See The Column To The Right, Underneath My Lengthy Bio...
(They Involve Coca-Cola & Cunnilingus)
Music
Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Bjork, Beck, Beach Boys, Beastie Boys, Fredo Viola, Mozart, Nina Simone, Tom Waits, Simon & Garfunkel, Joni Mitchel, Eminem, Zero 7, Ben Folds Five, Bach, Jeff Buckley, Carol King, Janis Joplin, Joanna Newsom, The Rolling Stones, The Jackson 5, Donovan, Kate Bush, Krishna Das, Elizabeth Egan, Nick Drake, Cat Stevens, Van Morrison, Radiohead, Belle & Sebastian, Elton John, Ella Fitzgerald, Pink Floyd, Rosemary Clooney, Marlo Thomas & Friends, Dolly Parton, Frank Sinatra, Beethoven, Schubert, Coltrane, Crosby, Stills & Nash, The Clash, The Muppets.
Movies
Annie Hall, Harold & Maude, Fantastic Planet, Eyes Wide Shut, Halloween, Animal House, Amelie, The Royal Tennenbaums, Willy Wonka, Lost in Translation, Pippi Longstockings, Star Wars, ET, The Shining, Rushmore, Rosemary's Baby, I Love You Alice B. Tokeless, Fanny & Alexander, Manhattan, The Life Aquatic, A Clockwork Orange, Nights Of Cabiria, The Graduate, Being There, Arthur, Boogie Nights, The Dark Crystal, Everyone Says I Love You, Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, Muppets Take Manhattan, Joe Versus The Volcano, Juliet Of The Spirits, The Party, Superman, Secretary, Mulholland Drive, City Lights, Donny Darko, Metropolis, Don't Look Now, City Of Women...hmm...shall I go on and on and on?
Television
Baretta, Starsky & Hutch, Muppets, Brady Bunch, Carol Burnett, Columbo, All In The Family, Sesame Street, Electric Company, 321 Contact, Magnum PI, EMERGENCY!, Twin Peaks, David Letterman, Six Feet Under, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Praise The Lord Telethons, MTV Cribs, The Osbournes, Crank Yankers, Superfriends, The Simpsons, VH1, Z Channel, New Zoo Review
Books
On my nightstand, all in various states of semi-completion
and ready to topple over in a bibliorgasm of ADD overload.........
'Saturday'-Ian McEwan
'Loving What Is'- Byron Katie
'Making Your Creative Dreams Real'- SARK
'Naked Happy Girls'- Andrew Einhorn
'Kafka On The Shore'- Haruki Murakami
'Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell'- Susanna
Clark
'The Places That Scare You'- Pema Chodron
'Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close- Jonathan
Safran Foer
'Plan B'- Anne Lamott
'Diane Arbus, A Biography'- Patricia Bosworth
'Magical Thinking'- Augusten Burroughs
'Turning The Mind Into An Ally"- Sakyong Mipham
Rinpoche
'Journal Of A Solitude'- May Sarton
'Until I Find You'- John Irving
'Willful Creatures'- Aimee Bender
'A Long Way Down'- Nick Hronby
'Falling Up'- Shel Silverstein
'The R. Crumb Handbook'- R. Crumb
Heroes
Jim Henson, The Dalai Lama, Tibor Kalman, Stanley Kubrick, Maya Angelou, Benjamin Franklin, Mother Teresa, Rosa Parks, Abraham Lincoln, John Lennon, SARK, Superman, Larry Flynt...hmmm...gotta think more on this...much more.
About me: I am an alchemist of the surreal stumbling through the dark...an artist, healer, actor, ad man, mad man, puppeteer, photographer, filmmaker, writer, painter, pirate, poet, sit-down comedian, alternapornographer, vintage futurist, rule-breaker and recovering hypochondriac/narcissist who is looking for his sixteenth minute of fame.
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BIO:
My name is Donavan Freberg, AKA Son Of Stan. I am 37 years old, going on seven going on seventy going on the seventies. I am a native of Los Angeles. I didn't get the name "Donavan" till I was 5 years old and Santa Claus named me...in July. The Christmas tree was still up, it's bone dry branches adorned with flags and firecrackers. I used to get a present every day...my parents called it a "morning toy" and said that it was a reward for waking up. I started drinking coffee at four. I've never stopped since. Milk, no sugar.
As for how they decided on Donavan, my sister is named Donna, as was my mother. My dad had writers block so he just elongated Donna. Until then, they called me baby boy, a name I shared with the family dog, a freakishly small but very cute Yorkshire terrier. I had bells on my booties. The dog had bells on his collar. My mother would yell "BABY! WHERES MOMMAS BABY?" from her room, and me and the dog would come jingling through the halls of the giant spanish mansion that I grew up in. We would climb into her double king sized bed and eat cheese-whiz and ritz crackers while watching Magnum P.I. Before meeting my dad, my mother worked with Frank Sinatra and hung out with JFK at his beach house. She smoked five packs of cigarettes a day and wore Chanel. My dad fashioned impromptu puppets out of dinner rolls at fancy dinner parties. Ray Bradbury taught me how to make a hot fudge sundae.
My childhood was a Wonka infused cross between the Osbournes & The Royal Tennenbaums...as seen through the eyes of Tim Burton, David Lynch and Woody Allen. My parents used to vacation at The Beverly Hills Hotel. We lived 1/2 block away. When I was four, my father would take me for pony rides (now the Beverly Center) at 2AM. As a small child, I had long blonde hair, powder pale skin, and bags under my eyes the size of Louis Vuitton steamer trunks. As a baby, I cried whenever I saw a clown. I still do. I once got a hernia from lifting my big wheel. I am allergic to cats but adore rats. Blue cheese makes my lips break out. Sometimes I sit down to pee. I love the smell of dry cleaning fluid. Antiques give me ennui.
Sean Cassidy and Debbie Boone were my babysitters. My sister's first kiss was from David Cassidy. My first kiss was from an Elvis impersonating lesbian tap dancer. My nanny was an internationally recognized threat assessment and stalking specialist. My other nanny was a classical guitarist who wore black leather gloves and used to take me on adventures to abandoned buildings. Grappling hooks and night-vision goggles were employed. I used to cut school, and the principal would call and chastise my mom, who would quickly retort, "you're lucky he shows up at all...he's busy getting a real education...so bug off". I had sleepovers at Princess Leah's house. Paul Simon was there, as was Jack Nicholson. His breath smelled like peanuts (Jack's). I never got close enough to Paul to smell his breath, but I do remember that he had very small hands. Carrie had a bird named bill-as in Murray. I almost killed it by feeding it a frozen banana. Danny Ackroyd once came over and when I saw him I said, "The Toilet Is Upstairs". I thought he was the plumber. I was baptized in Pat Boone's pool. I drew on the walls. When the refrigerator got full of old food, my mother put a giant padlock on it and threw it in the garage. Our basement was haunted and filled with enough memorabilia and junk to fill the Rose Bowl. Once, in high school while shooting a homemade horror film down there, I found the original sheet music to "Somewhere Over The Rainbow". The man who wrote the screenplay to The Wizard Of Oz lived there before us, and died after tripping over his schnauzer (named toto) on our front staircase. We had an olympic sized swimming pool that filled with mud every time it rained. My dad took me to the park in the middle of the night and swung me in the moonlight. If it was cloudy, he used a flashlight. I was the voice of Charlie Brown when I was seven years old, and Linus at six. When I was 16, Drew Barrymore flirted with me in P.E. class and asked me if I had any pot. I didn't. I wish I had. I was parodied on Saturday Night Live. I once sold Encyclopedia Britannica's on national television. Whoopie Goldberg asked me for my autograph at the Mall. I have over a thousand dollars worth of camping equipment. I have never been camping, and don't plan on it.
I have a very sensitive stomach. I love hot dogs and Coca-Cola. I am obsessed with luggage. I don't like traveling. I have seven gore-tex jackets. I live in Southern California. I was married to a Scottish girl from a town of 100 people. She would punch me in the stomach as a way of telling me she wanted to have sex. I had a dog that ate light bulbs and tried to mount my pet rabbit. The rabbit's name was uncle bob. It died of a heart attack after I put pink floyd on at too high a volume. No relation to my real uncle Bob, who was a colonel in the Strategic Air Command and told me he saw UFO's. At eight, I shit in my pants at Rosemary Clooneys house in front of Dean Martins son while we were picking strawberrys together in aunt Rosie's garden. Then I went scuba diving in her black bottom pool with her two golden retrievers and got hypothermia. When I was thirteen, I dressed in a suit and tie and carried around a pocket bible pretending I was a preacher. Frank Zappa's son once threw up french fries...on my face. Earlier that same evening, I crashed my BMW into a runaway truck ramp on Mulholland drive while racing Tom Cruise. At eight, my brother in law taught me to fire a Heckler & Koch MP5 Submachine gun. At nine, we went out to the desert and fired a rocket from a portable launcher into a car. The smoke burned my eyes and I was partially deaf for nearly a week. Star Tour buses would stop in front of my house and I would go out to wave at them dressed in a skin-tight leather jumpsuit with Elvis glasses on. I loved watering the lawn and wore red rain boots every single day, with a matching red cape. At ten, I hugged Jim Henson. His beard was scratchy and he smelled like doughnuts and coffee. His speaking voice sounded just like kermit. He was tall. He was lovely.
I was rich in a past life. Things are a lot leaner now, but I am rich in so many other ways. I still however, use the same fancy french cologne as Ozzy Osbourne (my former neighbor). I still sleep in 400 thread count sheets and buy my coffee at Graffeo. A boys gotta have his indulgences. And I still get asked for my autograph, though usually by Schizophrenics.
My older sister's name is Donna Jean. She is a brilliant writer who hyperventilates when she gets into elevators. She is engaged to a deconstruction worker/post-modern theologist that used to be a roadie for AC/DC. She has a puppy that looks like a stuffed animal. My Niece is named Rylee. She is a MySpace loving, seventeen year old neo-hipster with a penchant for climbing trees and having sugar induced spazzes...a girl after my own heart.
As for my parents...my mother died seven years ago. I miss her terribly, but she still talks to me. My dad estranged himself from the family four years ago. I miss him terribly and he doesn't talk to me.
I have been in therapy for the last 15 years. My shrink is like Maude, I am like Harold. She wears sunglasses in session and smokes pink cigarettes while I whine and eat cacao nibs. I'm a piece of work but a work in progress.
I have ADD, OCD, IBS, Low Blood Sugar and a touch of PTSD. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and listen to my heart with a stethoscope. I read the DSM-IV for fun. I also read pornographic comic books. I hold a doctorate in homeopathic medicine and am in the process of getting a double masters in Chinese Medicine and Clinical Psychology. This process has lasted over a decade. I never got my bachelors degree and didn't graduate high school. I skipped the fourth grade and never went to kindergarten. On the first day of school, I sat next to Angelina Jolie. She smelled like baby powder and had a book of puffy stickers. My mother came with me to the first week of school. I wore my cape and carried a purse. I still do.
And that is just the tip of the Baby Boy Freberg.
I have poured most of my adult years into studying acupuncture, tonic herbalism, classical and complex homeopathy, nutrition and counseling psychology. I have spent a great deal of time flying and adventuring as an herb pirate in the magical land of the mostly bullshit. I have recently come to the conclusion that I'd rather put my former new age feet on the ground and make my living as an actor, writer, advertising man and general artist extraordinaire while using my healing skills free of charge.
Hmmm...what else to say?
I am aware of and believe in wonder, mystery and magic. I love great books, movies, art, plays, poetry, music, photographs and all things that mirror our humanity back to us and make us feel. I am a hope-full romantic and a cynical optimist. For kicks I like to- Fight conformity, open my mind and others minds, be kind to strangers, fight for the underdog, give gifts to people who aren't expecting them, defend people who cannot do it for themselves, hang out with old people, children, and other wonder-filled creatures, take decadent afternoon naps under big puffy comforters, eat popsicles in the rain, Hug big trees and get all barky, jump into pools with my clothes on (or off) , amaze and astound myself and others with great feats of utter wackiness and complete stupidity, act instead of react (a daily challenge), spin untill I fall down on the grass in a pile of giggles, write love letters with a fountain pen and seal them in wax, go to the grocery store in my pajamas, flail, dance a jig, wonder, ponder, render, wander, write, read books, watch and make movies, make stuff, take photographs, swing by moonlight, LIVE! ! !
That is when I'm not feeling depressed at the insane state of the world, nostalgic, pessimistic, crabby, tearful, messy, scared shitless, narcissitic, self-absorbed, distracted, flatulent, tired, wired, angry, confused and generally anti-social....hiding underneath the covers, whining, battling ennui and practicing my self-depracation/gratification.
If you read through this entire bio without needing a cookie, a nap, or a prozac, I think I might be in love with you.
Even if you did need one.
Perhaps especially if you did.
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INTERESTS:
Interrupting People, Putting Needles In People, Film (Making & Watching), Psychology, Eastern Philosophies, Music, Pulses & Tongues, Photography, Books, Voyeurism, Tonics, Toys, Erotica, Muppets, Puppets, Cutlets, Cartoons, Cunnilingus, Sitting Down To Pee, Girl Talk, Carl Jung, Oliver Sachs, Microscopes, Miniatures, Microphones, Masturbation (Solo or Mutual), Glue Sticks, Giant Bathtubs, Giant Robots, Edward Gorey, Roald Dahl, Diane Arbus, Lisa Yuskavage, FOUND magazine, Yoshitomo Nara, Junko Mizuno, Marcel Dzama, The Force, NPR, Google, The MOCA store, R. Crumb, Crayons, Superheroes, Cigarettes, Bubble Gum, Coca-Cola, Central Park, Annie Hall, Barbarella, David Lynch, Daniel Clowes, Wes Anderson, Shel Silverstein, Egon Schiele, CS Lewis, Japanese Pop Culture, Puffy Stickers, Permission Slips, Gurus, Garbage, Gore-Tex, Photo Booths, Skeleton Keys, Dragon Bones, Lucky Cats, Acting, Shooting Myself, Singing, Advertising, Gadgets, Video Games, i Ching, Qi, Polaroids, 4 Star Public Toilets, Digital Cameras, Cheese, Fried Chicken, Oompa Loompas, Big Friendly Giants, Boba (Tea & Fett), Macintosh (The Computer and The Raincoat), Comic Books, Junior Mints, Depth Of Field, The Museum Of Jurassic Technology, Friendster, Werewolves, Zombies & Vampires, Moonlight, Flashlights, LOMO, Mini-DV, Naked Happy Girls, Jesus (the cool, compassionate, hippy Jesus that hung out with tramps and hookers and did magic tricks, not the right wing poster child of neo-nazi fundamentalists), Krishna (who wouldn't love a guy that had a harem of concubines and blue colored skin?), Buddha, Ice Cream, Naps, Swings, Slides, Spooning, Swimming Pools, Caffeine, Dark Chocolate, 24 Hour Room Service, Free Love, Hugs, Tea Parties, Terriers, Yo-Yo's, Magic Wands (Harry Potter and Hitachi), Dinosaurs, Magazines, Mad Hatters, Gelato, Soap, SARK, Spin The Bottle, Joysticks, Postcards, Roller Skating, Feathered Hair, Girls With Glasses, Tree-Houses, Turtles, Tennenbaums, Dreaming, Over Spending, Running Late, Self-Depracation, Self-Gratification, Writing, Chanting, Whining, Hypochondria.
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See Also:
http://babyboyfreberg.typepad.com
AND
http://babyboyfreberg.blogspot.com
Who I'd like to meet: Muppets, Superheroes & Broken Flowers.
Donavan, why do I find you so cosmic, so sensual, so stunningly beautiful?? You really are captivating, you could easily be a muse for someone, in fact, maybe you are my muse as I've found myself writing scattered thoughts about your depth, your uniqueness, your feelings of being misunderstood, your otherworldly undertones. I adore everything you do, your art, your puppetry, your music..you really are one of a kind. I would give absolutely anything to understand you(albeit probably impossible) but nonetheless, I could only dream of lying next to you, playing with your golden hair, and just protecting you from all of the world's harm. You really do inspire me Donavan!
