Backyard BBQ

Google Adwords/Adsense - Scam and Scam Again

2010-05-09T16:14:00.000-07:00

Today, I received in the mail, what I thought was a happy harbinger of good tidings from Google. I've used their Adsense for the past 3 years, placing their scrolling banner ads across the pages of my website, in the hopes (and according to their contract)that they would pay me a small amount each month to do so. I rarely even think about it anymore, since they've never paid me one red cent. After having their advertising splayed out across my site for about a year, I once wondered "Why haven't they paid me?". I get clicks all the time to my site. Surely Google will make good on their promise of sending me at least one check, in due course, for having advertised them for so long. Nope. Read the fine print. They don't ever have to pay you if your site doesn't garner more than 15,000 hits a month. Doesn't seem like a lot when you consider that Perez Hilton gets a million hits a day, but I'm just an average working stiff. I don't advertise my site every second of every day, and I don't update it every day either. Still, Google has had 3 years of free advertising from me, and enough is enough.

So today, when I got a hefty envelope labelled "Google Adsense" I thought, "Hmm, maybe they made good on their promise afterall." I opened the envelope, and was mildly surprised, and only slightly annoyed. They had sent me $100 "Thank You Card". It actually says that on it. Seems like not too terrible a deal, right? They eventually sent me $100 gift card to use online. NOPE. Wrong again. What they had sent me was a $100 promotional card to use on some service they called GOOGLE ADWORDS. After a little research and signing in to the site, I found out that they now wanted ME to pay for THEIR FREE ADVERTISING ON MY SITE. I seriously almost shit my pants.

After a little more research, I found that these troglodytes actually wanted me to pay for THEM advertising MY site on those little sidebars, everytime you search in google. Okay, I thought, that makes a little more sense. And they did give me $100 to start my account with. I'll check it out and see if I can't direct a little more traffic to my site with this promotion that they're using. It makes more sense now.

In fact, it doesn't make any sense. I jumped through the twenty minutes of hoops setting up the account, and guess what? It won't accept the promotional card code without entering either A: A bank account number or B: Credit Card number.

Thanks Google, but FUCK YOU.

I'm so sick of these legal corporate scams. Why don't you just play ball the old fashioned and honest way? Instead you try to put so many hurdles in front of the rabbit, that he can't even see the carrot anymore. Pucker up buttercup and kiss my motherfucking, no longer advertising your stupid shit, ass, GOOGLE.

DATA RECOVERY SERVICES - A SCAM FOR EVERY MAN WOMAN AND CHILD

2010-01-08T14:16:00.000-08:00

Dear Data Recovery Douchebags,

I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank you for disregarding fair business practices and trying to screw the little guy over a barrel. It's refreshing to know that in this dire financial market, there are still some companies that put themselves and money before disposable things like ethics, and making the world a better place, or helping others.

You probably don't remember me, even though I was just in your disgustingly shabby crack den/ storefront 20 minutes ago. I'm the guy that wasn't willing to pay $1200 for $4.95 worth of your services. Let me recap so you can know from whence I bleat. ie: where I'm comin from.

I brought my corrupted external Maxtor hard drive in just over a week ago, under the pretense of getting some personally valuable data off of it. It had crashed the night before and since I, like many others, don't fancy opening up a hard drive to screw around with it, I consulted the first name in Data Recovery Services that I found on Google. That would be you guys. The ad said "FREE DIAGNOSTIC" so I thought, great. Then I called to get a ballpark figure for how much it would cost to retrieve my lost data. The guy on the phone "Scott" gave me a figure of "starting at $300". So I thought... hmm.. that's not so bad. I could pay that if I have to... but nah, they wouldn't charge me $300 for retrieving two pdf files... That's silly. So I brought the drive in.

At your shop, I asked again for a ballpark figure, and was told by the guy at the front desk "Well it can be anywhere from $300 to $2500, depending on how difficult the data is to get". I thought, that makes sense. The tougher the job, the more work involved, the more you have to pay. That's how it works. Solid. So I went home and waited for the call I was told that I would get telling me that my drive was ready. It never came. You asked for my phone number, and never used it. Instead, one of your staff "Eric" lazily sent me an email and never bothered to call. Just curious to know how "Eric" thought I was going to get that email if my computer wasn't working because of a busted drive. I'll grant you that the drive is external and generally people have alternate sources to check their email. I digress.

I got the email, and had to call you for a quote. I was told by "Eric" that there was nothing physically wrong with the drive and it would be an easy retrieval, just a couple bad logical units, he said. I asked for the cost quote at that time and nearly s*it my pants when he said $1200. That's twelve hundred, not twelve. Twelve hundred dollars to retrieve two pdf documents from a working hard drive. At which point I laughed and said I'll be in to pick it up tomorrow. His response "Uhhhh ohhhh..." I said "Well it's a free estimate right? I can come get my drive anytime right?" to which he said "Uhhhh.. ohhhh... yea, but give us a day to put it back together, we'll give you a call when it's ready." That was three days ago. No one ever called me back.

Today, I called to find out the status of it and was told "It's ready come on down". So, again, thanks for not calling me back and following through with anything at all. I went down there and was handed a bag full of screws, a bent framed shell casing, and the actual hard drive in a small bag. That is not the way I dropped it off, and it's not the way I was told I was getting it back. Thanks for being such lazy f*cking a*sh*les, that you couldn't be bothered to screw in a couple of screws once you found out I wasn't giving up $1200.

I brought the drive home, promptly plugged it back into my system, downloaded a little program called Power Data Recovery, and, in less than five minutes, had ALL OF MY DATA BACK. Let me type that again. I GOT ALL OF MY DATA BACK FOR FREE IN FIVE MINUTES WHAT YOU WERE GOING TO CHARGE ME $1200 AND A WEEKS WORTH OF WORK FOR.

Here's a little tip for free (although I should charge you $1200 for it). If your clients are willing to pay $300 (which I was) for something that costs you nothing... take it. Your business model works the same way an illegitimate auto mechanic's does. You prey on people who aren't tech savvy and hope that they don't know anyone who is.

Little FYI, since I'm going to be posting this warning all over the net. You might want to rethink that money making scheme you're working on. It's only going to work for so long. DATA RECOVERY SERVICES - only use em if you wanna get screwed.

Sincerely,
Brian T.

My Screenwriting Career: Day 5

2009-12-17T17:56:00.000-08:00

Screenwriting is not for the weak of heart. It takes skill, talent, patience, and a lot of hard work. At least according to the un-sold.

The pros make it look like going fishing. They make the end result seem like it came down out of Mount Ararat. They're masters of storytelling... and I hope one day to be one.

For today I'll just have to settle for telling a few stories that are important to me. Zombies that devour Los Angeles, astronauts and other dimensions, a guy with such bad luck that he might destroy the world.

My Screenwriting Career: Day 4

2009-12-11T16:29:00.000-08:00

So I've got this script (among others) finished and pared down. It's my masterpiece I think, my Citizen Kane, my Chinatown. It's exciting, dramatic, heartbreaking, and epic. I can't imagine anyone not wanting to make it into a major motion picture...

...and then I post it to the screenwriting forums.

The feedback I get basically tells me that in no uncertain terms, my opus is garbage. A proper agent or producer wouldn't touch it with a twenty foot pole and latex gloves. I should quit writing and go back to scraping the lichen off of rotting trees in the Yucatan.

I am shattered. I am utterly and completely broken both as a man and as an artist. What do I do now?

I start over. I drive all the way back to where the road diverged in the wood and I choose the other path. I re-think and completely re-write the story from a completely different angle, using all the story elements I've created and the characters thus far. I burrow in and drive all night if I have to, to get the story moving in the right direction.

It's the plight of the writer nowadays. Everyone IS a critic, and like it or not, their opinion matters. Maybe not to you, maybe not to an agent or producer or actors or anyone but themselves, but it still matters. Over the past few weeks I've come to the staggering realization that when you find the guy that actually hates what you've written, you've found solid gold. He's the guy that won't pat you on the back and say "nice try". He's the guy that WILL tell you when your shit stinks and how to un-stinkify it. He's the guy that just saved your ass from making a fool of yourself and the only guy that even knows which way IS the right way. Or at least he thinks so.. and he's often right.

Listen to that guy.

My Screenwriting Career: Day 3

2009-12-10T12:04:00.000-08:00

Still looking for an agent. Today, I'm doing a lot of research. Research on yoga, research on future propulsion systems. Related stuff. I find that the beauty of film is that it can be anything that you want it to be... literally anything. If you want a goat eating ice cream off the ass of William Shakespeare while painting Van Gogh's Starry Night, it can exist in the medium of film. I think film is sort of the majestic meeting place of all the other arts. Let me explain. Film is basically the meeting point of three other forms of art. Literature (in other words, a story), Music, and Photography (well moving photography). You can read a book and your imagination takes over. Your brain is forced to create a little world that you can't even really see, except in your subconscious. The words tell you what is there, and you perceive it in a very personal way, creating your own interpretation. Music, on the other hand is very literal. What you hear is what has been specifically put there. There are horns, you hear horns. There are drums, you hear drums. There isn't a whole lot (if any) personal interpretation about what a song consists of, until you get to the lyrics, but I feel that falls into the literature category because it's not music, it's words. Photography is also very literal, but the meaning and the emotion it draws is extremely personal. Two people can look at a photo of a man on a horse and see two very different things depending on their own interpretation of what the man and horse are supposed to signify. Film, to me, is the pyramidial point at which all of these things meet. When it's done right, it's something to behold. Something to tell others about. It's something that makes you feel an emotional reaction that, again in my opinion, none of the other art forms can quite reach.

My Screenwriting Career: Day 2

2009-12-09T10:12:00.000-08:00

Day 2: I Quit!

Just kidding. I don't quit. I just get told eventually that it's not worth my time, and apparently at that point my time begins to be worth more, which is great! I was never good at math so maybe that's why I'm so stubborn. In any event, writing is tough. If you've ever tried to write something meaningful, then you know what I'm talking about. A poem, a story, a Birthday Card for someone you only sort of know. Words can be fluid and beautiful and when they come together properly, it's like magic. It's like finding a twenty dollar bill on the street. At all other times, writing is frustrating to say the least.

Writing something with a particular set of structures, like a screenplay, is doubly tough. Not only do you now have to write something mesmerizing and gripping, you also have to know, with a high amount of exactness, the proper format in which to write your opus. I see on the writing boards all the time, writers whose grasp of the english language is comparable to that of a soft shelled crab, who seem to be living under the delusion that they are the next Robert Towne, or Charlie Kaufman. I myself suffer from this malady from time to time... A writer really needs to do two things to be successful, and neither of them is "make money". In my opinion, a writer needs to 1. Write well 2. Write often. That's it. You do those two things, and you can be proud of yourself.

Here's a list of the 100 greatest screenwriters of all time. Well in one guy's opinion anyway, but I agree. I think he got em all:

http://littflicks.blogspot.com/2008/06/100-greatest-screenwriters-of-all-time.html

So, Day 2. On the hunt once again for a screenwriting agent, and putting out another of my works for review on the boards. If anyone would like to read MAN-X, feel free to email me or just imagine how good it is... or isn't.. Hagga Dagga.

My Screenwriting Career: Day 1

2009-12-08T13:17:00.000-08:00

Well, technically it's more like Day 78, but I'm officially blogging about it from now on, so that would make today Day 1, right? Right.

Okay, so I started writing a screenplay back in May when I got fired from a really crummy job. I decided then that I would pursue my lifelong passion of making a film. I soon realized that to make a film you need at least two things: 1. camera 2. money. Since I had neither, I thought maybe I could take my talent to the page instead. So, to make a long and boring story, slightly shorter and possibly just as boring, I started writing my first screenplay titled I AM BECOME DEATH. The title is from an Oppenheimer mis-quote that I happen to like about the end of the world. I think he got it from the Baghavad Gita. I'm sure I spelled that wrong. Anyway, I wrote the script and have been passing it around to any friend or flake that says they'll read it. Thus far, I've gotten positive reviews from several people who have absolutely nothing to do with the industry, and here we are.

Day 1. Trying to sell it.

Trying to get anyone to even read a screenplay is like asking if you can move in with them for a couple weeks. They say, "of course" "no problem", and then when you have all your stuff in the car, they don't return your phone calls for a year and won't answer the door no matter how many jelly donuts you throw at their windows.

I've just scooted over to the very helpful and uber friendly screenwriting forum called Screenwriting Goldmine

and the guys and dolls over there have been the bear's tits at helping me navigate the world of what to do with a finished screenplay. I highly recommend at least checking out the wealth of info on that site, even if you don't want to post anything.

I'm also looking at Inktip.com which seems like a pretty legit site to get your screenplay at least looked at, if not outright sold. Hopefully something will come from that as well. I'll keep you posted.

Ciao for now.

Woodpecker

2009-12-07T14:26:00.000-08:00

Woodpecker: a movie that will touch you in ways that I never could... and you wouldn't want me to. At turns touching, idiotic, fantastic, sad, inspiring... Just watch it and thank me later. The film is about the search for the long thought extinct Ivory Billed Woodpecker. Directed by Alex Karpovsky.

Audit highlights excessive FBI overtime in Iraq

2008-12-18T15:44:00.001-08:00

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- FBI agents temporarily deployed to Iraq received an average of about $45,000 in excessive overtime because they billed the government for 16 hours a day throughout their 90-day assignments, according to a Justice Department audit.
Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine released the audit on Thursday.

Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine released the audit on Thursday.

The audit, released Thursday by Inspector General Glenn Fine, found the agents routinely submitted the overtime with the blessing of their managers from 2003 through 2007. The report says the excessive overtime totaled $7.8 million.

"The FBI inappropriately permitted employees to regularly claim overtime for activities that are not compensable as work, such as time spent eating meals, exercising more than 3 hours per week, and socializing," the report said. The socializing included going to movies and cocktail parties.

The FBI promptly responded to the report, acknowledging the overtime policy was designed to encourage FBI employees to volunteer for Iraq duty, but should not have been used and has now been corrected.

The 88-page report documenting the overtime issues found the FBI had initially approved the policy of paying for 16-hour days because conditions were harsh, there were few recreational opportunities and employees were always "on call."

But the audit said that violates federal pay guidelines.

The FBI admitted that "a flawed system was allowed to develop and remain in place too long," but it also sought to explain how the practice started.

"Early in the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq FBI managers traveled to those war zones and saw first hand the challenges of a 24/7 threat environment. FBI employees lived with sniper attacks, mortar fire, and roadside bombs as part of their daily work environment. They attempted to adapt a long established domestic pay system for domestic law enforcement to unprecedented wartime assignments for FBI personnel."

FBI agents in Iraq perform a variety of duties, according to the bureau's Web site. Agents interview suspected terrorists captured by the military; gather intelligence; collect evidence from crime scenes like car bombs or mass graves; and investigate crimes committed by Americans against Iraqis, as well as those that Iraqis commit against their fellow citizens.

The inspector general's report said overtime pay was less excessive for FBI personnel in Afghanistan. The report also found that somewhat less excessive overtime was paid to agents from other Justice Department agencies who were sent to Iraq, including deputy marshals, and ATF and DEA agents.

10 Christmas Songs That Don't Suck

2008-12-04T14:40:00.000-08:00

Seriously, there are like 20 christmas songs in the world that don't immediately make you want to beat yourself unconscious with a yule log. Here's 10 of them:

Christmas in Hollis - Run DMC

Santa Claus Goes Straight to the Ghetto - James Brown

Do It Yourself Christmas Rappin - Kurtis Blow

Mistress for Christmas - AC/DC

Thank God it's not Christmas - Sparks

Ring Out Solstice Bells - Jethro Tull

Blue Christmas - Porky Pig

Christmas Card From a Hooker in Minneapolis - Tom Waits
Father Christmas - The Kinks
Get Behind Me, Santa! - Sufjan Stevens

and if you want to hear them - just click!

MUSIK

let these be an oasis to you in the desert of shitty christmas muzak.

Metallica- New Album Review

2008-06-11T09:09:00.000-07:00

Metallica's new album comes amidst a shit storm of controversy. The band is up in arms about any journalists, pre-reviewing it before the album comes out, and fans are up in arms about Metallica sucking for the last 15 years. Here's my two-cent review of the newest offering from the band that used to rock!

Metalllica - Untitled As Yet

Metallica's 9th studio album feels like a true throwback. Supposedly the missing link between ...And Justice For All and the star-making Black Album (Metallica), it feels more like a throw-away. For fans of the hard core metal gurus earlier catalog it might be a little too limp, and for fans of everything the band has released since, say 1991, it might feel a little hard edged.

Track 1 comes out strong, and just when it seems like we might be seeing a re-birth of a band...quickly loses steam and collapses into a modicum of forgettable riffs and overproduced pop-metal posturing...

Track 2 tries to take it down a notch and give the fans that "other side of the coin" sound that transposes the hard with the soft sounds that the band has proven itself capable of time and time again.

Tracks 3 through 8 all suck.

Track 9 is actually my favorite, but has a fatal flaw in the bridge, that renders it almost unlistenable.

Track 10 more syrup and not enough muscle. A poseur of what Metallica used to be.

Track 11 is yet another attempt at reclaiming their pop-metal throne, with little success.

Metallica, maybe you should spend more time recording and writing songs and less time worrying about people reviewing them.

Why I Will Never Join The Armed Forces: Volume 1

2008-05-28T10:14:00.000-07:00

Thanks to George Bush, that Cheney guy, the unskilled contractors making twice what our soldiers make to do shoddy work, and all the little people in the bomb making industry that made today possible. Asshats. So fucking sad.

PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania (CNN) -- A highly decorated Green Beret, Staff Sgt. Ryan Maseth died a painful death in Iraq this year. He died not on the battlefield. He died in what should have been one of the safest spots in Iraq: on a U.S. base, in his bathroom.

Ryan Maseth, a 24-year-old Green Beret, died in his shower January 2.

The water pump was not properly grounded, and when he turned on the shower, a jolt of electricity shot through his body and electrocuted him January 2.

The next day, Cheryl Harris was informed of his death. A mother of three sons serving in Iraq, she had feared such news might come one day.

"I did ask exactly, 'How did Ryan die? What happened to him?' And he had told me that Ryan was electrocuted," she said.

Her reaction was disbelief. "I truly couldn't believe he would be electrocuted ... in the shower," she said.

Maseth, 24, was not the first. At least 12 U.S. troops have been electrocuted in Iraq since the start of the war in 2003, according to military and government officials. Watch mom describe horror, heartbreak over son's electrocution »

In fact, the Army issued a bulletin in 2004 warning that electrocution was "growing at an alarming rate." It said five soldiers died that year by electrocution, with improper grounding the likely culprit in each case.

The Army bulletin detailed one soldier's death in a shower -- eerily similar to Maseth's case -- that said he was found "lying on a shower room floor with burn marks on his body."

Maseth's mother says the Army was not immediately forthcoming with details about her son's death.

At one point, she says, the Army told her he had a small appliance with him in the shower on his base, a former palace complex near the Baghdad airport.

"It just created so much doubt, and I know Ryan, I know Ryan, I know how he was trained, I know that he would not have been in a shower with a small appliance and electrocuted himself," she said. Watch "I can't make sense around Ryan's death" »

The Army refused to answer CNN's questions about the case, citing pending litigation by Maseth's family.

Maseth's mother says she pressed the military for answers, eventually uncovering more details about her son's electrocution. The surging current left burn marks across his body, even singeing his hair. Army reports show that he probably suffered a long, painful death.

Fellow soldiers had to break down the door to help, said Patrick Cavanaugh, an attorney for Maseth's parents.

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"When they kicked down the door, they smelled burning hair, and they rushed over, saw Sgt. Maseth lying there unconscious, and one of the rescuers himself was shocked electrically and sustained a fairly good jolt because the water and the pipes were still electrified," Cavanaugh said.

Army documents obtained by CNN show that U.S.-paid contractor Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR) inspected the building and found serious electrical problems a full 11 months before Maseth was electrocuted.

KBR noted "several safety issues concerning the improper grounding of electrical devices." But KBR's contract did not cover "fixing potential hazards." It covered repairing items only after they broke down.

Only after Maseth died did the Army issue an emergency order for KBR to finally fix the electrical problems, and that order was carried out soon thereafter.

In an internal e-mail obtained by CNN, a Navy captain admits that the Army should have known "the extent of the severity of the electrical problems." The e-mail then says the reason the Army did not know was because KBR's inspections were never reviewed by a "qualified government employee."

Larraine McGee is the mother of Sgt. Christopher Everett, another soldier electrocuted in Iraq.

"The impression I got was that this was the first time that it had happened," McGee said.

Her son was cleaning a Humvee on his Iraqi base with a power washer that was not properly grounded in 2005.

"I thought Chris was the first and that because of that, they were going to correct the problem, and it wasn't going to happen again," she said.

When she learned of Maseth's electrocution, she was stunned.

"It makes me very angry, because there is no reason for this to be going on," said McGee.

The electrocution of soldiers is prompting anger in Washington.

"How did this happen?" asked Rep. Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Oversight Committee.

Waxman has called for an investigation. "Why wasn't it corrected when we had the first signs that people were dying from electrocutions?"

In a statement to CNN, the U.S. Department of Defense said it "considers this to be a serious issue and has referred it to the DoD Inspector General's office for action."

The Defense Department said that there are nearly 40,000 structures and housing units in the Iraqi theater and that "we believe there was adequate oversight of the KBR contractors."

"In the past 12 months, KBR performed over 2 million service or work order repairs across the theater," the Defense Department said.

It went on to say that the Pentagon has "no information" that personnel with Defense Contract Management Agency, which handles the KBR contract, was aware of the 2004 Army bulletin or that they "failed to take appropriate action in response to unsafe conditions brought to our attention."

The Defense Department inspector general's office said it could not comment on the new investigation at this time.

KBR declined a CNN interview, but in an e-mail the company said it found "no evidence of a link between the work it has been tasked to perform and the reported electrocutions."

The Defense Contract Management Agency declined to answer CNN's question.

Harris says she will continue to fight to make sure other soldiers don't die similar deaths.

"I'm not going to sit around quietly," she said. "I want the answers surrounding Ryan's death -- the accountability. And even further, I want to make sure that our troops are taken care of that are left on the ground ... [so] they don't have to wake up and worry about taking a shower and electrocution."

Bobby Conn

2008-05-02T11:23:00.000-07:00

I don't know how you feel about psychedelia, but I can tell you for sure that Bobby Conn totally digs it. The man is like a tasmanian devil in both performance and musicianship. Why he's not the talk of the music biz and selling out shows left and right, I can only guess.. Anyway, click on the picture and enjoy the show!

Top Five Songs of the Day

1. Mr. Lucky - Bobby Conn
2. Memory Lame - Jim O'Rourke
3. I Lost You (But I Found Country Music) - Laura Cantrell and Gordon McIntire
4. I Like the Name Alice - Eleventh Dream Day
5. Flew Out My Window - Pit Er Pat

Charles Manson Superstar

2008-04-29T10:33:00.000-07:00

Charles Manson, as well as being a grade A nutjob, is a fascinating historical figure, whose strange connections to Hollywood are at this point, well documented. What many people don't know is that the antichrist was also an aspiring musician who recorded his first album in Brian Wilson's basement. Click the picture for a link to his discography, or ignore it like the rest of us.

Top Five Songs of the Day

1. Run To The Hills - Iron Maiden
2. Beautiful Girls - Sean Kingston
3. The Underdog - Spoon
4. Alimoney - Ry Cooder & David Lindley
5. Cinnamon Girl - John Entwistle

Douchery most foul

2008-04-28T16:41:00.000-07:00

I want to live in a world where everyone wears patent leather all the time, even the babies. I want Rhapsody (pictured above) to write and record my personal theme song. Not because I like their music, but because I absolutely love epic melodrama. And these bards have that shit in spades babe. Rock out, cock out, knock out. Click the pic for the link and Enjoyyyyyyyyyyy!

Top Five Songs of the Day
1. Baby's In Black - The Beatles
2. Do What Ya Wanna Do - Acid House Kings
3. Jugando Con El Corazon - Corazon
4. Are You Asleep - The March Forth
5. The Twist - Frightened Rabbit

Happy Birthday to blah

2007-10-16T07:38:00.000-07:00

There is a certain satisfaction one gets from knowing his life is near rock bottom. It's a goal that can be reached with a little perseverance and simple lack of self respect. It's like winning a race by finishing dead last. You don't get a trophy, but you do get to keep the shoes.

I suppose it's normal to reflect over one's life when their birthday comes around. My own is breaching with the sun and it makes me wonder... It makes me wonder where the dancing days have gone and why I'm still no closer to the guy I always said I'd be, than I was when I was ten. I might as well still be eating bubblegum off the sidewalk and prattling on to anyone that listens "Jimmy Carter is the president and I'm going to be a marine biologist!"

I'm 31 years old and I live in the city of angles. I work 40 hours a week and make $35,000 a year, which means I can afford a can of soup every other day and, occasionally, pants. My net worth is approximate to whatever change is in my pockets and I'm pretty sure I've achieved legendary status at my bank for having the least amount of money in my account at any given time.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not lazy. I'm a very talented artist. I just have the worst agent in the history of the profession... me. Art for love of the game is great in theory, but it doesn't taste very good and, of course, can't buy you pants. James Whistler, the painter whose famous portrait of his mother always begs the question "Huh?" says it best as quoted "An artist's career always begins tomorrow." The problem with that being, as we're all aware, tomorrow never comes, it's always today.

In the end I suppose this birthday will slide by in succession like all others, in between tomorrow and yesterday.

Martina Fugazzotto

2007-09-07T11:19:00.001-07:00

Oh, the Feminimity!
The new design of the female mind,
as seen through the art of Martina Fugazzotto

September 07th, 2007

Teenagers and the Internet are a no-brainer combination, and websites from Facebook to Pitchfork are well aware of this. They know those fickle beasts called “trends” are more than alive and kicking, but they also know that loyalty and honesty can’t be put on the back-burner: they need to be squarely front and center. Martina Fugazzotto, a 25-year-old self-described designer based out of Brooklyn, New York USA, makes sure this happens at gURL.com, a content site and online community aimed at teenage girls, and with her own personal work, which she showcases on her website, MartinaMartina.com. It’s difficult to pin Fugazzotto’s work; some images look like they belong in a lusciously illustrated graphic novel, while others seem to embody a sense of frenzied, rambunctious kitsch. A constant thread found weaving through most of her work, however, is the intricate mix of loud and subtle takes on gender, emotions, and physical development, and the ways in which sexuality, stereotypes and frankness play into those topics. … (More…)

This Cookie is now fully Operational!!

2007-07-31T14:08:00.000-07:00

I'm pretty sure my friend Jenny is the ultimate power in the universe, and I'm damn sure she could cold cock Darth Vader's nerd-o ass. Just check out what she does with some cookie dough and a Saturday afternoon. A little thing called the Death Star.

Sorry dudes she's taken.

Bob Barker - Retired

2007-06-07T10:19:00.000-07:00

Bob Barker, television legend and avid ASPCA spokesperson, taped his last hosted episode of the super-popular Price is Right gameshow on Wednesday, June 6, 2007. For more than 35 years Barker has summoned contestants to the stage on over 9,000 episodes.

Here's a little history for you braniacs out there, complements of the great and powerful Wikipedia:

"The original format, which first aired on the NBC and ABC television networks in the United States from 1956 until 1965, hosted by Bill Cullen, generally involved four contestants bidding on lavish prizes; after a predetermined number of bids, the player whose bid was closest to the correct value of the prize (without going over) would win it. At show's end, the player who had won the most (by dollar value) was declared the champion and returned to play again on the next episode.

In 1957 an Australian version made its debut on ATN-7."

"An updated version of the format premiered in the United States on the CBS television network on September 4, 1972 [1]. In this new iteration, contestants place one bid on an offered prize; the player who bid closest (but not over) then got to play one of several mini-games (dubbed Pricing Games in most countries) for an additional prize. One contestant, through various elimination formats, could find themselves winning a large showcase of prizes at the show's conclusion. Originally thirty minutes long, the show was expanded to its current hour-long format in the fall of 1975. At this time, a new feature was introduced, involving a large wheel with various amounts up to one dollar, which contestants were asked to spin. The contestant who came closest to one dollar in either one or two spins, without going over, was brought back to compete in the Showcase at the end of the show. The three winners of each half-hour segment get the chance to spin the wheel, with the winner of each spin competing against one another.

The 1972 American version, hosted by Bob Barker, is still currently airing as of May 2007 on CBS and is believed to be the second longest-running game show on television, trailing only the Spanish-language variety show Sábado Gigante [2]; it is also the longest running five-days-a-week game show in the world. (Wheel of Fortune began its syndicated run in 1983[3], and Jeopardy! followed in 1984.[4]) The Price Is Right is one of only two game show franchises to be seen nationally in either first-run network or syndication airings in the US in every decade from the 1950s onward; the other is To Tell the Truth, another show created by Bob Stewart for Goodson-Todman."

Thanks for all the good times Bob, we're gonna miss ya.

-Brian www.lemonshirt.blogspot.com

15 reasons why Mr Rogers was the best neighbor ever

2007-06-01T08:31:00.000-07:00

I won't even pretend to have written this excellent article, but I also couldnt' find the name of the person that did. If anyone knows, please let me in on it. It's really excellent, and apropos. -Brian

15 Reasons Mister Rogers Was the Best Neighbor Ever

1943-1-photo.jpgBack when I was in 7th grade I stood up in front of my English class and delivered a tongue-in-cheek, poorly researched presentation on why I thought Mister Rogers should be the next President. I ate up the first few minutes zipping up my cardigan, and putting on some sneakers, and then I proceeded to mock him roundly. It was a riotous success. Fourteen years later, I’m using this post to repent. The following are 15 things everyone should know about Fred Rogers:

fred-and-Koko.jpg1. Even Koko the Gorilla loved him
Most people have heard of Koko, the Stanford-educated gorilla who could speak about 1000 words in American Sign Language, and understand about 2000 in English. What most people don’t know, however, is that Koko was an avid Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood fan. As Esquire reported, when Fred Rogers took a trip out to meet Koko for his show, not only did she immediately wrap her arms around him and embrace him, she did what she’d always seen him do onscreen: she proceeded to take his shoes off!

2. He Made Thieves Think Twice
According to a TV Guide piece on him, Fred Rogers drove a plain old Impala for years. One day, however, the car was stolen from the street near the TV station. When Rogers filed a police report, the story was picked up by every newspaper, radio and media outlet around town. Amazingly, within 48 hours the car was left in the exact spot where it was taken from, with an apology on the dashboard. It read, “If we’d known it was yours, we never would have taken it.”

3. He Watched His Figure to the Pound!
274149.jpg In covering Rogers’ daily routine (waking up at 5; praying for a few hours for all of his friends and family; studying; writing, making calls and reaching out to every fan who took the time to write him; going for a morning swim; getting on a scale; then really starting his day), writer Tom Junod explained that Mr. Rogers weighed in at exactly 143 pounds every day for the last 30 years of his life. He didn’t smoke, didn’t drink, didn’t eat the flesh of any animals, and was extremely disciplined in his daily routine. And while I’m not sure if any of that was because he’d mostly grown up a chubby, single child, Junod points out that Rogers found beauty in the number 143. According to the piece, Rogers came “to see that number as a gift… because, as he says, “the number 143 means ‘I love you.’ It takes one letter to say ‘I’ and four letters to say ‘love’ and three letters to say ‘you.’ One hundred and forty-three.”

FredRogers_BigBird.jpg 4. He Saved Both Public Television and the VCR
Strange but true. When the government wanted to cut Public Television funds in 1969, the relatively unknown Mister Rogers went to Washington. Almost straight out of a Capra film, his 5-6 minute testimony on how TV had the potential to give kids hope and create more productive citizens was so simple but passionate that even the most gruff politicians were charmed. While the budget should have been cut, the funding instead jumped from $9 to $22 million. Rogers also spoke to Congress, and swayed senators into voting to allow VCR’s to record television shows from the home. It was a cantankerous debate at the time, but his argument was that recording a program like his allowed working parents to sit down with their children and watch shows as a family.

5. He Might Have Been the Most Tolerant American Ever
Mister Rogers seems to have been almost exactly the same off-screen as he was onscreen. Despite being an ordained Presbyterian minister, and a man of tremendous faith, Mister Rogers preached tolerance first. Whenever he was asked to castigate non-Christians or gays for their differing beliefs, he would instead face them and say, with sincerity, “God loves you just the way you are.” Often this provoked ire from fundamentalists.

6. He Was Genuinely Curious about Others
Mister Rogers was known as one of the toughest interviews because he’d often befriend reporters, asking them tons of questions, taking pictures of them, compiling an album for them at the end of their time together, and calling them after to check in on them and hear about their families. He wasn’t concerned with himself, and genuinely loved hearing the life stories of others. Amazingly, it wasn’t just with reporters. Once, on a fancy trip up to a PBS exec’s house, he heard the limo driver was going to wait outside for 2 hours, so he insisted the driver come in and join them (which flustered the host). On the way back, Rogers sat up front, and when he learned that they were passing the driver’s home on the way, he asked if they could stop in to meet his family. According to the driver, it was one of the best nights of his life—the house supposedly lit up when Rogers arrived, and he played jazz piano and bantered with them late into the night. Further, like with the reporters, Rogers sent him notes and kept in touch with the driver for the rest of his life.

7. He was Color-blind
Literally. He couldn’t see the color blue. Of course, he was also figuratively color-blind, as you probably guessed. As were his parents who took in a black foster child when Rogers was growing up.

nyctransit051223ap.jpg 8. He Could Make a Subway Car full of Strangers Sing
Once while rushing to a New York meeting, there were no cabs available, so Rogers and one of his colleagues hopped on the subway. Esquire reported that the car was filled with people, and they assumed they wouldn’t be noticed. But when the crowd spotted Rogers, they all simultaneously burst into song, chanting “It’s a wonderful day in the neighborhood.” The result made Rogers smile wide.

A few other things:
9. He got into TV because he hated TV. The first time he turned one on, he saw people angrily throwing pies in each other’s faces. He immediately vowed to use the medium for better than that. Over the years he covered topics as varied as why kids shouldn’t be scared of a haircut, or the bathroom drain (because you won’t fit!), to divorce and war.
10. He was an Ivy League Dropout. Rogers moved from Dartmouth to Rollins College to pursue his studies in music.
11. He composed all the songs on the show, and over 200 tunes.
12. He was a perfectionist, and disliked ad libbing. He felt he owed it to children to make sure every word on his show was thought out.
13. Michael Keaton got his start on the show as an assistant– helping puppeteer and operate the trolley.
misterrtrogers.jpg 14. Several characters on the show are named for his family. Queen Sara is named after Rogers’ wife, and the postman Mr. McFeely is named for his maternal grandfather who always talked to him like an adult, and reminded young Fred that he made every day special just by being himself. Sound familiar? It was the same way Mister Rogers closed every show.
15. The sweaters. Every one of the cardigans he wore on the show had been hand-knit by his mother.

I can’t sign off with out citing: Tom Junod’s wonderful profile of Fred Rogers and his obituary for him. They are two of the most lovely pieces I’ve (re)read in a very long time. Our researcher Kara Kovalchik also deserves credit for digging them up on an internet archive located here

But Freedom, I hardly knew ye...

2007-05-29T16:20:00.000-07:00

Smells like idiots with authority to me... sniff sniff.

"A man trying to pay a fee using $2 bills was arrested, handcuffed and taken to jail after clerks at a Best Buy store questioned the currency's legitimacy and called police.

According to an account in the Baltimore Sun, 57-year-old Mike Bolesta was shocked to find himself taken to the Baltimore County lockup in Cockeysville, Md., where he was handcuffed to a pole for three hours while the U.S. Secret Service was called to weigh in on the case.

Bolesta told the Sun: "I am 6 feet 5 inches tall, and I felt like 8 inches high. To be handcuffed, to have all those people looking on, to be cuffed to a pole – and to know you haven't done anything wrong. And me, with a brother, Joe, who spent 33 years on the city police force. It was humiliating."

After Best Buy personnel reportedly told Bolesta he would not be charged for the installation of a stereo in his son's car, he received a call from the store saying it was in fact charging him the fee. As a means of protest, Bolesta decided to pay the $114 bill using 57 crisp, new $2 bills.

As the owner of Capital City Student Tours, the Baltimore resident has a hearty supply of the uncommon currency. He often gives the bills to students who take his tours for meal money.

"The kids don't see that many $2 bills, so they think this is the greatest thing in the world," Bolesta says. "They don't want to spend 'em. They want to save 'em. I've been doing this since I started the company. So I'm thinking, 'I'll stage my little comic protest. I'll pay the $114 with $2 bills.'"

Bolesta explained what happened when he presented the bills to the cashier at Best Buy Feb. 20.

"She looked at the $2 bills and told me, 'I don't have to take these if I don't want to.' I said, 'If you don't, I'm leaving. I've tried to pay my bill twice. You don't want these bills, you can sue me.' So she took the money – like she's doing me a favor."

Bolesta says the cashier marked each bill with a pen. Other store employees began to gather, a few of them asking, "Are these real?"

"Of course they are," Bolesta said. "They're legal tender."

According to the Sun report, the police arrest report noted one employee noticed some smearing of ink on the bills. That's when the cops were called. One officer reportedly noticed the bills ran in sequential order.

Said Bolesta: "I told them, 'I'm a tour operator. I've got thousands of these bills. I get them from my bank. You got a problem, call the bank.' I'm sitting there in a chair. The store's full of people watching this. All of a sudden, he's standing me up and handcuffing me behind my back, telling me, 'We have to do this until we get it straightened out.'

"Meanwhile, everybody's looking at me. I've lived here 18 years. I'm hoping my kids don't walk in and see this. And I'm saying, 'I can't believe you're doing this. I'm paying with legal American money.'"

Bolesta was taken to the lockup, where he sat handcuffed to a pole and in leg irons while the Secret Service was called.

"At this point," he says, "I'm a mass murderer."

Secret Service agent Leigh Turner eventually arrived and declared the bills legitimate, adding, according to the police report, "Sometimes ink on money can smear."

Commenting on the incident, Baltimore County police spokesman Bill Toohey told the Sun: "It's a sign that we're all a little nervous in the post-9/11 world.""

- It's called paranoia, Big Bill, and unfortunately we little people are all too familiar with it now thanks to backwards thinkers like your little police farce.

Sorry Cindy, we all failed you...

2007-05-29T11:50:00.000-07:00

She's right, you know... It kinda feels like the end of the innocence. Big Daddy George and his cabinet of horror have, thus far, brought our great and powerful system to it's knees in America. Now even the once vigilant Cindy Sheehan has had enough. She's packing it in and calling it quits. Game over man, game over...

The following is quoted from CNN...

(CNN) -- Cindy Sheehan, the California mother who became an anti-war leader after her son was killed in Iraq, declared Monday she was walking away from the peace movement.

She said her son died "for nothing."

Sheehan achieved national attention when she camped outside President Bush's home in Crawford, Texas, throughout August 2005 to demand a meeting with the president over her son's death.

While Bush ignored her, the vigil made her one of the most prominent figures among opponents of the war.

But in a Web diary posted to the liberal online community Daily Kos on Monday, Sheehan said she was exhausted by the personal, financial and emotional toll of the past two years.

She wrote that she is disillusioned by the failure of Democratic politicians to bring the unpopular war to an end and tired of a peace movement she said "often puts personal egos above peace and human life."

Casey Sheehan, a 24-year-old Army specialist, was killed in an April 2004 battle in Baghdad. His death prompted his mother to found Gold Star Families for Peace.

But in Monday's 1,200-word letter, titled, "Good Riddance Attention Whore," Sheehan announced that her son "did indeed die for nothing."

"I have tried ever since he died to make his sacrifice meaningful," she wrote. "Casey died for a country which cares more about who will be the next American Idol than how many people will be killed in the next few months while Democrats and Republicans play politics with human lives.

"It is so painful to me to know that I bought into this system for so many years, and Casey paid the price for that allegiance. I failed my boy and that hurts the most."

Cindy Sheehan's sister, DeDe Miller, told CNN that the group would continue working for humanitarian causes, but drop its involvement in the anti-war movement. As for her sister's letter, Miller said, "She cried for quite a bit after writing it."

Sheehan warned that the United States was becoming "a fascist corporate wasteland," and that onetime allies among Bush's Democratic opposition turned on her when she began trying to hold them accountable for bringing the 4-year-old war to a close.

In the meantime, she said her antiwar activism had cost her her marriage, that she had put the survivor's benefits paid for her son's death and all her speaking and book fees into the cause and that she now owed extensive medical bills.

"I am going to take whatever I have left and go home," she wrote. "I am going to go home and be a mother to my surviving children and try to regain some of what I have lost.

"I will try to maintain and nurture some very positive relationships that I have found in the journey that I was forced into when Casey died and try to repair some of the ones that have fallen apart since I began this single-minded crusade to try and change a paradigm that is now, I am afraid, carved in immovable, unbendable and rigidly mendacious marble."

Innocence

2007-05-09T14:01:00.000-07:00

This is so fucking sad I almost couldn't stand to blog about it, however, it needs to be read by as many people as possible. The war in Iraq has cost not only trillions (yes I said trillions) of dollars, and the resources of virtually the entire known world to get absolutely nowhere in making the country A) safer B) democratic C) livable. That isn't even counting the cost of human life that has climbed by the hundreds daily for the last 4 years. That number has been bandied between 80,000 (by the Bush cafe of course) and 2 million. Now in contrast to that staggering figure, one life doesn't seem as monumentally immediate. I call bullshit on that kind of thinking.

This is Samar Saed Abdullah and her plight is a tragic and all too common one. 25 years old and sitting on death row in Iraq is a fate I can't imagine. When you consider her probable innocence, and the fact that she was tried and convicted all in one day, the story becomes even more harrowing. CNN has a few details here: INNOCENCE

Please let's all make some waves about this heartbreaking story. One of thousands just like it coming out of a place that we're supposedly making safer and more democratic. Seems to me the only thing we're helping the Iraqiis do is get rid of their oil, and cheap.

My Blog

Rod Stewart... Storm Trooper

2007-05-08T16:59:00.000-07:00

Seems like all I ever do nowadays is sit around cursing the same 6 pseudo-news websites: Fark, Digg, Perez Hilton, Drudge, Defamer, CNN... And only rarely do I even attempt to give a shit about any of it. Is it just me or is art getting serious and the news getting comically absurd?

Anyway, throughout my day here by the window, facing the brutish Los Angeles skyline, people will send me links to sites with everything from diddle-di-do to damned if I know. Whomever sent me the following link to Brandon Bird's stunning website has a free lunch coming. Don't get too excited, we're eating KFC.

www.brandonbird.com

Brandon Bird is a modern day Dali. Unless you're a total jerk-bag with no balls or sense of humor at all, I'll bet money you'll laugh out loud at least once simply looking through his site. Without giving too much away I'll say this... It's like a time machine strapped to a TV Guide, set on "mish-mash". Beautiful just beautiful. Harrison Ford just wants to play Sega dammit.

Click here to read more...

Monday

2007-05-07T17:34:00.000-07:00

Holy shit mondays suck... at least in America. I was wondering (as I dragged my half-dead, hungover ass out of bed this morning) if the same feeling goes on in other countries. Do they work monday through friday in France? What about Russia? Mondays in Mongolia must be a bitch...

Anyway, submitted for your perusal, a tall cool glass of 'fucking hilarious' to wash down that shit sandwich we all eat on Mondays.

"He's twice the man I used to be!"

2007-01-17T21:01:00.000-08:00

God bless us... everyone...

and for you, the viewer, a list of classy insults from days of olde.

Much thanks to Niki for the info!

"He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I
admire." -- Winston Churchill

"A modest little person, with much to be modest about." --
Winston Churchill

"I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries
with great pleasure." -- Clarence Darrow

"He has never been known to use a word that might send a
reader to the dictionary." -- William Faulkner (about Ernest
Hemingway)

"Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from
big words?" -- Ernest Hemingway (about William Faulkner)

"Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I'll waste no
time reading it." -- Moses Hadas

"He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of
any man I know." -- Abraham Lincoln

"I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't
it." -- Groucho Marx

"I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter
saying I approved of it." -- Mark Twain

"He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his
friends." -- Oscar Wilde

"I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new
play; bring a friend.... if you have one." -- George Bernard
Shaw to Winston Churchill

"Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second.. if
there is one." -- Winston Churchill, in response

"I feel so miserable without you; it's almost like having
you here." -- Stephen Bishop

"He is a self-made man and worships his creator." -- John
Bright

"I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's
nothing trivial." -- Irvin S. Cobb

"He is not only dull himself, he is the cause of dullness in
others." -- Samuel Johnson

"He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up." --
Paul Keating

"He had delusions of adequacy." -- Walter Kerr

"There's nothing wrong with you that reincarnation won't
cure." -- Jack E. Leonard

"He has the attention span of a lightning bolt." -- Robert
Redford

"They never open their mouths without subtracting from the
sum of human knowledge." -- Thomas Brackett Reed

"He inherited some good instincts from his Quaker forebears,
but by diligent hard work, he overcame them." -- James
Reston (about Richard Nixon)

"In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded
easily." -- Charles, Count Talleyrand

"He loves nature in spite of what it did to him." -- Forrest
Tucker

"Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any
address on it?" -- Mark Twain

"His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork."
-- Mae West

"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever
they go." -- Oscar Wilde

"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts... for
support rather than illumination." -- Andrew Lang
(1844-1912)

"He has Van Gogh's ear for music." -- Billy Wilder

Monkeys on my back - The Art of Jeremy Szuder

2006-09-30T22:11:00.000-07:00

click image to watch video

Jeremy Szuder: Monkeys on My Back

Interview / Review by Jonathan Myers

Jeremy Szuder is a busy man. Looking over his bio on his website ( www.szuder.com ) we can see that he has had his hand in many artistic endeavors. Los Cincos, Miss Derringer and the Syncopation are a few of the bands Jeremy has played in. He is a prolific writer. And the boy can paint.

I bought my first Szuder piece a few years back, and it still hangs prominently on my wall. When I returned to Los Angeles after a sojourn in San Francisco, I hooked up with Jeremy to talk about art, music, and his new solo show, Monkeys on My Back: Recovering Hipster, with pieces showing at Monkeyhouse Toys in Silverlake. The show ran from August 5 to August 31, 2006. Pieces are still available for order via Jeremy’s website (www.szuder.com).

Jeremy’s art is a mixture of styles – pen and ink, graffiti inspired stencils, psychedelic images, and so much more. Topics range from paintings of your favorite indie hipsters, like members of Gogogo Airheart, to William S. Burroughs, Tom Waits, and more. But Jeremy doesn’t pigeonhole himself into solely portraiture – his images really run the gamut.

Zoot – as Jeremy is known to many of his friends, and I participated in an email interview. Below are the questions and responses:

________________________________________________________

DearLittlePony (DLP): Jeremy, your show looked to be a huge success when I stopped by. You mentioned that you were trying to make art affordable for everyone and I noticed pieces as low as $20 at the show. Why did you take this approach?

Jeremy Szuder (JS): I honestly feel that art should be accessible to everyone, not just celebrities and big time moneymakers. I know a lot of people who enjoy owning original art. It is something that people trust in, it is something that they look at every single day. I think great art speaks to people and sort of helps them with their daily lives, in good times and bad times. If artists can learn to accommodate the budgets of common working folks then we are expanding the art market and not making it a stereotypical rich mans hobby. Of course, it’s tough to know how low you can price your works without being too inexpensive, but that is all part of learning the market and understanding where your niche is.

DLP: You’ve worked with a lot of artists over the years, and notably, recently played music with Liz McGrath. Do you find that art, that is visual art, translates into music? How does your art, or the art of your band mates, influence the sounds you produce?

JS: Yeah, I played drums in a band called Miss Derringer with Liz for a year or so. I enjoyed the experience and had a great time doing it. We recorded one full length album for Sympathy for the Record Industry, which was the same label my old band, Los Cincos / Syncopation was on for ten years or so. As far as visual art influencing sound, for me I think it is the other way around. I always have music playing while I am making art. I play music rather loud and allow the vibrations to penetrate the entire space of my studio: the canvas, the paints, everything. I do believe that sound soaks into the artwork. So I am very conscious of that, and allow it to happen at all times. To turn actual art into music is a bit tricky, and I am sure that there are people who have taken this approach. Sound creates colors and images always, and I try to harness those visions, like an antennae, and retransmit them back onto the surface. A person could actually set a canvas up against a loud speaker with paint loosely applied and the sounds would push the paints around into a pattern of some sort, but if you put a microphone up to a painting, it might not make much of a sound.

DLP: Focusing on your paintings, you have expanded into some new territory, namely the toys you have created for this show. How did you get into working with Dunnys?

JS: The whole toy thing is getting huge right now and I dare say it, the custom toy is soon to become the new canvas for artists. My artwork had sort of just lined up with the inclusion of the toy, my own works having a very animated sort of Hello-Kitty-meets-Picasso-on-acid approach. I also work very closely with portraiture, and when I started to see how other artists were customizing toys I knew it was something I should take a crack at. I treat blank toys like a skeleton, with which I allow myself to stretch my own skin over. It’s like breathing life into a three dimensional object. You can hold it, it is slightly more tangible. I honestly feel that there is going to be a lot more custom toys popping up from the underground by tons of artists in the near future. I’m already working on a few new customs for a group show at Monkeyhouse Toys in November called Delicious Vinyl. I am also working on a few toys for Thinkspace gallery as well.

DLP: Which pieces hold the greatest significance to you? Care to elaborate?

JS: Every piece I make is a part of me; it’s like having little children. They find new homes and the art talks to the owners and new relationships are built. I have a connection to all my pieces since they all bear my fingerprint in one way or another. I don’t hang on to too many of my own pieces, but there are a few that I have painted for my wife, Whitney, that are part of our permanent collection. It seems like the pieces that are very hard for me to finish are usually the ones I hold close and dear, because they may have really taken a lot of emotion and effort to finish. I still hang onto a few of those. But usually, I like to set my paintings free into the world, my job has been done, they have to go out into the world and prove themselves at that point.

DLP: What does the future hold for your work?

JS: When I finished up the Monkeys on my Back show, I had a brief revelation. All of a sudden I had somehow figured out a way to work all the different mediums and ideas into one cohesive piece of art. So all of the paintings I am now working on have a much different approach, look, and feel to them. I am very excited about all the new pieces I am now working on and they will be making their debut throughout the year and into my next solo art show which will be in September of 2007 at Monkeyhouse Toys in Silverlake, CA. I also have a show I will be in with John Gill, Sophia Pottish, and Blinkey in San Diego that is in the works. I’m also hoping to do some more collaboration art with both John Gill and Poor Al. I don’t really want to give too much away on my newest paintings, but I hope people are gonna dig where I’m going with it. Who knows- I’m kind of hoping to quit my day job someday and make art full time. That is the ultimate dream.

Borat Goes To The White House and Gives a Speech... Really

2006-09-29T14:09:00.000-07:00

Borat Goes To Washington, Sacha Baron Cohen's character Borat does his bit to promote Sacha's movie (trailer) He's not making friends Borat Not Amusing Kazakhstan Leaders, White House Secret Service but he is amusing his fans.

read more | digg story

9/11 redux

2006-09-11T19:18:00.000-07:00

September 11, 2001 was a day of national tragedy so horrific, I'll not dilute it with my own words. Instead, here are some recorded elements that I hope will help you to remember those whose lives were changed forever.

The following is the only footage (that I know of) which has remained unreleased until today, five years later... Shot 500 feet away and 36 stories up by two witnesses I can only name as Bri and Bob... thanks for this revelation guys.

UNRELEASED FOOTAGE

anyone curious about a truly extensive timeline of events surrounding the attack, please have a read through this... TIMELINE OF EVENTS

CNN has a touching and informative memorial dedicated to the victims of September 11th here... VICTIMS of 9/11 MEMORIAL

Award winning photography of the events by James Nachtway, breathtaking and heartbreaking... SHATTERED

Steve Irwin - Trophy Naturalist

2006-09-04T10:40:00.000-07:00

In a truly shocking turn of events Sunday, world renowned animal handler Steve "Crocodile Hunter" Irwin was killed while snorkeling off the north coast of Australia.

The man who basically coined the phrase "Lookit the size of that thing!" was filming segments for various upcoming shows when a stingray reared up from beneath the sand and stabbed Irwin in the chest. He was 44.

Fucking shame... but I guess when you play paddy-cake with the most dangerous creatures on earth, eventually your luck runs out.

We miss ya already Steve...

My BLOG

Snakes on the Brain

2006-08-19T14:13:00.000-07:00

I would have thought that a Friday night 7pm showing on opening weekend at Mann's Chinese Theater would have been more packed, but I would have been wrong. Considering the movie in question Snakes on a Plane is undoubtedly the movie sensation of the year.

It might have something to do with the fact that Mann's Chinese 6 has the distinct odor of a locker room after tryouts. Whatever the case, I couldn't have cared less about who else was in the theater as long as I was there to witness the birth of a brilliant film franchise. I mean I'm assuming Sam Jackson, genius that he is, has had the foresight to get some hacks set to work at rattling out at least two sequels. The second of course being Snakes on a Train and then the inevitable Snakes on an Automobile, co-starring Bruce Willis and finally targeting the baby boomers, thereby cementing itself as the most absolute perfectly marketed film trilogy of all time.

Maybe I'm hoping for too much. My head is still in the clouds bubbling with excitement after the rush of watching Several odd thousand snakes fuck up everything in sight. Am I wrong or did Snakes have every single exciting movie cliche ever put on film, only bigger and badder and ten times more ridiculous. When Sam Jackson pulls his piece and tells you it's time to teach those mutherfuckin' snakes a mutherfuckin' lesson you believe him. Mountains of snakes on an airplane inside of which I am travelling is almost as scary as the feeling that (I can't believe I'm saying this) but within the context of the film, everything makes sense. You have to believe only one thing... That this could happen. That a witness in a trial against a world renowned drug lord could potentially be assassinated by venomous snakes on an airplane really only sounds idiotic until you consider what crazy shit has been happening on planes in recent days.

I digress, the movie is brilliant as artless entertainment. As a test in strategic marketing, Snakes on a Plane is one of the most successful I've ever seen, and as a Friday night event in Hollywood, it's all that AND a bag of chips.

Snakes on a Mutherfucking Blog

2006-08-16T18:53:00.000-07:00

The marketing behind this film is perhaps the best I've ever seen.
Snakes +Plane+Sam Jackson = me shitting my pants with visible glee and uncontrollable laughter. Samuel L Jackson may just be the hippest guy in Hollywood with this off the chart casting decision. My personal prediction is that Snakes on a Plane is gonna completely wipe out the competition in theatres this weekend. In the spirit of good fun, I've tried to wrangle together as many Snakes tie-ins as I could find. If anyone has any others, please email me and I drop them on the site and give you credit!

First of all, if you haven't seen the trailer... you're an asshole. HERE IT IS

The never boring, ever expanding YouTube cuts a fairly wide swath with their selections involving said Snakes on a Plane, which are HERE

I also know of every American's affinity for things burned into toast, and if you're like me you're going to slap down at least one bid for this crispy bitch... Even if you hope you don't win afterall.

Anyone as curious as me about what the damn star of this movie, one Samuel L Jackson, is listening to while he's thinking about all the box office receipts he's gonna be swimming through... better check out his personal itunes playlist... HERE

I can't even describe how funny this next thing is... You just have to experience it for yourself... I'm fairly certain that my several dozen friends and I have never had so much fun with so little effort. How would you feel about Sam Jackson calling you at home!

and I don't know what the fuck is going on HERE, but it makes me smile, and it certainly looks like video chat with Sam "Bad Mutherfucker" Jackson.

This stunning slice of cult cinema brilliance even has it's own mutherfucking MYSPACE PAGE

Oh, and the official site is HERE

We've got a mutherfucking blockbuster! MY BLOG

Much Ado About Nothing...

2006-08-04T09:55:00.000-07:00

"Hey Mel, it's me Jesus. I brought you to this bar to get you drunk and ask your honest opinion on something. Waddya think of the Jews. No, really I want your honest opinion. Oh come on, that can't be the way you really feel. Have another drink. Own the whole world? That doesn't even make sense logistically. Another drink this one's on me. Oh c'mon Mel, you're just pissed off and ranting after a long night of drinking your weight in Tequila. You don't really hate all the Jews do you? Fine, say whatever you wanna say, you can't make me mad, I'm the Christ, and my passion is helping you get home tonight. And dude, here's a breath mint... seriously"

Of course, I'm paraphrasing what should have been the long and short of this whole Mel Gibson debacle. I think we should probably all assume that Mel was having his absurdly hate filled conversation not with a cop, but a hallucinatory vision of Christ created from a head full of fine Mexican liquor and an ego the size of the moon. I call bullshit on anyone and everyone who wants to throw stones at ol' Mel. That mutherfucker gave you Braveheart, Mad Max, and Lethal Weapon! And he plays crazy in all three of them, so it's not like he didn't warn you that he's a little off kilter. Bottom line... Mel Gibson is a person just like everyone else. He's not infallible.

Oh and Mel, here's a guidebook for the next time you go out to a bar. Larry Miller's hilarious and informative 5 levels of drinking

The Right to Bear Fireworks...

2006-06-29T18:33:00.000-07:00

Oh say can you see that my wallet is light, from buying too many fireworks that will be used tonight...

The 4th of July, or Independence Day, is always one of the more festive holidays in the U.S. Relatives come over for a cookout. Kids are swimming in the pool or throwing the baseball around. The weather is nice, and American dads spend millions of dollars on explosives that they would condemn any other day of the year. It should be no surprise then, when something like this happens:

Lotsa Boom

and this video of a Fireworks Factory in Denmark is no slouch either...

Kolding Fireworks Factory

This next clip however, is definately one of the most frightening things I've ever seen.

Fireworks Factory On Fire

Wikipedia has the following to say about the importance of the day:

"Though the Fourth of July is almost iconic to Americans, some claim the date itself is somewhat arbitrary. New Englanders had been fighting Britain since April 1775. The first motion in the Continental Congress for independence was made on June 8. After hard debate, the Congress voted unanimously (12-0), but secretly, for independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain on July 2 (see Lee Resolution). The Congress reworked the text of the Declaration until a little after eleven o'clock, July 4th, when thirteen colonies voted for adoption and released an unsigned copy to the printers. (New York abstained from both votes.) Philadelphia celebrated the Declaration with public readings and bonfires on July 8. Not until August 2 would a fair printing be signed by the members of the Congress, but even that was kept secret to protect the members from British reprisal.

John Adams, credited by Thomas Jefferson as the unofficial, tireless whip of the independence-minded, wrote his wife Abigail on July 3:

The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more.

Adams was off by two days, however. Certainly, the vote on July 2 was the decisive act. But July 4 is the date on the Declaration itself. Jefferson's stirring prose, as edited by the Congress, was first adopted by the vote of the 4th. It was also the first day Philadelphians heard the official news of independence from the Continental Congress, as opposed to rumors in the street about secret voes."

So it's another great reason to get drunk and set off fireworks... just like Saturday night.

666 Run Devil Run!

2006-06-06T10:13:00.000-07:00

Apart from being an American brand of cough syrup noone has ever heard of and the combination to all my suitcases, the number 666 has for eons symbolized the re-awakening of the dark figurehead that's known by a thousand names throughout time. The Devil, Satan, Lucifer, Beelzebub, The Prince of Darkness, in America we refer to him as "Mr President"

I've never read the bible fully to understand what all the fuss is
about, though I am intrigued by the very valid question of which is more frightening to behold, armaggedon and the return of the anti- christ or the film version of "The Greatest Story Ever Told" starring Angela Lansbury, Martin Landau, Pat Boone, and Max Von Sydow as Jesus... Now that... sounds like a dark day indeed.

Submitted for your perusal, the following links should fill your head more full of brimstone and treacle than a shitty Sting solo album...

The Devil Inside

Wiki-Wiki-Wiki

Run Devil Run!

El Centro de Douchebag

2006-05-30T14:49:00.000-07:00

I'm really at a loss today. I'm laughing so hard I can't see straight enough to choose which one of these magically delicious photographs to use for this blog. Screw it, like the dude on the left says "Two"...

Hey Rick Astley, what's goin' down? That crimp in your hair is puttin' a serious cramp in my side... and your windblown Nugent pose is tearing me apart.

Whoever owns and operates this Rock and Roll Confidential website is literally on my christmas card list this year. Special thanks to Beth for bringing it to my attention. Kudos.

Douchebag Central

Equally hilarious is a video called "Heavy Metal Parking Lot" which is basically "dudes" and their "chicks" hanging out in the parking lot of a Judas Priest/Dokken show in the 80's totally wasted drinking smoking and acting like complete morons. (The all-knowing) Wikipedia has this to say.

Heavy Metal Parking Lot is a video documentary produced by Jeff Krulik and John Heyn in 1986. It documents heavy metal music fans partying in the parking lot outside the Capital Centre (later renamed US Airways Arena, since demolished) in Largo, Maryland on May 31, 1986 before a Judas Priest concert (with opening act Dokken).

By the early 1990s, Heavy Metal Parking Lot had become an underground cult-classic, usually traded on bootleg VHS videotapes. HMPL was reportedly a favorite on the Nirvana (band) tour bus. It is available on DVD in a 20th-anniversary edition.

American Hi-Fi parodied Heavy Metal Parking Lot in their music video for their debut hit single Flavor of the Weak. The Backstreet Boys also lampooned it in their music video for Just Want You To Know. Film distributor Cowboy Pictures gave it a limited theatrical release in 2003, paired with Chris Smith's documentary Home Movie.

In 2004, Trio (TV network) aired the series Parking Lot, which expanded on the 1986 documentary. Created & co-produced by the original filmmakers, John Heyn & Jeff Krulik (in association with Radical Media), eight episodes were broadcast before Trio TV went off the air in 2006. Parking Lot webisodes are available on Trio's website.

I think there are even several spin offs of this underground classic "Top Model Parking Lot" "Day After Thanksgiving Day Sale Parking Lot" "Sport Fishing Parking Lot"... the list goes on... but not for me.

A Virtual Waste of Money

2006-05-28T08:48:00.000-07:00

My friend Jonathan and I go garage-sale hunting a lot, and in Hollywood that can be quite an adventure. For instance I got these sweet Virtual Reality goggles made by a company named i-glasses at this really rich and uninterested looking guy's yard sale.

Remember virtual reality - the wave of the future? Jeff Fahey and Pierce Brosnan out-nerding each other in what can arguably be called the worst Stephen King film adaption ever (I know that's saying something) - The Lawnmower Man. Somewhat ground breaking for it's time, VR is much more interesting as a concept than a reality... but don't tell that to these guys

GEEK HEAVEN

It's hard to decide which to laugh at first... The force feedback Interactor Vest?... Or the 6VOF Delta whch comes with a description as follows:

Built with the same meticulous care as its 3-DOF counterpart, the 6-DOF DELTA haptic device is designed as a complete solution for the most demanding haptic applications. With its unique mechanical design, the DELTA-6-DOF is Force Dimension's most flexible and versatile haptic device.

Do you have a device that can tell me what the hell the 6VOF Delta acutally does?

Please note the picture above... I can't even imagine why someone would pay $345,000.000 for an obnoxios looking sphere with which you can only look at nature slides. And who makes software for a $345,000 obnoxious looking HD video sphere. I'm gonna stick to my $10 VR goggles, they're definately geeky enough for me.

In the Evening He's a Singer in the band

2006-05-26T23:48:00.000-07:00

1. Ask anyone over the age of 10 who Bob Marley is and you’ll get a pretty standard answer “The greatest reggae singer… ever”. Ask them who Desmond Dekker is and more likely than not, unless you’re in the carribean restaurant or a UK old school punkers club, most people will simply give a shrug and a headshake. Both had their share of international stardom and both had hits in the US and UK Top Ten. The easiest way to remember how each of these guys filled a special musical niche is as follows: Bob Marley did it bigger… Desmond Dekker did it first.

Desmond Dekker, was born Desmond Adolphus Dacres on July 16^th, 1941 in the city of Kingston on the island of Jamaica. Dekker lived a meager life as a child and was orphaned in his early teens. Forced to earn a living on his own, Desmond took an apprenticeship as a welder, and soon his workmates noticed that he could sing.

Dekker, at the behest of his friends and coworkers then began actively searching out a recording career. Starting with Coxsone Dodd at Studio One in 1961, Dekker was to experience a taste of failure on the road to his eventual fame. Dodd took the same stance as Duke Reid at Treasure Isle recording studios. Neither one of them saw Desmond as marketable and politely showed him the door. It was Derrick Morgan pride of the Rocksteady movement who saw young Desmond as a diamond in the rough and took him under his wing. A full two years later in 1963 Dekker released “Honour Your Father and Mother” on Leslie Kong’s Beverley label. Desmond’s first release hit the charts hard and he followed up with a string of hits such as “Sinners Come Home” “Labour for Learning” and “King of Ska” backed by the Maytals (then known as the Cherrypies).

Dekker’s credibility wasn’t cemented until he gave his Mr. Nice Guy image a makeover (some thanks, no doubt, to Derrick Morgan for inspiration) and planted his talent deep into rude boy territory with “007 (Shanty Town) a percussive and gritty look at his Kingston valley home. After that his musical reputation preceded and he was taken as a role model by Mods and disciples of Ska in the UK. By 1968 even Paul McCartney was a fan, framing the lyrics to “Ob-la-di Ob-la-da” around a character named Desmond, confirmed to have been inspired by his friend Desmond Dekker.

It was in that same year that he released “the Isrealites” an sizzling chart topper with stellar vocals that even managed to slide into the US Top Ten for a moment. It was the song that he would be remembered for. Now the Mods were all over him. Desmond and the Beverley label would release several more singles and a compilation entitled “the Isrealites” to capitalize on the success of the track.

Throughout the 70’s and 80’s Dekker struggled to match the success of his first few singles, without much luck. Music was changing from tough to fluff, and threatening to leave renowned Jamaican singer Desmond Dekker in the dust. It was Gus Van Szandt’s 1990 film Drugstore Cowboy that re-opened the door to Dekker’s legacy. Featured prominently in the film as well as being used for a popular Maxell tape ad, “The Isrealites” was heading for the mainstream once again. The self proclaimed “King of Ska” continued to release albums into his declining years and has enjoyed multiple resurgences in popularity.

Desmond Dekker’s May 11, 2006 show at Leeds will serve those who remember it as his last concert performance. The talented musical visionary collapsed in his home on May 24^th. RIP Ska King wherever you are.

Other Musical Items of note:

2. Maximo Park: All the parts that I liked about 80’s bands... without the 80’s.

3. Plastic Bertand: So this guy from Belgium named Roger Jouret formed a band with himself and became famous for a song called “Ce Plan Pour Moi” which he neither wrote nor sings. Fantastic.

Armageddon it

2006-05-19T16:38:00.000-07:00

With Ebay apparently now selling nuclear weapons (google search for Nuclear Weapons then check the ads at right) I think it's only a matter of time before some of my favorite items get to the mass market as well.

'chindogu' is the japanese word coined for the art of the unuseless idea.
strangely practical and utterly eccentric inventions for a life of ease and hilarity have taken the land of the rising sun by storm. meant to solve the niggling problems of modern life, these bizarre and logic-defying gadgets and gizmos have a tendency to fail completely. addicts of the unuseless all over the world love this collection. the art of chindogu was born in the late
1980's when amateur inventor kenji kawakami discovered that a not-quite-usable idea for a new gadget or product could nonetheless be enjoyable if one were to create a prototype and take delight in the way it misses its mark.
the term 'chindogu' entered the english vocabulary in 1991 when then senior society member dan papia (president of chindogu society america) published an article on the subject in japan's leading english-language magazine, the 'tokyo journal'.

More info here:

A History of Unuseless Items

---
the 10 tenents of chindogu
---

1. a chindogu cannot be for real use.

iIt is fundamental to the spirit of chindogu that inventions
claiming chindogu status must be, from a practical point of
view, (almost) completely useless. if you invent something
which turns out to be so handy that you use it all the time,
then you have failed to make a chindogu.
try the patent office.

2. a chindogu must exist.

you are not allowed to use a chindogu, but it must be made.
you have to be able to hold it in your hand and think:
'I can actually imagine someone using this. almost.'
in order to be useless, it must first be.

3. inherent in every chindogu is the spirit of anarchy.

chindogu are man-made objects that have broken free from
the chains of usefulness. they represent freedom of thought
and action: the freedom to challenge the suffocating historical
dominance of conservative utility; the freedom to be (almost)
useless.

4. chindogu are tools for every day life.

chindogu are a form of nonverbal communication understandable
to everyone, everywhere. specialized or technical inventions,
like a three- handled sprocket loosener for drainpipes centered
between two under-the sink cabinet door (the uselessness of
which will only be appreciated by plumbers), do not count.

5. chindogu are not for sale.

chindogu are not tradable commodities. if you accept money
for one you surrender your purity. they must not even be sold
as a joke.

6. humor must not be the sole reason for creating a chindogu.

the creation of chindogu is fundamentally a problem-solving
activity. humor is simply the by-product of finding an elaborate
or unconventional solution to a problem that may not have
been that pressing to begin with.

7. chindogu is not propaganda.

chindogu are innocent. they are made to be used,
even though they cannot be used. they should not be created
as a perverse or ironic comment on the sorry state of mankind.

8. chindogu are never taboo.

the international chindogu society has established certain
standards of social decency. cheap sexual innuendo, humor
of a vulgar nature, and sick or cruel jokes that debase the
sanctity of living things are not allowed.

9. chindogu cannot be patented.

chindogu are offerings to the rest of the world, they are not
therefore ideas to be copyrighted, patented, collected and owned.
as they say in spain, 'mi chindogu es tu chindogu'.

10. chindogu are without prejudice.

chindogu must never favor one race or religion over another.
young and old, male and female, rich and poor, all should have
a free and equal chance to enjoy each and every chindogu.

Wacky Inventions - has an excellent showcase of items that are absolutely not in any way... idiotic.

Stupid.com - Always fun and never, ever a complete waste of money.

The List goes on and on and on... - More proof that we are definately advancing as a species.

Topless Sandals - I'm fricking serious... How can these exist?

Same to you Whitey!

2006-05-18T17:44:00.000-07:00

I wish I could see five minutes into the future of this picture... Me and the shark high-five-ing after he's done eating the idiot on the boat. Delicious. There's just something fantastic about a picture of a 2,000 pound 6 million year old killing machine being toyed with by what I predict to be this years Darwin award front-runner.

Anyway, on to more important things... like music!

A few more recommendations of new music to make you shake your thangalanglang

1. The Sounds - Yea I know it's girly pop, but guess what smart guy... That's what your "girlfriend" likes. Do yourself a favour and fruit out to this for like 15 minutes. It's worth the effort.

2. The Secret Machines - Ethereal pop with wide open spaces. A little like the Apples in Stereo if they joined up with the Shimmer Kids and took some luudes. Which brings me to...

3. The Shimmer Kids - Formerly known as The Shimmer Kids, these guys now wave a flag that reads "Society of Rockets". Don't be fooled though, the Shimmer Kids are where it's at. They released an EP some 3 odd years ago called "We're All Chiefs and No Indians" that is just waiting for you to love it. Psych pop as good as Brian Wilson wants it to be.

4. Pony Up! - Loose Moldy Peaches in a candy shop. They have a song about Matthew Modine that rhymes Phoebe Cates with "Lots of dates in New York State". Super fun... like Summer!

5. Hot Chip - This electro-lad from the UK has somehow overcome the usually ugly British cheekiness inherent in almost every dance track created in the British Isles. Slammin' beats and excellent production. If you don't like this... I hate you.

Goodnight Burbank....Hello Haha!

2006-05-13T13:06:00.000-07:00

I really can't remember what it was I did for a hobby before I got my video iPod. I think maybe I used to read something called "books" or play "sports". Those days, I'm afraid, are long gone. The time of physical activity is over... the time of the couch potato is at hand... and that hand is filled with my video ipod.

And to usher in this technological revolution of travelling television, I'd like to tell you about one of my favorite podcasts (this week!):

Goodnight Burbank- a fictional newscast that's more concerned with the anchors than
it is the news (although all the news is genuine). It's got elements of the Office and Sportsnight (and some have said the Daily Show although other than the fact that they both traffic with news, I'm not sure why).

Please go check it out at:
http://www.goodnightburbank.com

They have 4 episodes up on the site and 4 more in an editing bay, so this is most definitely an ongoing project.

McLobster I hardly knew ye...

2006-05-13T09:10:00.001-07:00

The human brain is truly amazing in it's capacity to absorb information. There's really no limit to the useless info that can be stored inside one's noodle.

For example it is possible, with time and effort, to cram all of the menu items that have been discontinued by McDonalds over the years.

1. McLobster - Pictured at left, this one may actually still be served in the New England states and/ or Canada. God knows I love my cheap crab salad served in a flaccid hot dog bun.

2. McDLT - As stupid a marketing campaign as ever there was. This champion of sandwich temperature keeps the "Hot side hot" and the "Cold side cold".

3. The McJordan Burger - A Quarter pound BBQ Bacon cheeseburger complete with 2 onion ring on it. Because when I think Michael Jordan I think... Onion Rings! Or is this named after Jordan Knight?

4. The Arch Deluxe - The self proclaimed "Luxury Hamburger". Probably would have sold better if it came with bucket seats and an all leather interior.

More fascinating info here at Wikipedia:

McAwesome!

David Blaine... Aqua-magician

2006-05-09T21:22:00.000-07:00

God help this planet earth. We have world leaders that can't speak or spell, musicians that can't sing, dance, or play an instrument, and the worlds most famous magician actually drowning himself as a magic act.

I remember when being pulled out of a watery grave and resucitated was called "surviving".

Oh yea... and some Scientology!

How the whether is

2006-05-09T21:09:00.000-07:00

I've been very inspired by the work of Daniel Johnston lately. I hope you enjoy this video.

A film for Daniel Johnston

Today was a pretty good news day, more later.

New Music To Preach about

2006-05-05T16:45:00.000-07:00

I'm so angry at myself for not knowing about Daniel Johnston's free show at Amoeba last night... and now I've missed it. What can be done? Not a thing... Daniel's website To help me forget the pain of missing this once in a lifetime opportunity I've been listening all day to some really great new music.

1. Gnarles Barkley (Cee Lo Green & Dangermouse): St. Elsewhere - Cee Lo is the next hip hop mastermind, I'm sure of it. His voice is astounding and pretty much carries the album. Dangermouse is really working overtime on a few tracks here, but it feels a little forced. The major downside I have is really with some of the changes and key choices, but overall a fairly solid party album. Tracks of note: Suicide, Go Go Gadget Gospel, Transformer

2. Sunset Rubdown: Shut up I am Dreaming - Excellent and eccentric pop album. The arrangements are really good and the songs are easily listenable over and over again. Kind of like They Might Be Giants with Bryan Ferry singing. Tracks of note: They Took A Vote and Said No, A Day in the Graveyard

3. A Certain Ratio: Early and John Peel Sessions - I know these tracks are pretty old (1978) but man do they sound fresh. How did these guys not get as big as say Joy Division or the like? If you crossed Patti Smith with Martha and the Muffins I think this is what you'd have. Tracks of note: Skipscada, Shack Up, Oceans

A Total Eclipse of the original

2006-04-28T20:46:00.000-07:00

As much as I love the original version of "Total eclipse of the Heart" by Bonnie Tyler... these two covers might just be more entertaining.

Hurrah Torpedo live - A self described "Norwegian Aplliance Band". Their officially awesome website is HERE.

Two dorks under a blanket - exactly what it sounds like.

Forever's gonna start tonight.

What a world... What a world...

2006-04-26T19:09:00.000-07:00

Where do I freakin' start?

Let me start by saying I have no idea what this picture is all about. Yes, I did take the photo, and yes this gentleman did tell me the entire crazy train-ridin' hobo story involving said pants, the cardboard box he's standing in, his mohawk weilding girlfriend, (whom I also met) and all four of them trying desperately to get to San Jose... and still I have no earthly idea what he was talking about.

I would love to have stayed and gleaned some meaning from talking with him further, unfortunately I was fixated on the burrito I purchased only seconds before and steps away from his brotherhood of the travelling fart pants. In all fairness, he was a really really nice guy and was going to let me take his picture regardless of whether or not I had money to give me. I guess its about the message... not the messenger.

God Bless you Hollywood

Monterey - part one

2006-04-25T23:01:00.000-07:00

So I uploaded a version of this video before, but I think in all probability noone saw it including me, and I'll tell you why. It was too damn big.

click here or on the image to watch video

My family are great people. Not a lot of editing needed.

Pyramid of Future Skulls - Dos

2006-04-19T18:58:00.000-07:00

A Pyramid of Future Skulls

Since you begged for more... Here it is..

click the image to watch the video

Chocodiles!

2006-04-18T18:26:00.000-07:00

Akk! These things are straight out of a 1980's time capsule. They're freaking twinkies swathed in chocolate... I dare any of you not to be tempted to pay $9 for a box of these bad boys.

And what about those Caramel Ho-Ho's? One of those and a Jolt cola, sounds like an assassination attempt to me!

click on the image... if you dare...

PYRAMIDS OF FUTURE SKULLS!!

2006-04-18T17:53:00.000-07:00

click the image to watch the video!

Moname imaginaire du pointless

2006-04-16T19:12:00.000-07:00

Can someone please explain to me why I'm so interested in this thing? As far as I can tell, it's just another box with flashing lights and music that's smarter than me.

It's called a monome and it's basically a sample/beatmechanic type digital mixer onto which can be programmed any kind or combination of sound variables you can imagine.

kind of like a computer... Monome I hate myself for loving you.

watch the video

They Might Be Giants in an Amoeba

2006-04-16T15:16:00.000-07:00

They Might Be Giants - Live at Amoeba Records

I'm not sure of the date of this recording. Last year sometime I think. The show was fun, and I liked about half of the new album they were promoting - Here Come the ABC's.

TMBG is a very nostalgic band for me. I went to Europe for two weeks in 1990 and the only cassette tape I had with me for the duration was thus: side A) They Might Be Giants - Flood, side B) Aaron Copland - Fanfare for the Common man... I think I wore out the rewind button on that walkman.

Anyway, more TMBG at Amoeba videos to follow...

Thank You Easter Bunny!

2006-04-16T10:39:00.000-07:00

Happy Easter all my peeps!

I think of all the religious holidays Easter is my least favorite. I mean really, the savior of all mankind rising from the grave sounds a little hokey if you ask me. I would say it ranks along side Arbor Day, and who knows what the hell that is... I do like the fact that it takes place in the springtime (although I personally put more stock in May-Day) and has somehow come to symbolize giant rabbit costumes, and hiding painted chicken eggs from children.

Easter Photos Galore

Unfortunately, Christ was unavailable for comment and I couldn't get my hands on any footage of him ascending into heaven, but in a way I think this video Easter Bunny Loves You is just as good. Enjoy!

A Dollars worth of Chiba

2006-04-11T18:52:00.000-07:00

"If you have to fight... Fight High Prices!!"

It thrills me that there are still some things in life that defy logic or explanation. That today, men are still travelling deep into the untamed jungles of South America, and are finding ancient ruins, unseen for hundreds of years. Stories and secrets of entire civilizations are constantly being re-discovered all around the globe, and only just today, did I find out that they have Sonny Chiba DVD's at the 99 cent store on La Brea.

"I'm the Prince of f**king darkness!"

2006-04-08T20:52:00.000-07:00

If you haven't yet heard about myheritage.com , here's your chance. It's a fun site that hosts some face recognition software that very quickly tells you what famous celebrities you look like in any given photo.

The software's artificial intelligence is either shamelessly faulty or has a scary sense of humour... you be the judge.

It said I was the spitting image of no less than Sharon Stone, Primo Levi, Meg Ryan, Ozzy Osbourne, Pamela Anderson, Steven Soderbergh, Heddy Lamar, and Gloria Estefan.

Unicorn in C Major

2006-04-07T12:47:00.000-07:00

Ya know... I don't really want to say too much about this video, because it so easily speaks for itself. Like the picture to the left, it asks as many questions as it answers. Let's proceed...

click to watch video

Good, now that you've seen it, let me ask you this... What is it about nerds and unicorns. I think they travel as a set, because they're always talking about each other. Whenever I'm with my nerdy friends they're like "Hey Brian, what's the unicorn doing today? Have you heard anything about the unicorn? Wanna call the unicorn" and the unicorns are always like "Hey dude, what's the deal with those nerds? Should we call the nerds? Is that nerd looking at me?" Sheesh.

Signs, Signs, Everywhere Signs

2006-04-01T14:10:00.000-08:00

click here for signs

This blogsite has lots and lots of signs. Most of them are pretty comical and more than a few actually have a point. Holla.

Monterey

2006-03-30T21:41:00.000-08:00

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The family Tipton on holiday in Monterey and Carmel.

Snakes on a MotherF**king Plane!

2006-03-27T21:26:00.000-08:00

watch the trailer

Imagine a movie that could't possibly be made. Guess what...

...it got made.

I think there's another trailer at this page

Guerilla Theater of the Mind

2006-03-26T18:14:00.000-08:00

IMPROV EVERYWHERE

Improv Everywhere causes scenes of chaos and joy in public places. Created in August of 2001 by Charlie Todd, Improv Everywhere has executed over 50 missions involving hundreds of undercover agents. The group is based in New York City.

The Amazing Kamado Grill?

2006-03-25T20:49:00.000-08:00

click here for the Kamado Grill

These grills are awesome! It's like roasting a giant Russian Matryoshka doll!

If anyone has ever used one of these beauties, please let me know!

Heat Vision and Jack Black

2006-03-25T20:13:00.000-08:00

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Heat Vision and Jack was created as a 1999 pilot for Fox. Written by Dan Harmon and Rob Schrab, directed by Ben Stiller, this series was passed over by Fox despite critical acclaim from those who've been lucky enough to see it.

The 30 minute pilot is about an astronaut (played by Jack Black) with a medical secret who is on the run from the evil Ron Silver and the rest of NASA, with the help of a talking motorcycle called Heat Vision (voiced by Owen Wilson).

You can fool the sum of all people, some or all of the time

2006-03-17T21:15:00.000-08:00

Mesmerism involved different techniques, including the placement or brandishment of literal magnets around the subjects, and the monotonous repetition of words and tones, which induced a trance-like state in its subjects.

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In a hypnotic trance, the subject is prone to suggestibility. They tend to believe what they are told and their senses will malfunction to back up these suggestions. Mesmer primarily used the technique to cure various stress-related illnesses but it soon became clear that hypnotism could also be used to make people do things they wouldn't normally do.

Today, any respectable hypnotist will assure you that a person under hypnosis can't be induced to do anything they wouldn't normally be able to do. But then, it's not the respectable hypnotists that you have to worry about. Regardless of their protestations of harmlessness, the suggestibility of a hypnotized subject offers ample opportunity for the hypnotist to wreak havoc.

Aside from the possibility of just ordering the subject to become a killing machine, which is not a reliable technique, one can plant suggestions that allow the subject to justify all manner of wrongdoing (i.e., "Jim is planning to kill you. He will kill you unless you kill him first. You had better kill him in self-defense.").

Hypnotic techniques can also be used to plant "post-hypnotic" suggestions, in which a certain set of circumstances (such as the utterance of a "trigger phrase") cause the subject to act out a preprogrammed behavior. This is more popular as a Hollywood device than effective in the real world, but it can be done.

The main problem with hypnosis as a mind-control technique is that it's pretty difficult to hypnotize someone against their will. That's why insidious megalomaniacs returned to the techniques used by the first Assassins � drugs � while inventing new and exciting ways to manipulate the masses in an economical fashion.

Portobello Road

2006-02-12T18:23:00.000-08:00

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This is an excellent song by Cat Stevens from his Matthew & Son period. I think it was co-written by Kim Fowley.

Garage Sale compliments of Johnny Fever

2006-02-04T13:27:00.000-08:00

click here to watch the video

Jonathan and I go to (what turns out to be) the great (but not late) Howard Hessman's estate sale. That's right y'all, Johnny Fever is having a close-out sale.

I should say that we didn't know up front who was having the estate sale. Only after stepping inside and seeing the WKRP hand lithos and photos of different people with the Hess-man that it dawned on us as to who's stuff this was. Both Jonathan and I were shocked for about six seconds thinking Johnny Fever had kicked it and noone told us. In the midst of our preparations for Hari Kari, someone shouted "Hey Howard...Howard, how much do you want for this sofa?"

Howard Hessman...alive and well. And handing out great deals all this weekend.

Cold Cold Ground Beef

2006-01-23T23:08:00.000-08:00

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Tom Waits is a genius... geez You better smile when you say that. I mean that's like saying "Wow the moon is really far away" or "George Bush is a jerk".

I got your back Tom.

Charleston to Key West

2006-01-23T18:48:00.000-08:00

click here to watch video

(this file is like 191 megs so you're probably just better off downloading it and watching it later)

This is more footage of my trip to Charleston and then Key West compliments of American Apparel. We flew into Key West the day after Hurricane Katrina left and we had to watch the destruction of New Orleans from 500 miles away on TV. Scary stuff.

I do recommend, if you're staying in Key West, definately, definately, definately book your stay in what is known as "The Southernmost House" it's a gorgeous mansion that happens to be the southernmost house in all of the US. The staff are uber friendly and are no strangers to rum.

The Big Country

2006-01-21T21:52:00.000-08:00

clicke here to watch video

I recently had the pleasure of working with American Apparel as an interior graphics designer. This video has absolutely nothing to do with that... except that this is me flying back to Los Angeles after my last job for them.

Happy Birthday Dr King!!

2006-01-16T21:31:00.000-08:00

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Happy birthday Dr Martin Luther King jr!!

This magic moment

2006-01-15T14:55:00.000-08:00

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A really stupid song... and short too. It's got like ten words and then repeats.Doc Pomus, the Drifters, Jay and the Americans, Ben E King, Lou Reed, and the Misfits!?!

Does not compute! Does not compute!

Calm down Angel band

2006-01-15T14:36:00.000-08:00

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Covered by everyone AND their mother. Ralph Stanley's version is probably my fav version of this track, though it's been done by no less than Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, June Carter, Flatt and Scruggs, Emmy Lou Harris, the Jordanaires, the Monkees (?!), Bill Monroe, the Oak Ridge boys, Pete Seeger, Mike Seeger, Porter Wagoner, and if I had to guess, probably a lot more groups.

Here's mine... off the cuff, and off the chart.

My Air Supply is running low

2006-01-15T14:21:00.000-08:00

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Is there any band that got more mileage out of the word "Love" than Air Supply? I mean honestly. "All out of love" "Lost in Love" "Young Love" "Making Love out of nothing at all" "The One you Love". What the eff.

the following is a quote from Allmusic.com
"With their heavily orchestrated, sweet ballads, the Australian soft rock group Air Supply became a staple of early-'80s radio, scoring a string of seven straight Top Five singles. Air Supply, for most intents and purposes, was the duo of vocalists Russell Hitchcock and Graham Russell; other members came through the group over the years, yet they only functioned as backing musicians and added little to the group's sound. Hitchcock and Russell met while performing in a Sydney, Australia, production of Jesus Christ Superstar in 1976.

For several years, the group gained no attention outside of Australia, earning one significant hit single, "Love and Other Bruises." Their first international exposure came in the late '70s, when Rod Stewart had them as his opening act on a North American tour. Air Supply signed a record contract with Arista in 1980, releasing their first album "Lost in Love" by the end of the year."

I'm sorry Mr. Jackson, but I am for real

2006-01-14T14:56:00.000-08:00

Click Here to play video

So, this is my first attempt at completely destroying Jackson Browne's excellent Somebody's Baby. Mission accomplished, I think. If you are pregnant or have a heart condition, best to avoid this very graphic display.

New Years Eve!!

2006-01-01T14:34:00.000-08:00

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Much love and thanks to everyone for coming out to our Hollywood abode to watch Dick Clark's ball drop. Special thanks to whoever handed me that concoction of Miller Lite and tomato juice, which is probably why I don't have a bigger headache today.

Merry Xmas Everyone! John Prine's Christmas in Prison

2005-12-26T11:17:00.000-08:00

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One of my favorite Christmas songs, what few there are. Merry Christmas to you John Prine, wherever you are.

Musta Got Lost

2005-12-15T21:41:00.000-08:00

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A bad cover of my favorite J. Geils track.

Useless

2005-12-05T22:54:00.000-08:00

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Video shot at the Useless magazine runway show.

Hollywood Forever

2005-12-03T12:19:00.000-08:00

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A short video we shot in the famous Hollywood Forever cemetary. Music by the Shins.

The First Time

2005-11-27T17:42:00.000-08:00

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The first time I got it on. The first time I ran a mile. The last time I ran a mile. The music is a track off of Beck's newest album Guero. I hope he doesn't mind that I've commandeered it for my project. If so, holla.

Dark As a Dungeon

2005-11-27T16:14:00.000-08:00

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Dark As A Dungeon

Lyrics: Merle Travis
Music: Merle Travis
This song has been performed by quite a few country/ folk m including Merle Travis, Johnny Cash, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Cisco Houston, Harry Belafonte,

"The saddest songs are written when a person is happy. I was driving home after a date with a beautiful girl in Redondo Beach, California. I had a recording session to do the next morning and needed some material. I parked my car under a street light and wrote the verses to "Dark As A Dungeon." I got the idea from growing up around the coal mines in Kentucky. My father and brothers were coal miners."

Merle Travis, interview, Nashville, TN, Jul 8, 1973 or telephone interview, Sep 7, 1973, reprinted in Dorothy Horstman, Sing Your Heart Out, Country Boy, New York, NY, 1976, p. 246.