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.