So I’m recuperating from the corisone shot I mentioned last week. I asked my BlueBlood.net friends, my 60,000+ Blue Blood MySpace friends, and my LiveJournal friends. Apparently I have a lot of different site-specific friends. I was surprised to only get five responses on BlueBlood.net. In my personal journal, I received eleven responses, ten of which were from people I have interacted with extensively, ranging from interfaced with digitally a whole lot to stayed up late with at science fiction conventions to lived with, and nine of which were from people I know in real life in different cities. It is nice that the journaling service helps me keep in touch with people from different places and times in my life, although sometimes the chasms between the different folks on there seem odd, given that they all intersect with me.

I would have expected my personal journal to have had the most responses, given that it seems most likely that the folks on there would be the most interested in what is going on with me personally. Not how it went. More than 250 people on MySpace responded, including people I have known for many years, people I have just met, people I have made art with, people I have worked with, people I have partied with, people I’ve met once, people I hope to meet someday, and people who seemed interesting but I’ve never chatted with before. More than 250 MySpace friends were generous enough to share their experiences to make mine a more informed one. I was both stunned and touched. MySpace sure has gotten to be about 680 million times cooler since FOX bought it. At any rate, it seems that my friends who have received cortisone injections are most likely to be women who have worn extremely high heels and/or performed very vigorously onstage and men who have participated in some form of UFC-type fighting and/or performed very vigorously onstage. Your more traditional sports such as baseball, football, and gymnastics came in second place for both genders. I’m not sure what that says about the demographics of who I like. The general consensus of the general demographic seemed to be that cortisone shots are unmitigated hell to get but work magic for healing.

At any rate, when I went for the shot, I was scared and I brought the Mummy given to me by the wonderful artist Kristin Tercek of Cuddly Rigor Mortis. My doctor was entertained by the name of her company, but he told me I really didn’t need to worry and that he had a reputation for being good with a needle. I laughed nervously and he explained that there are three things which make it so a cortisone shot is not that awful. If I recall correctly, the three things were (1) spray the skin with topical anaesthetic but not an injected one, (2) use a very thin needle, and (3) don’t muck about. I asked him what he meant by don’t muck about. He explained that many doctors inject lidocaine or something similar to numb the area before they inject the cortisone, but he couldn’t see how two shots would hurt a lot less than one, and he suspected that many doctors did it that way because they lacked the experience and confidence to get in there quickly in the right spot and get out fast. A numb patient won’t notice the doctor feeling his way and a numb patient is likely to go overexert their injured area immediately afterwards.

I seriously get sick after getting blood drawn, so I was very nervous about the shot. It was totally nothing. The doctor was super fast and precise. It didn’t hurt at all. There was a peculiar burning sensation in my ankle for a while afterwards, but it was not painful, just odd. Afterwards the doctor said something about hoping he didn’t come across as arrogant. I told him that I’m just fine with my doctor being arrogant, especially when he is right.

Then me and Mummy went home to play with the awesome new Royal Gimp Kristin made for Blue Blood in Blue Blood purple.

So, in conclusion, I sure do like Kristin Tercek. I sure do like my doctor. I sure do like people who are accurately arrogant. My ankle hurts way more now than before the shot and I’m a little grumpy, but that is all apparently a normal precursor to feeling miraculously better. I just want to be able to go to the gym and drive like normal. And, fuck me, but I think I just may like MySpace.

I met the talented Kristin Tercek through Ed Mironiuk who has been doing artwork for Blue Blood projects since 1995 or 1996. But Kristin wouldn’t need nepotism to be covered here because I love love love her Cuddly Rigor Mortis doll collection. Kristin is also an accomplished illustrator and completely self-taught. She explains her fairly organic creative process, “I basically sketch out a design and then go to the fabric store and wander around, touching everything, holding it up to the light, stretching it out to see if it might be the right fit.” She generally has an idea what she is looking for. For example, the artist was sure her Pulp Fiction-inspired fetish plush Gimp “needed to be black leather or vinyl” and was pleased when she found just the right soft, black pleather. Some of her creations, however, such as the Tiki plush doll and matching purse came into existence because Kristin found a cotton wood grain print velvet fabric which just begged to be made into something cool.

Although Kristin Tercek’s Cuddly Rigor Mortis plushes have only just been launched, they have already appeared in Frontiers Magazine, been a Yahoo New & Notable and Daily Pick, and been part of the Plush Rush show at Acme Art Gallery in Ohio. Kristin even did an exclusive one-of-a-kind cuddly piece for Plush Rush called Gorbot. The seasonal Gingerbreadman plush was a featured item on Etsy the fast-growing online marketplace for all things handmade. Seasonal means that you can only order Gingerbreadman which his deliciously chewed-on head or the very cheerful Snowman between now and January 31, 2006, although this article will be archived to tease you after the moment of opportunity passes.

Here is our exclusive Blue Blood interview with artist Kristin Tercek, the creator of the fabulous Cuddly Rigor Mortis plushes:

What first lead you on the path to the darker end of the artistic spectrum?
Always been there, always will be. What’s great now is the combination of cute and killer, something I’m obviously attracted to.

How did you get into doing art in general and cool dolls in specific?
I think I was born with a paintbrush in my hand. I grew up on Bob Ross and William Alexander (the same premise as Bob Ross but with a big, old Prussian guy ‘Firing in the trees! with your brush!’). I started painting on my own around 11 and haven’t stopped. About 4 years ago I started dabbling in other mediums and stumbled upon sewing. I’ve always loved stuffed animals (to the point where I still can’t watch any being thrown away) and got sucked into the whole urban vinyl/designer toy movement where all these different artists were turning their work into three dimensional toys. The plush designers like Ugly Dolls, Friends with You and Anna Chambers really inspired me to buy some fabric and let my inner plush-maker out.

What inspires your work?
I guess you could say all the old monster movies do. Certainly artists like Tim Biskup, Seonna Hong, Mark Ryden, Takashi Murakami, everything San-X, Aranzi Aronzo, Toy Field (Japanese Teddy Bear designers), Kariwanz (Japanese Fetish designers) and of course, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas.

Do you whistle while you work?
I don’t listen to much but recently Gorillaz has gotten my attention. I love everything about them, even their toys by Kid Robot (I recently acquired Noodle and can’t take my eyes off of him). Black Eyed Peas is an amazingly good album, too. One of my oldies but goodies is Desi Arnaz. You gotta love Cuba when it was cool. Honestly the past couple of weeks I’ve been going through the original Star Trek DVD’s while I work.

Any additional special credits or bio info you want to mention?
So far I’ve been so lucky with Cuddly Rigor Mortis. Gimp made it onto http://agentchin.typepad.com/cutethings/ . It’s a great list of cool toys that this person liked. So I emailed her to thank her and low and behold it’s Lili Chin one of the creators of “Mucha Lucha”. Gimp now lives with her in LA. He’s also been a part of Tokyo Perve’s Halloween Ball, accompanied by Karin and Wanco of Kariwanz. All of the plushes have sold really well due in no small part to the fact that someone over at Yahoo! (I don’t know who) took a liking to my website and made it a ‘New and Notable’ with only three other sites for a week in October and a Daily Pick in MyYahoo!. My webhits jumped from 3 a day to 5500 (it’s gone down a lot more now…whew!). These little guys have been shipped to Australia, Japan, Germany, the UK, Italy and of course, the good old US of A. I even had a fan over in Iraq in the form of an army soldier. (hope you made it home, Daniel!) who bought three of them! Everyone has been so nice and so happy with their plushes — I can’t ask for anything better.

What are your plans for the near future?
Sew! Sew! Sew! oh and celebrate Christmas with the little ones (2 chihuahuas and a husband, Ed Mironiuk). I was also asked to be part of a 12 artist plush show at Plastic Passion Toys in Seattle sometime in February. Ed and I also want to shop around a gallery show we want to do called ‘Pinups and Plushes’. It includes both our artwork — he’s started making pinups that include and compliment my plushes. Oooh he’s so talented it kills me!

Who is your favorite Blue Blood hottie?
I must say I’ve taken a liking to Dana Dark. I like her dog.