All In the Name Of....Get It? (It's a Motley Crue Song!)

In the past I've written about how up his own ass Nikki Sixx is; however this particular entry relates to Motley Crue as a recording entity.

Now, I own most of the albums that are in this little photo montage, and on them there are some really stellar songs. And there are also some colossal turds. Each (studio) album has anywhere from 1-4 excellent songs. But when you go back and look at their albums there isn't one single complete front to back album that is packed with great songs AND no filler. Hell, even their Greatest Hits album has that stupid shit ass song Glitter on it!
I love to go on to Wikipedia and read the reviews and behind the scene tidbits of bands and their discography's; on Motley Crue's page it says that Dr. Feelgood is considered both their "strongest" album and most "consistent". I beg to differ on both counts. Parts of it sound flawless and timeless (Dr. Feelgood, Kickstart My Heart), while in other parts it is soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo dated (Time For Change, TNT, Slice of Your Pie). Recently I watched a documentary on the Crue, and on it Vince Neil states that Theatre of Pain is their "worst album" and outside of Home Sweet Home and Smokin' In the Boys Room, he doesn't know a single song on that album. Clearly he has never hear Girls, Girls, Girls, New Tattoo, or Saints of Los Angeles. There are some real sink ass songs on those albums.
Besides the albums, a whole other argument/debate can be made that all of the those guys at one point or another becomes a liability in a live setting. Now, I saw them live in 2005; it was a great show, BUT they all fucked up a lot. No one was more guilty than Vince Neil. He did his infamous every 3rd word "singing" AND what was even more incredible was the fact that he "played" guitar on a few songs, and he broke his low E string and didn't even realize it. I often wonder when he busts out a guitar if it's even plugged in....

Anyways I just wanted to write about this. I do love these guys warts and all. The concert I saw them in was one of the best overall shows I've seen. My favorite albums of theirs would have to be Motley Crue, and Shout At the Devil. In that order.

The End

Pretentious Much?

 I am going to start by saying, that I like Lamb of God. They are a good metal band. Solid players and they write some good ass tunes. Recently though, I found out that Randy Blythe has an Instagram account. Now, I do follow him; he takes some interesting photographs, but I must say that in a lot of instances the guy comes of a bit pretentious. Case in point the photos to your right. Now here we have Mr. Blythe sitting on a couch in a black and white photo. Looks fine, but then you read the ridiculous bullshit that he writes. I get that he misses his friend, but the fact that he staged this makes it super lame. Without the incredibly stupid and over the top artsy fartsy caption, this would have made the photo much better. Together, this just kinda stinks of a musician trying to be a jack of all trades.

Now there isn't anything wrong with someone exploring their creative side, but the way that he did this (and other photos on his Instagram) makes him come off as high and mighty. For a while, he was putting down people who use Photoshop and the camera on their iPhone's and constantly telling us the fancy ass cameras he uses; but recently he has come to a startling realization. YOU DON'T NEED A FANCY CAMERA. You can literally take a disposable camera and get a great shot. A lot of it comes down to art direction. That and not telling the viewer everything that you did to get the shot. Especially because it makes you seem like a pompous ass, who thinks they know about art.

Lazy

So, this was just from me noticing how similar movie posters have been lately. That means a few things. 1) These are basically the same. 2) They look terrible. 3) They all use a similar type of mash up with photos.

I don't know if this was intentional, if these movies were all made by the same studio, if these posters were all made by the same person/design firm BUT regardless, they suck. To me it looks like the same boring ass movie. Also another thing I just noticed; they are all basically ensemble movies.

Anyways, that's it. They look like the same movie and the same poster. And they look like they aren't any good. That is all.

...also, I haven't seen any of these movies and I'm going to keep it that way.

Second Hand News (Like the Song)

Well, nothing super new to talk about here, so I'm gonna do a short run down of my favorite awkward embarrassing stories. Stories that didn't happen to me though. These are second hand stories from the people who saw them, apart of it somehow, or they happened to them.

1) A buddy of mine in a class told me this when we were riding our bikes home from said class. I told him how I hate when dick SF drivers nearly hit you on the road (if you ride your bike on the sidewalk and the cops see you, it's a $170 ticket!). He says "...don't give them the finger. People are used to that, give them the thumbs down. I gave a guy the thumbs down once, he rolled down his window and yelled "DID YOU JUST FUCKING GIVE ME THE THUMBS DOWN?!?!?!" So give people the thumbs down.

2) In a drawing class I had, the teacher was doing a demo and all of a sudden a friend of mine starts laughing out loud. After the demo I ask her why she was laughing. She told me she forgot for a second where she was because she got a text from her mom telling her about a cousin of hers. She then relayed the story to me as follows, "...my mom texted me to say that my cousin had to have surgery because he somehow sliced his nut sack open riding his bike. Somehow his shorts got snagged in the chain and it tore his nut sack open. And his mom posted it all over Facebook. This isn't the first time this happened either. A few years ago he was sitting on a lawn chair, somehow one of his balls fell between the rubber bands of the chair. My other cousins picked up the chair with him on it and threw it in the pool. After a while he didn't come up and they realized he was stuck. They then had to dive into the pool and grab the whole chair with him on it and give some super scissors to cut the rubber to free him."

3) In high school my friend Ray went to some stupid party. He came out to his car and said he saw a bag hanging from his rear view mirror. He slowly got in and saw the bag, within seconds a smell was filling his nostrils; he touched the bag and it hit him. It was shit. Not just any shit, it was people shit. He never knew who did it. A few years later, another friend asked me if I had heard about that incident. I said yes, then he asked if I knew who did it. I said no, and he proceeded to tell me who did it. I laughed my ass off and forgot about it. A few months later I was hanging out with Ray and that story came up. He still never knew who did it. I said I knew who it was, I told him and he got super pissed reliving that event. He finally put faces (it was two entitled asses) to the feces. (zing!)

So yeah, there's some funny(ish) second hand stories. Until next time. 

Case in Point

The other day, I was reading some user comments on a favorite blog/website of mine. It is written by one my favorite musicians, who happens to be extremely knowledgeable and articulate. He is also generous enough to take time out of his busy schedule to respond to most, if not all comments. Although, to me some of the user comments come across as totally off base, uninformed, or just stupid. Case in point: "...the 90s' were a terrible decade for rock and metal period."

Seriously? Period? Here is a brief list of rock/metal bands that formed in the 90s', released some great albums in the 90s', or made it "big" in the 90s':

White Zombie

Alice in Chains

Pearl Jam

Soundgarden

Prong

System of a Down

Pantera

Metallica (granted they were "big" in the 80s' but they really broke in the 90s')

Red Hot Chili Peppers

Tool

Faith No More

etc....*

Yeah, the way that rock/metal sounded and looked changed; BUT to say that the 90s' was "terrible" is just a silly thing to say. These bands wrote good songs and albums, had great tones, pioneered new tunings, and song structures. Saying something like that is very short sighted. If one just looks through their CD collection, iPod, Zune, or even just Wikipedia you can find out that the 90s' did produce some good rock/metal. Now this is not to say that it was with out it's low points, but it did produce very well.

* I know I left off a ton of groups/musicians. This was just a quick off hand list, I know that dozens of groups qualify for this, as well as the albums that they produced. So this was not a slam against any group or musician.

Movies For D-Bags Part II

Man, I am getting super lazy with this thing...

Well, I've had this idea of following up my world famous Movies For D-Bags entry with an appropriately titled sequel. And here it goes!

So in the last entry of this I "profiled" The Boondock Saints, well for this new entry I am going to cover The Hangover.

Much like The Boondock Saints, this is one of those movies where I like it less each time I see it. The idea of watching it, annoys me. Really. Just the idea of watching this movie annoys the shit out of me. I mean it's funny, don't get me wrong. I laugh every time I see it, but if I can help it I try not to watch it.
Just like before, one of the more annoying aspects of this movie is the people who watch it and quote it. It's usually turd bomb frat guys, dumb skanks, or just ra-tards (see what I did there?). I knew that I was going to become irritated with this thing when it came out. A coworker of mine at the time kept going on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on about how funny it was. How his roommates and him had seen it easily a dozen times, within the first few weeks of its release. So I saw it with the Mrs. and we enjoyed it. As time went on the pendulum swung the other way though. The characters are annoying, and some of the actors are dumb asses as well. To top it off, they made the sequel which is the same thing in another country, AND they are making a third one!

Thus concludes another meandering, directionless rant.

See you all at the next (insert theme music) Movies For D-Bags!

Office Tales

A few weeks ago I wrapped up my summer job. I won't say where, although if you come to San Francisco there are multiple locations and it's a great way to get some exercise and see the city at the same time. So, what I gonna do is jot down a few of the funnier things that I heard/saw during the three months I worked there. So enjoy, or not.

In no particular order...

1. Two women came in and one of them pulls me aside to ask if Alcatraz was "real". I had no idea what she meant and neither did her friend. She was dead serious and apparently thought that Alcatraz was not really sitting out in the bay.

2. It was my turn to clean the bathroom. This Irish guy who worked there asked if he could go real fast. I said sure. Now in this bathroom there was the door and like a stall door, even though there was one toilet. I left and he shut the stall door leaving the bathroom door open. Then proceeded to take a massive shit and stink up the whole joint.

3. I was walking back from Walgreens on my break one day and I saw Jon Gruden. He is very short.

4. This French guy and girl came in to work. I gave them directions to the Golden Gate Bridge, but was distracted by the French girl's immense mustache. It was like watching a car accident. I couldn't look away.

5. This crackhead came into the store and was just walking around. One of the Supervisor guy's asks him what he is doing. Crackhead says nothing. Supervisor says to him: "Why don't you follow me, we're gonna take a look at something..." They walk out and then Supervisor turns around and walks back in. Crackhead stops and says: "...why...why you gotta treat me like I'm...I'm a turd. I'm not a turd. You're a god damn turd!"

6. A coworker friend of mine saw a hobo take a shit on the sidewalk. Corn hole, balls, shit and everything. Then he proceeded to wipe.

7. On my last day of work, one of the girls didn't show up. Turns out she crashed an electric bike into a metal gate and broke her god damn teeth. They strangely seemed to break symmetrically.

8. Lastly, this crazy ass guy was chasing someone down the street threatening him with a taser; for easily 20 minutes. My boss calls the cops and the crazy guy tries to jump on the bus to get away. Next thing you know 5, yes FIVE cop cars show up. They get the guy and then proceed to play with the taser for another 15 minutes.

Mysteries of Craigslist

Craigslist is a very interesting thing, for lack of a better more creative description. On one hand you have people who legitimately want to sell, trade, or just get rid of shit. On the other hand you have the rest of the internet. Those people either want to low ball the hell out of you, say they want to acquire said item from you and then never follow through, and then you have the scammers.
As of this being written (August 27th) I'm selling a few items. Items which are not necessarily highly sought after or rare items, but at the same time they aren't chunks of peanutty shit. I know what they are worth, yet the only real responses are from said people I have mentioned. The items that I have online are musical items, and I guess what might put people off is the fact that a) I worked in a music store for 4 years and know how to evaluate these things and b) I own Blue Books that have prices in them.
I'm not sure what drives people to be turds regarding things like this. People like me aren't trying to "rip" others off, yet we don't want to just give it away. One of the funniest instances/experiences I had with someone on Craigslist dealt with someone who actually came to my house to check out what I was selling. This person loved what I was selling, but tried to haggle with me on price because she was able to buy some similar item (it was MUCH lower quality) for less. I explained to her what the deal was regarding Blue Book pricing & knowing what I was talking about. She then said she would have to think about it and left. Mind you she traveled an hour, one way at night to come see what I had, then proceeded to leave.
All I am trying to do along with thousands of others, is get rid of some stuff without taking a bath on it. I fail to understand how the rest of the internet community does not comprehend this.

...somewhat related to this, I made a book about spotting Craigslist scammers, as I have become tired of dealing with them.

Batman Bitches

In the spirit of The Dark Knight Rises, I offer this; how much ass would it suck to live in Gotham City?

This is supposedly one of the biggest, if not the biggest city in the world, yet it's a gigantic toilet that is kept alive merely by one guy and the legacy of his family. That guy also doubles as Batman; depending on which set of Batman movies you are watching, it varies on how much he loathes: himself, what he does, his city, etc... and questions all of the above and more.
Next, how could ONE city have so many god damn super villains?! Think about it; in this one city lives: The Joker, Bane, Catwoman, Harvey Two-Face, Poison Ivy, Killer Croc, Mr. Freeze, Clayface, The Penguin, and Scarecrow (among others as well). Seriously. How much fucking ass would that suck? Everywhere you turn there is all these lunatics running around causing various types of mayhem and crime. Yet these people still live there.
On top of that, why doesn't the government ever intervene with this? I mean not until this last movie was there ever any indication of government assistance. What the hell man. Crimes of all sorts; theft of various natures, bomb threats, hostage situations, destroying buildings and structures, chemical threats, etc.. What is the big god damn hold up here?

Okay enough of this half thought out bullshit. Good movies though, except Batman & Robin that is.

Going Deep...Again

Some strange things have occurred as of late. By this I am referring to my artistic pursuits. For as long as I had been making art (a good chunk of my life), I had been pooped on by various instructors and developed a pretty good sized inferiority complex regarding my work, themes, and general abilities. Not that I have over come all of that stuff, even though it's easy to say "hey get over it". BUT a few months ago, I passed with flying colors my Midpoint Presentation; which is me pitching my thesis to a panel of instructors. Then I entered a shit ton of prints and one of my books into the spring show. None of my prints got in and I was super bummed (only like 3 people got a total of 8 pieces in which was fucked up if you ask me), but my book got in! Not only did it get in, but I won my category and got a nice prize for it as well.

Fast forward about 1 month later...

I display my work on a ton of internet sites, some you can buy reproductions others the originals (if anyone who reads this is interested feel free to inquire!) Well, low and behold I am at work and I get a notification that someone bought one of my pieces as a greeting card. That blew my god damn mind! Granted I got like no money from it, but still. A few weeks later, I get a notification that someone was (and might still be) interested in acquiring some of my work. That was awesome as well.
The most recent event occurred when I again signed up for some site to display my work. I had to have my work/profile approved and I hadn't heard back for a few days. Out of the blue I get a phone call from the woman (who was super cool) runs the organization; she tells me how much she loves my work and offers me to be in a show. That again, was super awesome!
I could be jinxing myself here, but to me it feels like I have turned a corner almost. I'm getting respect from peers, and those above me regarding my work. It's a great feeling and it makes me want to bigger and better pieces; prints and books.

P.S. This is like the one time a year I go serious and deep with this blog. For reals, cause this is One Terrible Blog after all.

Stay tuned for more terribleness...

Public Encounters Volume 1

Normally when I go out on Muni (San Francisco public transportation), I wear headphones. Mostly so I don't have to listen to the throngs of people and their borderline retarded conversations. Although, the other day I was on the bus with my lady as we were headed to the vet and naturally since I was with her, I didn't wear any headphones. What I heard was awesomeness. Pure awesomeness. The "conversation" in question was between a super aging skateboarder, a hippy pot smoker, and his drugged out girlfriend who was BARELY awake and taking.

HPS: Dude, you know who is the best bass player ever?

ASB: Oh man, I'm an old metal head, so Cliff Burton is the man for me.

HPS: Uh....who?

ASB: He was the original bass player for Metallica. All of their early songs were structured for him.

DOG: .......picnic.....fries....

HPS: Oh he's the guy who died right? What about Les Claypool? Or Flea?

ASB: (mocks air bass playing) Nah, man those guys are all technique....here's my stop...

DOG: .....I GOTTA GO....

The other part to this entry is as follows. I recently started a job (yay?!). I won't say where, but I meet people from all over the country/world/universe everyday. It's really cool, meeting these people. Every once in awhile though, I meet some real dumbasses. Here's what happened between 2 women and myself.

Me: How long are you guys in town?

Lady 1: Oh just a few days. We thought we'd check out some of the sites in the city.

Me: Oh that's great! You gonna see Alcatraz? It's really cool!

Lady 1: I'd like to. I have to see what she thinks (points to Lady 2).

Lady 2: What's up?

Lady 1: He asked if we were going to go to Alcatraz...

Lady 2: Is that fake? It can't be real?

Me: What?

Lady 1: She is always skeptical...

Lady 2: It can't be real...

In summation; this lady (Lady 2) THINKS that Alcatraz is fake. The island, the prison, the documentation, the history, etc...is all FAKE.

What the hell?

(Signature) Signature

This one is rather short and to the point. This little diddy deals with signature guitars, specifically Les Pauls; so here it is. How can someone have a signature Les Paul? A Les Paul is a signature guitar named for yep you guessed, Sean Connery, I mean Les Paul. I mean, is there going to be a signature (insert famous guitar player's name) Dimebag Darrell guitar? No, because it's stupid. It's one thing to have a signature Stratocaster, that is just an existing NON signature guitar. A Les Paul is a god damn Les Paul.
I mentioned this to a former coworker who was a drummer and his response was: "Well, what about signature Vic Firth drumsticks?" My answer was simple: "It's completely different. Vic Firth is a guy and that's the name of his company, like Fender was Leo Fender's company or Marshall was Jim Marshall's company. Les Paul had a signature guitar through Gibson. It's already a signature guitar to begin with. It doesn't make sense."
There you have it, signature series anything, of an already existing anything doesn't make sense.

Going Deep?

It's not often that I find a book, movie, song, or piece of art that "speaks" to me. I don't know why, maybe I'm just not one of those people. But not too long ago (again, as usual, as of me writing this) I read a book for a class called If on a Winter's Night a Traveller, by Italo Calvino and experienced this. By the way it is a very....um...interesting story.
I think the reason why this happened was because of the fact that he wrote large chunks of it in the second person narrative. The section in question is one where he states "...you don't reread books, you can't. You commit them to memory and they become associated with events in your life..." That is totally me in a nut shell! Of all the books I own I have reread maybe, maybe three of them (Suck It Wonder Woman, 13 Bullets, and The Great Gatsby), yet I can recall most of what happens in the books even if it has been years since I read it; the same goes for music. I can go months sometimes years without playing a song then suddenly decide to play it, and without pulling out the sheet music, I can play it nearly flawlessly within three tries!
Anyways about the other part of that statement, I tend to associate what I read with where I was, who I was with, what was going on in my life at the time. For example (and don't judge me here) Jose Canseco's second book, Vindicated, I got that when I first moved to San Francisco in July 2009. I remember who I got it with (my fiance), where I got it from (Books Inc. in the marina), where I was living at, what I was doing, where I finished it, what I did the day I finished it, etc... It's like this with most books I read.
It's not that I don't want to reread them, I flirt with the idea all the time. It's just that when I want to, they get buried in the depth chart of my reading list. And I'm one of those people who doesn't like to read multiple books at the same time. It's not a focus thing, because I think people who say that are full of shit, it's more a case of me giving the book my full attention.
So I guess the lesson here is to read a book in the second person and see if it "speaks" to you. By the way in case you stumble upon this and do not know the differences of the P.O.V.'s here they are: 1st (me, I) 2nd (you) 3rd (he,she).

...also this switched between 1st and 2nd P.O.V.

Mental Endurance

I usually pride myself in being able to start AND finish something, there are a few exceptions that I can name however. One is a Clint Eastwood biography by Richard Schickel, aptly titled Clint Eastwood: A Biography. I was excited because a) I love Clint Eastwood b) Clint Eastwood is a bad ass & c) I know how to read. Unfortunately, this book was TERRIBLE! I think I got up to when he did that weird movie The Beguiled. Maybe I'll finish it...
ANYWAYS, this is about a work of pure dog shit mixed with some horse shit on the side. It's called The A-Team (the "film"version). Yes I know, I know it came out in 2010 but I just got around to "watching" it. Well, I should say I got around to watching the first 17 minutes before the stupidity got the better of me. Now I have seen reruns of the original series on FX when I was a kid (any guesses when that was?) and I am aware of how cheesy and over the top stupid the show was. Also how they never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever could shoot anyone. But for some reason this was stupider.
I guess I should have figured something was up when Liam Neeson (who I love) was beat the fuck up in the beginning of the movie YET he had barely a scratch on him. Then throw in Bradley Cooper, Rampage Jackson, and Jessica Biel ( yes I know she is supposed to be hot, doesn't matter) and you have a surprisingly have a shitty movie.
I think the turd that broke the camels back for me was when the helicopter they were all in did that flip, had heat seeking rockets shot at it, BA fell out and was saved by Face...IN MID GOD DAMN AIR. Then I don't know what happened. I turned it off. I ended up watching reruns of the criminally underrated and sadly canceled Better Off Ted with my fiance.

Also before I wrote this, I checked this movie's rating on IMDB. 6.9.  A god damn 6.9. Although I will give this film some credit, it was much less stupid than Ninja Assassin.

Advanced Symbolism

I went to go see The Hunger Games movie with my fiance the night that it opened, it was pretty good. Although this short and sweet entry isn't aboot that, rather it's aboot what I overheard on the bus ride back. It was some dumb ass sorority girl who was trying to get all deep and intellectual with her equally dumb sorority friend. Here is verbatim what I heard:

Dumb Sorority Girl #1: You know what I realized about that movie?
Dumb Sorority Girl #2: What's that?
Dumb Sorority Girl #1: That movie has a lot of symbolism in it. A lot of it is about birds, I mean the Mockingjay and Gale...
Dumb Sorority Girl #2: ...you're so right.

Wow. Simply wow. She really set it up like she was going somewhere with that list/point and all she could muster up was 2, yes 2, examples. Go sorority girls, go public schools, go America.

I Ran Out of Toilet Paper

One of my favorite things to do, is listen to or read interviews with musicians or actors regarding either an album or film they made in the past. Like say 10 or so years in the past. With the advent of Youtube, this is SUPER easy...and I guess the rest of the internet as well.
Why do I like this? Because it's super funny and they almost always look like a jackass BECAUSE whatever the title of said album/movie is, they always try to put the theme of the project into some sort of life (style) philosophy. Here's a made up example:

Interviewer: What does your album I Ran Out of Toilet Paper mean to you?
Musician: That's an excellent question. What it means it that we as a society can't stop wasting resources.     It's a lifestyle we live. We can't stop. There is only so much toilet paper left in the world. There is almost no 3 ply left in the world. It's sad. That's what the title track means.
Interviewer: Interesting...

Again, totally made up but not unheard of. Don't believe me? Try finding something online. It's funny, I promise.

Funny Story Time: Part Duex!!!!!

Place: The Silkscreen room at school.
Time: Oh let's say.....about 11:00 on a Saturday.
Event: I'm prepping some screens for class on Tuesday, and there is a school tour that comes through.

Not the "twins" he was asking about.

So I am cleaning and prepping some screens  while listening to Steel Panther and I'm there by myself: it's a god damn blast! I'm back where the big sink is, had the hose going, so I couldn't hear a damn thing; no Steel Panther, nothing. Then out of nowhere I hear someone talking to what seems like a bunch of people. Turns out a tour came through the studio. What song is playing? Super Sonic Sex Machine; which is just one of many hilarious Steel Panther tunes by the way. That must have been an interesting song to hear for the unprepared.
Anyways, so this tour guide asks how it's going and I tell her "super duper". She keeps talking, and I notice someone's dad in the background looking at my iPhone on the docking station, which happened to be playing the album Balls Out with the cover photo you see on the side. He then makes his way up to me and says this:

Guy: What's with the twins?
Me:  I'm sorry what?
Guy: The twins. What's with the Twins?

I'm totally lost. He then reaches up to my head and pulls of my Minnesota Twins cap. He was from Minnesota. He wanted to talk about how shitty the Twins are. Here I thought he was asking me why the woman on the album cover had huge boobs.

Funny Story Time

Setting: San Francisco

Time: Fall 2011

Event: the Vikings just lost ANOTHER god damn game in what was an unbelievably shitty season

I was walking down Van Ness after the Vikings got the shit kicked out of them AGAIN. I was wearing my Minnesota Wild hoodie and my Vikings hat. I come upon this dude who was wearing a Vikings jacket and hat. He look seriously pissed off. As I get close to him I see what he is wearing and he sees what I am wearing. In mid stride as we pass each other, we both stare at each other and begin laughing out loud as we pass each other. God damn Minnesota Vikings.

Books from My Childhood Part II

...and now, for another exciting installment in this thing I wrote a few weeks ago...part II!

Boogity Boo you little bastard!

So in the first installment of Books From My Childhood, I looked at the Boxcar Children and all the messed up things in that train car of crazy. Now, I'll examine one set of books I LOVED as a kid, until they got ridiculously stupid; Goosebumps.

First off, my very first one that I got was Say Cheese and Die, scared the shit out of me. Actually all the early ones did. Maybe R.L. Stein was like a kids version of Stephen King? But those books scared the shit out of me. I mean who would write stuff like that for a kid? Books about cameras that will show your death, parents who turn into crazy plant scientists, dummy's that come to life in the middle of the god damn night, or Halloween masks that become part of your face?! Seriously what the shit? Probably what was more messed up was the fact that I was in a stupid competition with kids in my class to see who could read as many of this child sized versions of It as fast as they could without getting admitting how much of a puss you were. Another messed up one was the classic Attack of the Mutant. That god damn book made me not want to read comics, for fear of becoming made of ink.
 But then all of a sudden something happened with this books, they jumped the shark (that would have been a crazy one!). Every kid in Murrica started to read them, they became super popular to the point where one was coming out like every month! They started making "chose your own adventure" books. But probably the most damning thing was that TV show. It took the scare right out because of the shitty acting and props. I guess they were going for a children's version of Tales From the Crypt (good idea?). I guess as these things became more popular R.L. Stein started to make them less scary to rake in the dough. I mean seriously, how many Night of the Living Dummy's did he write? 15? 59?
Looking back on those books now, it makes you wonder; "why did my parents let me read this shit?".

Book Series from My Childhood Part I

So I've decided that I'm going to analyze (in my highly accredited art student opinion of course) some of the book series that I grew up around. A few I read and some I didn't, but my two sisters did. These are of course meant to be cheeky and sarcastic, so don't get all bent out of shape on this.


The first series that I'm going to talk about is The Boxcar Children. Seriously, a bunch of kids living in a goddamn abandoned train car?!?!?! First off, how they hell are these kids able to just live there? I mean you obviously have to worry about food. Do they eat trash? Are they thieves? Do they do certain things for in exchange for some Taco Bell?
Then there is the whole um...sanitary issue. Kids in general are smelly and sticky, and these little bastards live in an abandoned train car. Where are you gonna take a shower, or bath if you're not a shower man (or woman)? What about washing your clothes? I mean sure in a pinch you can wear the same thing for a few days before it gets gross, stained, and smelly. And probably the big one: where do you take a shit? Not sure I need to elaborate any further on that one....
Next up is their home/office/abandoned train car. I assume that it's in the middle of fucking nowhere since no adults ever notice a handful of unsupervised stinky children eating and shitting by a railroad car. The thing has heavy ass doors. I mean yeah, in the summer you want that breeze to remove the smell of that heroin addict who O.D.ed on the way from Denver to Chicago in 1997 and remove the smell of hobo love; BUT come winter time you're gonna want those doors shut and guess what? Those damn things are HEAVY. People die getting stuck in there and you live in an abandoned one? In the middle of nowhere?
This leads me to my next point. What do they do about medical care? I mean it's a rusty old train car, chances are one of them is going to need a Tetanus shot...unless they like living with lock jaw. I mean is one of those kids Doogie Hower M.D.?
I think though, the strangest thing about this is the fact that these kids solve mysteries. God damn mysteries. How is it that these kids can solve a triple homicide or a break in at a shopping center, but none of these cops or just adults ask these kids: a) what are you doing here? b) where are your parents? c) where do you live? d) why do you look and smell like shit wrapped in lint? or e) how do you little bastards keep getting involved with these things? I'm calling Social Services. But no, no one takes the initiative.
For reals, this shit is kinda messed up and perplexing. Kids living in an old boxcar going around solving crimes and not getting hassled about where they live or not having any sort of adult supervision. That's America for you.

What's That Smell Part Six: Who Shit in the Air Vents?

Well, here goes the first entry of the new year and the sixth incredible chapter of this god damn epic piece known as What's That Smell? So sit back and read the smells!

This seasons journey started at about 4:30 in the god damn morning, as I waited outside for the Super Shuttle to arrive. I got the call and he didn't show for like 10 minutes. When he finally showed up, the whole van was packed and this driver was just chucking suitcases in the back left and right with no regard for anything. Fast forward a few hours or so and I'm on the plane to Minneapolis. And the dude next to me was farting pretty much the whole time. The kinda where you can tell you gotta a turd on deck. Yep bad. To top it off, he was also trying to bogart my space. BASTARD.
I then arrive in Minneapolis, which is one of my favorite airports; although there was one thing that was different this time. The entire place smelled like shit. Not metaphorically. More like someone took a duke in the air vents. It was everywhere. Mmm mmm.
Nothing magical really happened on the way from Minneapolis to Grand Forks, so I'll skip that part. My actual trip was good though and I can't wait to go back in the summer. So lets fast forward 2 weeks to me flying back.
I'm sitting in the new Grand Forks airport, which is much better than the old one for sure, and as I'm waiting for my flight to board the flight in the next terminal is about to board and the announcer guy is being super sarcastic and hilarious. Here is a taste of what he said:

 *"Okay, we're going to board our 1st class and priority customers first, if you are unsure if you fit into that category, chances are you don't."

*"We're going to be boarding in a specific numerical order, so don't bother crowding around, you're not getting on early."

*"...if you look on your ticket and see a Z you can board, and if you're from Canada that's a ZAY..."

Good stuff.

So Grand Forks to Minneapolis wasn't bad, the flight attendant had a bit of a retarded Moon Bloodgood look going on, but that was about it. That and the fact that the ginormous lady next to me kept hitting me with her arm as I read Harry Potter & The Prisoner of Azkaban (yeah I'm like 10 years behind, so what?).
Minneapolis to San Francisco was fairly pedestrian compared to past tales. There was the couple who sat next to me that kept having the urge to feel each other up, which was uh...weird to say the least. This was also the first time that I had been on a flight to where I had people from behind me rush the front of the plane so they could get off first, even though I was in the 4th row...of the second section of coach (which was right by the exit, which was why I was a bit miffed).
The journey from the airport was exciting as well. First the BART doors on the train were locked for about 10 minutes, while people were in the train (LAME!). I finally got to the Powell stop and saw Mandi waiting for me (that was super awesome!). Then as we were walking to the bus stop we passed a "homeless" guy who let me know I was officially back in San Francisco by saying this to me: "Hey man, can you buy me a hooker? It's too hard to masturbate when you can't feel your fingers!"

Well that's this seasons incredible (?) installment of What's That Smell?. While I was home I was brainstorming some ideas about future entries, hopefully they don't suck.

Peace out who ever reads this.