The Second Coming?

So apparently the messiah has already come back to Earth and he has done so in the form of one Nikki Sixx. Yep, that Nikki Sixx. The same guy who wrote songs like 10 Seconds to Love, Hell on High Heels, and lets not forget Girls, Girls, Girls. Really who would have seen this coming? In the 80s' he was busy sucking ass at playing bass but was writing good songs and also the occasional solid album. And he was also doing mountains of heroin. Somewhere along the line, I would have to say maybe...1992ish, he started to have this shift from being you know, a dip shit, into someone who was all of a sudden darker. Then recently he started to shift into becoming this guy who tries too hard to be deep and philosophical in just about every way possible. I think the first real indicator of this would be around the time he wrote The Heroin Diaries (great,great book all around btw; not complaining about that) and that stupid album that went along with it. Now flash forward a few years and he has followed it up with a book that looks very redundant called This Is Gonna Hurt. Why does it seems redundant? Because most everything you need to know about him was covered in either The Dirt, The Heroin Diaries, Behind The Music, or one of the other Motley Crue guys' books.
Reading the press releases for this he seems to be so full of himself these days. Like everything he touches or conceptualizes is a work of pure genius. I would counter that by saying he has people around him who can't give him fair and honest constructive criticism. That or he does and he doesn't care. We get it, you had a really messed up childhood. So did thousands of others, big deal. The funny thing is that in Motley Crue he has only touched upon these "deep" topics in about 2-3 songs tops.
So in closing, I would like to say that while I do like Motley Crue along with The Dirt and The Heroin Diaries, this dude needs to realize that his shit does stink and he is not some creative super genius who is deep and philosophical. He's a guy who is full of himself and trying to be something more than he really is; which is a guy who plays average bass, hasn't really written a kick ass song/album by himself in about 15-20 years, wrote a great/messed up book, and looks like he hasn't aged a day since 1990. And he is NOT the messiah like he perceives himself to be.

Are You Ready To Read? I Said Are You Ready To Read?!

In 2001, an excellent book about excess came out, that book was called The Dirt. To say the least it was crazy. Much like anything that is successful, it spawned other books similar to it. Like when Metallica did S&M and everyone and their mom made a "symphonic rock album", or when Survivor became a hit it spawned "reality TV" (these are GAME SHOWS!, that's a different story), or how Toy Story became popular and other 3-D films were released; okay that's enough examples. ANYWAYS, it lead to more rock stars than you can shake a cocaine covered stick at "writing" their autobiographies. Here is a short list that have been release since The Dirt came out in 2001:

Kiss and Make Up - Gene Simmons
The Heroin Diaries - Nikki Sixx
This Is Gonna Hurt - Nikki Sixx
Tommyland - Tommy Lee
Clapton - Eric Clapton
Slash - Slash
Tattoos & Tequila - Vince Neil
Mustaine - Dave Mustaine
My Appetite For Destruction - Steven Adler
Life - Keith Richards

Obviously this is not all of them, I mean Bobby Blotzer from Ratt wrote one, Steven Adler's mom wrote one (for reals?), Steven Tyler is writing one, Tom Hamilton is writing one, Duff McKagen is writing one, and I've heard that Ace Frehley and Peter Criss are both writing one. The real kicker is that they ALL say that "...this isn't going to be about backstage drama; who did what drugs, who slept with who..." yeah and that sitcom Emeril Lagasse had was great. BAM!
Not that I am one to say that people shouldn't do this but for reals, when multiple people in the same band write an autobiography what is the point? Also this is directed to Motley Crue; yes The Dirt came out ten years ago but do we really need FOUR more books from you guys? Half of it is going to be a recap of the main book while you catch us up on recent things and bitch about your band (that's how all of these go btw).
I know I just complained about these things but I do like to read them. They tell me some combination of these things: 1) save your money 2) do drugs in moderation 3) don't get AIDS 4) casually document your life so you can throw people under the bus later and in a public setting.
I guess what I'm saying with all of this is that I love reading! Unless it's brail, that shit is hard. And also I want to check out DLR's book Crazy From the Heat, I heard is awesome!

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.