indulge their inner self-hatred in the name of romance, then leave shaking their heads that it ever happened. But there’s no use beating yourself up over it - everyone has to tick through a certain number of these trainwrecks to get to the good stuff. What else would we have to blog about? The secret to survival is to not try to actually date this person. Dating sticky man-trash (or lady-garbage) is beyond self-destructive, it’s deluded. Keep things in perspective: go to parties, have some laughs, show up for work stinking of mistakes and regret a couple of times - but never let him borrow anything or eat with you, and get out after a month.

And most of all, just know where you’re at. A handful of jaeger when you’re expecting popcorn is just going to make a mess.

Although a shot of popcorn when you’re not expecting it is just a nice surprise.

Also, here’s a big fat kitty cat:

This morning on the subway I was sitting next to a man in a suit drawing on one of those cool laptops with the flip around screens that can be used a a writing tablet - like this:

Was he using it to draw a technological model? Work on spreadsheets? Create businessy powerpoint slides? Nope. He was drawing a dick and balls. Not just any dick and balls - a dick that shoots fire! That, or a circumcised dragon. Either way I got off the train before he got a chance to give it a wicked guitar to play.

New technology - always best used for pornography.

I don’t drink coffee. I used to gobble it up all day long, but then I also used to date assholes and listen to straight-edge hardcore. Eventually you learn what’s good for you and what just gives you an ulcer. Now that I’m almost wholly decaffienated, the occasional Diet Coke can really set me off. Case in point: a few weeks ago I was drinking  a diet coke at a presentation at Columbia Business School, when a sudden surge of caffeine hit me and I had to restrain myself from standing up and yelling “How AMAZING is Stephen King, right guys? I mean, he brought literature to THE PEOPLE, writing about exciting cool shit in a language people actually spoke! And it made him a billionaire! Fuck you, elitist book critics, people are reading! Am I right??”

Caffeine heightens my love of Stephen King.

Similarly, today I was drinking a D.C. and clicking around on the online sketchbook for Marvel’s graphic novel of “The Stand”, and it made me totally amped and retarded. I haven’t bought the first issue because I am an adult now, so I only buy trade paperbacks. But looking at the sketches got me really excited for the art especially - in the same way that a stupid person would get excited. Page after page made me say “Oooh! Wow! They draw so good!” in increasing levels of chair-bouncing excitement. Way to go, Art History degree! They do draw good!

I love The Stand. I mean, I love all post-apocalyptic stories, but this one is especially great, since it was by Stephen King. In case you missed it, it only takes a very low grade stimulant to make me want to shake people and yell at them about loving Stephen King. Joe Quesada - editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics - called King “one of the greatest authors to have walked this green earth!” Initially, I thought “slow down, Quesada, Stan Lee’s still around to handle the snappy hyperboles.” But you know what, he’s right!

Presidents should not be people “just like everyone else” - they should be smarter and wiser and more savy than everyone else - but writers should. Stephen King writes books about regular people’s real fears - the personal scary parts of their minds - in their own language.  That’s what makes Stephen King the BEST WRITER EVERRRR. Oops, wait, that was the diet coke talking again.

Hmm…ok.
I like Stephen King. (That seems reasonable. )