art and crap

I unloaded a grip of artwork at the Shakey Hand Gallery yesterday for my upcoming show. It's mostly the stuff I've had piled up for a while. stuff thats been on my site. Old to me, new to everyone else. I also finished two more pieces. One is totally new, continuing the bunnyman series that i thought i was over with. The other one is the Voodoolady painting I've had on my page for a while that I finally finished. check em out.

see you all at my show, Aug 25th!

Living in the MTZ!

Remember when I said my home town was famous for sucking? Well, Martinez is famous for a lot more actually. But that doesn't mean we don't suck still. Knowing we suck is part of the glue that keeps us together and proud to be from Martinez.

The area I live is pretty historic for the west coast since it was a major hub for the gold rush.

Benicia, the town right across the way from Martinez used to be the capital of California. But they are all hoity-toity and think they are the shit. They have bumper stickers that say "its better in Benicia" that's why I made my shirts and stickers that say "FUCK YOU BENICIA". So Martinizens and Vallejoans stick it in the face of the uppity snobs in Benicia. There is a lot of resentment toward that attitude from Martinez and Vallejo. Benicia's other neighboring town. Basically all they have is the EX-State Capital. The Gov got the fuck out of there in 1854 and hasn't been back since!

Martinez has a lot of homeless and low-lifes hanging out down town because it is the County seat. We have the welfare office, county hospital (with mental ward) and the county jail. Vallejo isnt without its negative points either. It has a lot of crime and gang activity so its kind of looked down at. But they have Mare Island and E-40. Mare Island is rad, you should click this link. Benicia has a Naval shipyard, but Mare Island is the oldest on the west coast and loaded with the oldest of this and the first of that. Suck on that Benicia!



Martinez is plagued with a giant Oil refinery too. "In 1915 Shell Oil Company built an oil refinery near Martinez, which sparked a building boom in the area. Martinez's oil refineries can still be seen today from Interstate 680, and it continues to be a significant port and petroleum." And were damned proud of it! Benicia has one too but its not as centralized in the town so they politely and conveniently stay ignorant of it. As a visual juxtaposition, downtown benicia looks like fucking Disneyland.

Despite these downfalls our towns are just as historic and cool to live in as Benicia thinks it is. But Benicia ("BeniciAAAHhhhhhh" according to a smug billboard welcoming tourists) likes to rub in the fact that they basically are a town of well-to-do 40 yr olds who think their shit doesn't stink.

Do you like to get drunk? Well, the Martini was invented in Martinez. Some will argue it was invented other places, but there is actually a plaque a block from my house marking the "birthplace of the martini". That's good enough for me. Benicia has tap water.

Do you know who John Muir is... Was? If you lived in Martinez you would. He pretty much discovered Yosemite. He was a writer and naturalist who lived in Martinez from 1880 to 1914. Everything here is John Muir Road, John Muir Inn, Muir this Muir that and if you come to Martinez, you can visit his 1883 home. He made Teddy Roosevelt come to CA. To see Yosemite Valley and it made him reconsider flooding it with a hydroelectric dam. Anyway, that's all John Muir. Our homeboy from the MTZ. Suck on that too Benicia

You know what else Benicia doesn't have? A Joe DiMaggio Field. Yup, he was from here too. One more pelvic thrust into the ass of Benicians! My Grandma saw him and Marilyn Monroe at a bar one night back in the day. (probably enjoying a Martini!)

I love my home town even if it is crawling with meth addicts and the air is polluted. Knowing we suck is part of the glue that keeps us together and proud to be from Martinez. And it beats living in Benicia.

to beard, or not to beard?

so, as i sit here with a fucked up farmer sunburn from sitting in the sun watching the Giants get their assholes handed to them by the god damn Phillies, contemplating cutting off the ol' beard and fro, I get a comment on my blog post about Jimbo and I's beard off from a couple weeks ago. It's from a guy named Barney "Danger" Whelan who runs a site called "Big and Beardy".
holy shit!!! ------->
It's a site devoted to the art of facial hair. Wow, what an honor! I can't shave it off now. As an homage to Barney, and the rest of the bearded of the world I have decided to tough out the summer and keep the beard.

The Way of the Beard:
If you’ve never grown a beard before don’t be afraid its like an extension of your soul! The ladies may say they don’t like it but secretly they love it and long for one of their own. Its like your very own carry everywhere pet, you can stroke it while you’re thinking, brush it (or have it brushed) and for special tie little ribbons in it.

thanks Barney!

Your Way, As Soon as You Figure Out What You Want

Do you remember the "Wheel Of Fish" from that Weird Al movie UHF? if you've never seen it, put it on your Neflix list ASAP! Anyway, Like the Wheel of Fish, Burger King has a cool new thing to help you figure out what to order. I always get the same thing, Whopper, no mayo, no ketchup, add mustard and bacon, so I didnt need to spin the King's burger wheel. check it out!
what a great idea, even if it is a marketing gimmick.

TV just keeps getting better and better

As I sat down at the wobbly plastic picknick table in the back patio of the famous Chile Jalepeno Mexican Resturant, that despite getting a moldy burrito and a cold taco, I always go back to, I was half watching the little TV they had on. Between bites of what might have been the best carnitas I've ever had, I hear, under canned pop hits from the 90's, what sounded like typical daytime courtroom reality show, like Judge Judy or something, but the couple times i glanced up I saw the judge had a wooden baseball bat that said "JUDGE" on it. and then the stereotypical black "tough but cool" bailiff in ToneLoc shades , said something and sounded like a bad Shaft impersonation.

then i thought, "ok shitty TV show, you got my attention"

Between commercial breaks i find out its called "Eye for an Eye" and thats just what they do.
As my burrito gets cold, I cant take my eyes off the 13" TV over in the corner. In this case, from what i could tell, a woman was publicly humilated by some guy at a bar. i dont know how illegal that is or what happened to land them in court because unfortunatly I missed the beginning.

Since its "eye for an eye" the Judge sentenced the dude to go to the bar and be put in stocks to be humilated like they did in the 1500's. Then after the commercial break I see Kato Kalin with a mic. I think its a commercial but Eye for an Eye is back on, and Kato is the host of the show! Kato was on location at the bar where the sentence was to be held out. My lunch break was almost over so I focused my attention back on the delicious Carnitas Burrito. Between glances again, I saw, cheesy COPS, or Jerry Springer style lighting and camera work showing the defendant, the plaintiff and Kato giving the blow-by-blows of what happened to the chick and what they were gonna do to the dude. I saw them put him in the stocks and heard Kato encouraging the woman, and what I guess were her friends to say humilating things and, I'm not sure, but throw rotten vegetables and fruit at him, as they would have done in ancient times. Around that time I glanced at the time, gobbled up the last of my Burrito, chugged the rest of my Sangria soda and then headed back to work.

When I got back I did some research on the internets. turns out this show is a National Lampoon's creation. Nice. so they know its cheesy and unbelievable. The cool bailiff, is a retired boxer they call "Sugar Ray". The baseball bat weilding judge is named "Extreme Akim” (Akim Anastopoulo) and of course the host we all remember from the OJ trial, Kato Kalin. how can you go wrong with a show like this? ha ha!

for more on Eye For an Eye check out their website. http://www.eyeforaneyetv.com/

What's cuter than a baby Kitten?

... a baby kitten with TWO cute, baby kitten faces!!
"A bizarre act of nature was found in Grove City Wednesday -- a kitten was born with two faces.The kitten was born Wednesday morning. It has two mouths that meow in unison, two noses and four eyes..."

read more and watch a video here

Remember This?

I got my first useful spam from a guy promoting these cars in a comment on that old post. and, appearantly, they're selling these cars here in the US now. and in Santa Rosa no less!

Why wait for 2008? DaimlerChrysler won't be bringing the Smart car to the U.S. until 2008. Zap! a company out of Santa Rosa, CA www.zapworld.com ZP(NYSE) already is selling 100% street legal smart cars. It also sells a 100% electric city car the Xebra and is planning on bringing the Obvio! 828, a hybrid manufactured in Brazil that can run off of any combination of gasoline or ethanol in 2007

Uhhm, rad?

Shitty, funny cartoons

an old chum from School, turned internet buddy, lives in the desert and goes to gay dance parties now, but he also has a great sense of humor. He made this site, which for all intents and purposes is completly pointless, but the cartoons are funny. they are crudely drawn so that the artwork doesnt get in the way of the punch lines. Whether that was intentional or not, I dont know.
anyway, i submitted a few of my stupid cartoons which should show up on there soon.

check it out at www.fallingdown.net (great URL man!)

Higher Learning part deux

So I did it. I registered for some classes at DVC. (Diablo Valley College) its our local JC out here.

I signed up for 3 evening classes. an art class, a CAD class and a Graphics class that i hope will expand my current skillset and open some more doors for me in those fields. They are all pretty much introductory classes but since i've never officially taken any classes in these fields I'm sure there will be plenty to learn.

ART 105 is, Presentation of drawing concepts and techniques, perspective, as well as color theory fundamentals, with emphasis on design principles and composition.

ARCHI 126, Course is designed for students with no previous manual drafting experience. Basic computer experience is helpful. Course will cover 2- and 2-1/2 dimensional computer aided drafting. Emphasis will be on the software package AutoCAD. Hands-on training with applications in architecture is stressed.

MULTM 110, This course is an introduction to digital imaging. The course will provide students with direct hands-on experience creating computer images and with experience in editing digital images from scanned graphics and digital photography.

so we'll see how it goes.

Is TV Magic really Magic?

What do you think of magicians? im having an issue recently with Magic on TV. I love to watch David Blane and recently, although cheesy Chris Angel. because especially with David Blaine, and unlike the tux wearing confetty guys, he appears to be doing his tricks on the street, impromptu and without the aid of props or assistants. I think illusion and slight of hand are really cool and my dad is really into learning how to do that shit, but after watching Chris Angel levitate up an escalator i got curious. I know all illusions and tricks are based in somethign really simple and its just the skill and creativity of the magician but how the hell do these guys do this shit? So i started looking on line and most of the sites say that most of Blain and Angel's "illusions" are staged for TV and/or fancy film editing.

Now, it IS amazing to watch, but only if you're under the impression that its done in front of a live untrained audience. I found out how he does the simple levitation and its pretty simple and basicly what i thought it was. And even in discovering how he did it, i was still impressed with his skill... but there's some stuff that seems impossible and appearently, it might be.

here he is floating from one building to another.. whaat?


That got me thinking, is TV magic really magic? I mean, does the tight-knit and very private Magicians Guild condone this type of trickery or consider this real magic?? because anyone could do that shit with a camcorder and editing software. A lot of the things I've read say that the audiences are canned and told to react a certain way etc. Smoke and mirrors and slight of hand are one thing, and you can respect the skill involved. I know either way if its TV magic or real skill, im being tricked, but Camera tricks and lies just piss me off... even planted audience members piss me off. I can handle being tricked and fooled but.. i dont like being ripped off or lied too, thats what TV magic is .. a fucking rip off. Hollywood does amazing things in shows and movies all the time, but you know its a movie. you know there was CGI or editing or models or something so you dont really wonder how they did it.

If anyone out there has been close to magicians or been involved in any of Blaine or Angel's shoots, I'd love to hear how it went down. If its true. If they script audiences and use editing to pull off these tricks... you got me guys, i was tricked. I was fooled but I'm NOT impressed.

that isnt magic. its Hollywood.