a neat archive of strange old black and white pictures. not all are NSFW like below, I just can't pass up a pic of women and robots.
lots more goodies at http://blackandwtf.tumblr.com
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Monday, November 16, 2009
We got some work to do now - NOW FOR SALE!
Finally, after weeks of wondering and waiting and lying and keeping my mouth shut and ignoring offers from other printers and telling other interested parties to wait and cross their fingers, I can finally say that it's now for sale!
and it's quite a nice big print! i can't wait to see how the tiny details held up.
and it's quite a nice big print! i can't wait to see how the tiny details held up.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
the shape of things to come
There was a time when my diet consisted of ramen noodles and zone bars and I could fit in an american men's medium tee shirt, but no more. Now I have to buy everything large which (no offense to the naturally largies out there) breaks my heart. Because most american larges are fucking HUGE. with sleeves I can put my thigh in, neckholes I can get through with a scooter helmet on, and otherwise hang like a poncho and make me look fatter than my 'merely out of shape' figure actually is.
There needs to be something in between for tall guys with broad shoulders and chests, long torsos. A little pudge but not so much that we have to cover it in a tent. So I propose at least three (if not 5) in-between sizes for men's universal tee sizes.
Tim Gunn: make it work.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Here's a depressing thought...
I don't want my blog to derail into negative observations, but I have another one anyway. Then I promise I will stop being 'Mr. Complainy Pants' and get back to art and art culture blogging...
So anyway- have you ever been to a Goodwill outlet Store? It's not your typical thrift store, or even your standard Goodwill store. It's something even far more depressing than an eviction yardsale or being so poor that you sell your plasma to be able to afford a meal that will essentially only replace the plasma you just sold.
A Goodwill Outlet Store is essentially a big hangar or warehouse-like room, full of bins of junk that maybe they didn't want to process or didn't think was fit for sale in the regular store.... It has really high ceilings,(though the junk bins are never more than 3 feet off the ground so I don't know why the ceilings have to be 50ft tall, but...) with typical depressing gym lighting. There are no prices. Nope. You PAY BUY THE POUND- of whatever it is you find. Clothes by the pound seems like a good deal but maybe books and housewares by the pound could get steep. Anyway, this is what they look like:
My first thought was- holy shit! I bet if I had all day I could really find some treasures here!
My very next thought the very next second was -Holy shit! this is kind of sad.
Not sad because the people shopping there were really poor or providing for their families- most were not. Most were other eBayers or Junk Sellers or Packrats. I was looking for metal parts for my steampunk guns and robots, so I was already in a foul mood when I saw an older woman with a cart full of pretty much every piece of brass in the place. My competition meter was on high. I fear facing snooty old swap meet women should they survive the apocalypse and frequent Barter Town. They are ruthless!
...but competition aside, a weird sadness came over me that I couldn't pinpoint until I was on my way out the door, as we left in our uncomfortable hurry.
I had walked past bins of unwashed clothes that still smelled like people. Random clothes. No women's or men's sections that I could discern. Bins and bins of shoes. Bins of old belongings that were uncategorized other than, essentially, 'book' or 'not book'.
I love junk stores. And antique stores give me more warm nostalgia than 'creepy-old-shit' vibes. I even dumpster dive on occasion, so I really didn't have a problem with the fact that this room was full of old crap....
It was what the environment and experience reminded me of.
It literally reminded me of the piles of property at the train stations after Nazis took the luggage from the Jews they were sending to the camps. Loosely sorted. clothes, shoes, books, silverware...Of course nothing will hopefully ever duplicate that horror, and holocaust comparisons are often extreme, but that was the feeling that came over me. Dead people's stuff. Getting rooted through by looters and scavengers.
And I'm sure it wasn't all completely spring cleaning donations, certainly some actually WAS the property of dead people. I know when my own mother died, it was emotionally easier to just get rid of a lot of her stuff right away. You can't trash it, so you donate it and hope it can still be used by someone. So to see these heaps of belongings being bought and sold by the pound was a little depressing and not how I would have intended for my donations to end up...and it could effect where I donate to from now on. Not because goodwill are Nazis or dead people's things are creepy, but because the whole operation treated it all like utter shit (and most of it was) but they had no problem selling the shit to you by the pound in this strange, clinical, unfriendly environment. Ironically, I suggest you visit one if you can. It will make you hug and cling to all other ways of thrifting!
So anyway- have you ever been to a Goodwill outlet Store? It's not your typical thrift store, or even your standard Goodwill store. It's something even far more depressing than an eviction yardsale or being so poor that you sell your plasma to be able to afford a meal that will essentially only replace the plasma you just sold.
A Goodwill Outlet Store is essentially a big hangar or warehouse-like room, full of bins of junk that maybe they didn't want to process or didn't think was fit for sale in the regular store.... It has really high ceilings,(though the junk bins are never more than 3 feet off the ground so I don't know why the ceilings have to be 50ft tall, but...) with typical depressing gym lighting. There are no prices. Nope. You PAY BUY THE POUND- of whatever it is you find. Clothes by the pound seems like a good deal but maybe books and housewares by the pound could get steep. Anyway, this is what they look like:
My first thought was- holy shit! I bet if I had all day I could really find some treasures here!
My very next thought the very next second was -Holy shit! this is kind of sad.
Not sad because the people shopping there were really poor or providing for their families- most were not. Most were other eBayers or Junk Sellers or Packrats. I was looking for metal parts for my steampunk guns and robots, so I was already in a foul mood when I saw an older woman with a cart full of pretty much every piece of brass in the place. My competition meter was on high. I fear facing snooty old swap meet women should they survive the apocalypse and frequent Barter Town. They are ruthless!
...but competition aside, a weird sadness came over me that I couldn't pinpoint until I was on my way out the door, as we left in our uncomfortable hurry.
I had walked past bins of unwashed clothes that still smelled like people. Random clothes. No women's or men's sections that I could discern. Bins and bins of shoes. Bins of old belongings that were uncategorized other than, essentially, 'book' or 'not book'.
I love junk stores. And antique stores give me more warm nostalgia than 'creepy-old-shit' vibes. I even dumpster dive on occasion, so I really didn't have a problem with the fact that this room was full of old crap....
It was what the environment and experience reminded me of.
It literally reminded me of the piles of property at the train stations after Nazis took the luggage from the Jews they were sending to the camps. Loosely sorted. clothes, shoes, books, silverware...Of course nothing will hopefully ever duplicate that horror, and holocaust comparisons are often extreme, but that was the feeling that came over me. Dead people's stuff. Getting rooted through by looters and scavengers.
And I'm sure it wasn't all completely spring cleaning donations, certainly some actually WAS the property of dead people. I know when my own mother died, it was emotionally easier to just get rid of a lot of her stuff right away. You can't trash it, so you donate it and hope it can still be used by someone. So to see these heaps of belongings being bought and sold by the pound was a little depressing and not how I would have intended for my donations to end up...and it could effect where I donate to from now on. Not because goodwill are Nazis or dead people's things are creepy, but because the whole operation treated it all like utter shit (and most of it was) but they had no problem selling the shit to you by the pound in this strange, clinical, unfriendly environment. Ironically, I suggest you visit one if you can. It will make you hug and cling to all other ways of thrifting!
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Kids are filthy: My trip to a LEGO store
I'm beginning to feel better after a nearly three day long illness of some sort knocked me (and shortly after, my girlfriend) on my ass... as far as I know, it wasn't the swine flu. There were no stomach or intestinal issues, the only nausea being related to the bad equilibrium from sinus problems. Looking back, there is only one thing we both did this weekend that fits the time table of infection: we went to a LEGO store in a North Carolina mall.
well, what does that have to do with getting sick?- you might ask.
The answer is simple: Kids are filthy little screaming petri dishes of germ breeding sugars. Throw in some staph from bad hygiene and viola!
On that innocent night, where I finally got to go to a lego store for the first time in my life, we actually chuckled at the bottles of hand sanitizer on some of the counters inside...mocked the job of spraying down one of the activity rooms with disinfectant and bleach solution- as we saw one employee do.
But it becomes hard to laugh when your throat can barely swallow, and your body is shivering and sweating simultaneously.
For the rest of this rant however, let's just accept the fact that your average lego store is probably equal to a major hospital for the amount of germs spread on the products and then mutated from the over-use of sanitizers. For the rest of the blog I just want to express how disappointing the lego store is, for any of you considering a trip out of your way.
First up, I want to say- god bless my girlfriend for taking me to the mall outside of Charlotte N.C. on saturday night. The place was insane. The economy did not seem to be affecting the people already shopping for christmas there. All she wanted to do was make one of my childish dreams come true: to buy loose lego by the pound. For all that I am very grateful, which is also why I am so disappointed with Lego now.
check this out- it looks awesome, right? rows and rows of every lego of every color...
not so fast! look closer. the top three rows are unavailable- that is, they are just repeats of parts below, and are not open to scoop from- in other words, fake and visually deceiving- making the wall appear grander than it is.
secondly, the parts made available are some of the lamest, most common parts to any set.. tires, thin flats, etc- and others that simply just don't deem being so available: little white blocks with an eye painted on them? Dogs? (yes, I bought two dogs, but I digress). No hard to find or multi-useful shapes.
At the 'build your own minifig' table, one finds literally three torsos, three types of legs and maybe 5 different heads and occupational hats or hair. Which I guess is fine if you are a child with no imagination and content with settling for a race car driver, mechanic or fireman. I was hoping to come away with little self-figs of Me and my girlfriend.
Guess I will have to keep shopping the most fully stocked, germ free and best priced Lego store of them all: eBay.
Monday, November 2, 2009
I'm jealous I didn't think of it first!
a new shirt at threadless does something very well that i had been struggling to conceptualize for a while now: making the 80's space invader mythology into something realistically plausible.
you see, the 'pixel invaders' aren't critters at all, but the shapes of alien fighter ships- as shown by their clever shadows here:
i've had several space invader and 80's arcade space shooter projects brewing slowly for months now, and every time someone beats me to the punch with extreme cleverness.
so yeah, i'm jealous- and the design is so simple and wearable i may have to buy it!
you see, the 'pixel invaders' aren't critters at all, but the shapes of alien fighter ships- as shown by their clever shadows here:
i've had several space invader and 80's arcade space shooter projects brewing slowly for months now, and every time someone beats me to the punch with extreme cleverness.
so yeah, i'm jealous- and the design is so simple and wearable i may have to buy it!
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Thanks!
alright, the counts and views and links and buzz on 'we've got some work to do now' is still climbing...it's crazy, and I appreciate all of it!
here's a run down of some of the most notable links
http://io9.com/5391510/what-if-zombies-ate-most-of-the-mystery-team
http://boingboing.net/2009/10/26/zombiescooby-doo-mas.html
http://warmingglow.uproxx.com/2009/10/scooby-doo-zombies-badass
and beyond the other blogs and tweets about it, I have the pleasure of Simon Pegg Re-tweeting one of the links on his twitter....which was enough recognition to get me to break my sacred vow to never get involved in twitter. I will try to not abuse it. Feel free to follow me and i will do the same.
there is even rumors threadless.com may be thinking about doing something about all the buzz. hmmmmm.
anyway, this has been really cool.... I've already made several strong contacts in the art and print world from the publicity, with an interest in the rest of my art in general,and am still getting some small gigs from it....so I sincerely thank everyone who has pushed this design as much as you have.
here's a run down of some of the most notable links
http://io9.com/5391510/what-if-zombies-ate-most-of-the-mystery-team
http://boingboing.net/2009/10/26/zombiescooby-doo-mas.html
http://warmingglow.uproxx.com/2009/10/scooby-doo-zombies-badass
and beyond the other blogs and tweets about it, I have the pleasure of Simon Pegg Re-tweeting one of the links on his twitter....which was enough recognition to get me to break my sacred vow to never get involved in twitter. I will try to not abuse it. Feel free to follow me and i will do the same.
there is even rumors threadless.com may be thinking about doing something about all the buzz. hmmmmm.
anyway, this has been really cool.... I've already made several strong contacts in the art and print world from the publicity, with an interest in the rest of my art in general,and am still getting some small gigs from it....so I sincerely thank everyone who has pushed this design as much as you have.
CHEAP HALLOWEEN COSTUME #257
...dusting off this old chestnut I drew back when Billy Mays was still kicking and selling us Mighty Putty. I do miss the big lug, and the show Pitchmen which was actually decent, as far as that behind the scene reality crap goes.
Well, if you are in a pinch this Halloween why not be the guy that does the topically-in-bad-taste-but-a-little-late-to-the-joke costume of a dead celeb from the past year? Heath Ledger jokers excluded, of course.
Go grab a blue button up from the thrift store, some tan slacks, brush your teeth until they are as white and radiant as this screen, practice your 'thumbs up' as well as your outside voice. Keep announcing your name, and that you are 'here'. Bring a silly product from home. Anything will do as long as you give it a powerful name. A simple clotheshanger can easily become a 'WARDROBE WIZARD!'
Then cut yourself one of these out of cardboard and break out the blackest black paint that you can black..I mean, paint.
If ambient light in the room is actually drawn into the gravitational pull of the blackness, even better.
Well, if you are in a pinch this Halloween why not be the guy that does the topically-in-bad-taste-but-a-little-late-to-the-joke costume of a dead celeb from the past year? Heath Ledger jokers excluded, of course.
Go grab a blue button up from the thrift store, some tan slacks, brush your teeth until they are as white and radiant as this screen, practice your 'thumbs up' as well as your outside voice. Keep announcing your name, and that you are 'here'. Bring a silly product from home. Anything will do as long as you give it a powerful name. A simple clotheshanger can easily become a 'WARDROBE WIZARD!'
Then cut yourself one of these out of cardboard and break out the blackest black paint that you can black..I mean, paint.
If ambient light in the room is actually drawn into the gravitational pull of the blackness, even better.
ever start a blog and not know it?
yeah apparently i started one some time ago. did one post. have no memory of it whatsoever, which is fine, because it is extremely unmemorable.
behold: ART AND RANTS
behold: ART AND RANTS
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