Two Thumbs WAAAAAAYYYYYY Down

This is something little and maybe stupid; BUT I think that the "thumbs up" sign needs to go away. Really what does it mean? It could mean: "Yes! Those cobras attacked me but I'm fine!" or it could mean "Yep, I shit my pants and these boxers are going in the trash." But instead what we have are total and complete douche nozzles on sites like facebook giving the thumbs up in dumb ass poses in about 90,000 of there photos to be funny. Guess what? You're not and you are ruining a very useful and easily understood gesture. You know what is funny? Puppies, Alf, Black Gallagher, the entire country of France, and America's Funniest Home Videos (the Bob Saget version naturally). If I were to come across someone giving me the thumbs up, because of facebook I would interpret it as this " Hey! I'm a fucking idiot, look at me trying to be funny!"

Blast From The Past

I was surfing the interweb the other day and ended up on youtube for awhile and instead of watching dogs play with shopping bags or guys getting hit in the garbage, I was watching something that made me hate when I grew up. I was watching a ten part "best of" series of Headbangers Ball (the old one) and it made me feel bad that I missed out on such a great show. No instead I lucked out and got stuck with that show the second time around and boy does that suck ass.
Back in the early 90s' they had great, great ass rock/metal/alternative stuff that they just don't have anymore. Bands like Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, Anthrax, Alice In Chains, Prong, Pantera, Sepultura, Faith No More, Soundgarden, and the list goes on. Plus there were good interviews and segments that made the show entertaining, you got to see and get to know some of these bands; now, I don't want to know these bands. They are all generic knobs who sound the same and look the same, the show is so generic and run of the mill. It's screaming this, downtuned guitars this, and blast beats galore. Plus it's like you can't even acknowledge the fact that you like music from the 80s'-90s'. What the hell is the deal with that? It makes me cringe. I don't want to say that all newer bands suck giant wieners BUT for the most they do and it's not just heavy bands. Throw in the alternative bands, the indy bands, and the metal bands. It really is a sad state of affairs these days. Anyways that's my little rant, fuckin' MTV.

The Brown Sound!

Van Halen. Shit they used to be awesome. I feel unfortunate that I was born too late to experience them in their prime. I mean they had everything. Great songs, great vocals, and obviously great harmonica playing. If you watch some old videos of them playing in the Roth era, man there wasn't thing that they couldn't do. To quote John Mellencamp "...even their bad songs are good..." Hell yeah to that statement.
Of course like any band they went through changes; like from Van Halen to Van Hagar to Van Cherone, finally back to Van Halen...minus a key member who really wasn't all that key I guess. We've seen DLR go from the definition of a rock star to a bald guy. And we've seen Eddie turn into a fricken weirdo. He gets cancer, blames it on his metal guitar picks, does music for a porno, then gets a haircut and gets sober. All in like the span of a weekend.
It's great that DLR is back, but it seems like it's too late. Plus since the man with two first names isn't there to play bass and lend his awesome backing vocals; it just feels.....weird. Anyways this was all brought upon because a) Van Halen is bad ass b) I love Van Halen, and c) I was watching some bad ass Eddie Van Halen guitar videos. I mean he was playing "Eruption" and in the middle he starts to improvise and  he starts playing what turned out to ultimately be "Mean Streets". Damn that sucks when one person is that good.

Movie's For D-Bags

Generally speaking, I do not like most things relating to the arts the first time I experience it. Not sure why, I just do. Then I warm up to it and have an intense infatuation with said piece for anywhere from a few weeks to a few months, then it cools down and I still appreciate it with spurts of me rediscovering why I fell in love with it. The only thing that I really loved the first time I experienced it was Death Magnetic by Metallica. With all of that said, there is one movie that holds a special place in my heart, not because I grew to love it, but rather because I dislike it a little more each time I see it. That movie would be The Boondock Saints.
The first time I saw it was in 2003 and by that time the movie had been out for several years with almost no one knowing of it. My older sister described it and I thought it sounded good. Gave it a shot and thoroughly enjoyed it, and it stayed that way for a few years. Then something happened; this movie that no one had heard of became popular. That is not the movie's fault, but rather it's the people who like it. D-bags. Total complete d-bags. People who have big stupid posters of the movie, tons of shirts, and lame tattoos. And they act like it is the most incredible and deep movie of all time. As a result I can barely stand to see this movie anymore because of these people. It was never a "great" movie, I mean I read a review of it on IMBD or Rotten Tomatoes or something and it was summed up as "...either you love this move or you hate it..." That is totally true. Now I find myself loathing this movie and the people who enjoy it. I never saw the second one but my fiance's sister saw it and she said it was awful. Maybe it will attain legendary stature by these same turds in time. Until then I will continue to like this movie less and less instead of liking it more and more like I do with everything else.

Kid Show Business Is Back!

So the new semester is underway and even though it is roughly 4 or 5 weeks in, god damn it I'm loving it. Again it's only like a month into my new major, but I really feel like I made the right choice. I'm free from having to sit behind my computer all damn day hoping that I stumble upon something great. Now I am back making art that I really like to and that I also think is good, boarding on immaculate (please note that I am not that full of myself). I missed getting my hands dirty doing things like drawing and print making. Even though I have left the realm of graphic design, I still have been able to incorporate some things from that into what I'm doing now, and also to sprinkle some wisdom on my fellow printmakers. It's also rather banging that I have my own studio space. I guess it gives one motivation to do work or at least more of it. Plus the people I have met are really nice and helpful. The same thing(s) could not be said about everyone in my former almost kinda future occupation. The best thing to come out of this though is that I am no longer a negative bastard like I was for all of those months. Instead I welcome the challenge of coming up with something new and also being able to actually draw, print, or just make something using my mind and hands. Something that I had not been able to do for over a year.

NFL, seriously...

God damn Super Bowl. What the hell? I mean I know just about one year ago I wrote this same thing. Almost every commercial sucked ass, and the half time show. My god, the half time show. Seriously, American football is like the most macho, ass kicking sport this side of the WNBA so why don't they get some GOOD bands. Seriously, what makes them think that the Black Eyed Peas were a good choice? They come out dressed like they are from the future, they barely move around the stage, they have weird people with glow stick outfits, invite Slash out to play about 10 seconds of "Sweet Child O'Mine" then kick him off the stage, and sing like shit. C'mon NFL. Get your shit together and get some cool bands. The Who were a good start last year, but this whole Super Bowl was almost a dud. I think this is the first time that I haven't watched the game exclusively; I did homework and took a crap.
Well, since this game marks the end of the football season, there is a dark void that can't be filled until baseball season starts. I mean hockey does what it can, but nothing can replace football. And with the uncertainty regarding the CBA, this could be it for awhile. NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

Has Somebody Been Kidnapped?!

A few days ago I was watching the newest Louie C.K. special on Comedy Central. It was okay; not nearly as good as some of his previous ones, but he did briefly touch upon something that was interesting to think about. The point was about how impatient people are with cell phones and how you can communicate with people hundreds or thousands of miles away almost instantly. It's not just with phones either; think about how many different ways you can talk to someone one who may live in a different state than you in the blink of an eye. You have cell phones, landlines, text, instant messaging, Skype, etc... That's pretty good damn incredible, especially if you stop to think how far and how fast we have come with communicating over distances.

A few hundred years ago if say the King of England wanted to communicate with the governor of New York; it would take weeks to get the message to him and weeks to hear back. Around the same time you also had things like horse back, which was kind of faster. Then Morse Code, telegraph wire, the first phones, and I'm sure there are more I can't think of. The incredible thing is that even as technology has advanced it hasn't advanced as evenly. I just finished reading this awesome book about the Cuban Missile Crisis called One Minute to Midnight, and in it the author talks about how slow communications were between Washington D.C. and our own Navy. They were able to communicate faster with Moscow than they were with our own ships. What's the deal with that? (My inner Jerry Seinfeld)

Once you start going down the line from the 1960s', things start to increase at an incredible rate. More and more satellites were launched and technology leapt at increasing rates. Next thing you know the affordable portable phone is developed, the Internet gets going and changes how we communicate. Gone are the days of handwritten letters, no matter how cool or touching they are. Your first thought is something along the lines of what Jim Gaffigan said: "What the hell? Has somebody been kidnapped?!"

Now we can talk to anyone anywhere at anytime in virtually anyway. You want to instantly message them? Done. You want to talk to them? Done. You want to see them while you talk to them? Friggin done.  Plus it's not like this is going to stop. Smart phones are taking for example the very computer I am typing this on (Mac Book Pro for those wondering) and shrinking it down to a hand held device. Who knows where it will go next. Also it is cool because around the time that I was writing this my fiance was visiting South Korea and I was able to talk to her. How cool is that? Seriously. She was on another continent separated by the biggest ocean on Earth and I could talk to her.

I guess I just thought if you stopped and really thought about it for like a minute, this is sort of cool. Something that took weeks to months or even years, is done before you can blink. Plus it would be really funny to see some of those people who probably die if they didn't have a god damn cell phone and had to wait on some dude showing up on a horse.