Who or what is a Ze Frank? I’m feeling weird

I’m feeling just a little bit weird right now. Yes, I know, I’ve always been a little bit weird, but today in particular I’m feeling exceptionally strange. Why, you ask? Of course, it’s because of a blog. I’ve just spent the last few hours being totally sucked in by Ze Frank at his blog. This is definitely not an ordinary blog. Come to think of it, I’ve never seen a blog constructed in this way. Oh man, it’s a super-strange place from a funked-up mind, but an intelligent mind nonetheless. Besides the written post aspect that usually accompanies blogs, there are a whole bunch of sections linking to other ‘work’ (a very happily debateable term for what he does I’m sure). He’s a busy guy. There’s a ‘Games’ section where you can play at being a Buddhist , Christian, or Atheist. Check them out, quite amusing to say in the least. There’s also a link to ‘The Show’, Ze Frank’s videoblog, which he updates 5 days a week-but he’s not just talking into a camera. There’s some real creativity going on here-music, film, and documentary being just a few aspects of his repertoire.

Ok, when it comes down to it, Ze is a master wordsmith who excels in the new sphere of the videoblog in an unparalleled fashion. If you want to know what the man is like, how he thinks, and how he relates to the world, you only need to have a quick view of some of his ‘popular shows’. I’ve spent some time going back through the video archives and there’s hardly a moment when I’m not astounded by his maniacal, yet coherent, and precise humour. Although Frank does spend a lot of time analysing American politics (not one of my favourite or passionate subjects) he disseminates ‘newsworthy’ information in such a way as to shed a quirky, ethereal, yet slightly pungent light on his chosen topics. In essence, he parodies or satirically evaluates general information that any one of us could find in the local paper, thus giving him a huge amount of information and an incredibly broad field of subject matter to cover, yet he can make a rotten pear taste as fresh as a pack of newly opened cigarettes.

The blog’s front page has different sections of content available under the category titles ‘Stuff Stuff’, ‘Educational Videos’ (I haven’t checked these out yet, but I anticipate trouble for the children of the future), ‘Participate’, ‘Interactive Toys’ (Oh God, these are pretty silly. Check out the one called ‘The Frog’), ‘Mini Things’, ‘Stuff to Read’, ‘Games’ (It looks like he actually created these.), ‘Stuff to Watch’, and ‘Other Stuff’. Hmmm…stuff. He then separates the page into 7 areas. One blank white space says, ‘this is the space where you imagine beautiful things. Each time you come here, try to imagine new shapes and colours. Then tell all of your friends how beautiful this part of the page is.’ Another space says, ‘I’m not sure what goes here yet, maybe a flower?’ You get my drift…the guy’s either missing some screws, or he’s got a couple extra bolts in the cerebellum department.

If you go to his actual blog link from his main site it’s called ‘Miss(ed) Manners’ and after posting ‘What I did over Christmas Vacation’ he became one of the hottest blogs on WordPress. So what did he do over the holiday period? He, his younger siblings, and his girlfriend, built a scale replica of the battle of ‘Helm’s Deep’ from the ‘Lord of the Rings’ ‘Two Towers’ novel, the second instalment in J.R.R Tolkein’s famous trilogy. Why is this so significant? It was built out of candy! Freak! No, I’m just jealous.

Ze Frank’s got a ‘thing’ for ducks. The one on the left looks genuinely amazed and friendly, while the duck on the right seems a little bit mischievous, don’t you think?

This posse of ducks definitely knows the cool part of town to hang out. Don’t mess with Ze’s friends. They too don’t put up with ‘small talk’ from the mouths of politicians or soapbox evangelists.

Jesse S. Somer went to Ze Frank’s blog and ‘The Show’ videoblog. He’ll never be the same.

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