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Tuesday, March 21, 2006
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Saturday, March 18, 2006
I went shopping the other day and happen to run across an interesting label on a product. At least I found it interesting. It was on a bottle of olive oil. Napolean brand. At first I didn't think much of it. But then it started to sink in. Who would choose Napolean as their company's mascot? Probably a French company because I think most people have forgotten just how hated and feared the man was. Two hundred years ago it would have been inconceivable to use Napolean on a product and not expect to be ridden out of town on a rail.
What's next? Put Hitler on your product and expect it to sell like hotcakes?
Why stop there?
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Wednesday, March 15, 2006
WHAT THE?!?
Have you ever read something in a newspaper or periodical or perhaps caught a snippet of the news and in your head thought to yourself "wait a minute, that can't be right". It's not that the writer or news-reader has made a grammatical error or misstated themselves it is that the idea is just wrong. The concept behind the piece is just wrong and in many cases is also just stupid. In these cases I tell myself that they have not made a typographical error, a mistake in punctuation or usage but a thoughtographical error. The idea was just wrong.
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Saturday, March 11, 2006
I MAY NOT AGREE WITH YOUR IDEAS BUT I WILL DEFEND YOUR RIGHT TO THE DEATH TO EXPRESS THEM Except in this case. These people are seriously up for the asshole of the year award. Preaching hate especially couched in the words of the Bible is nothing new. But these people make me want to invent a type of gatling gun that shoots ball point pens, find them, and use it on them.
It is so obvious that these people are acting without shame in an attempt to garner attention for themselves. If you are that resentful of the rest of the world that you have to act up and cause a commotion then just do what the rest of your miscreant ilk do, go on Jerry Springer. Zealot tards!
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Friday, March 10, 2006
So John Villalino and I went out to the Hammer Museum tonight to see the second part of the comic master exhibit. We had previously went to see the other half at MOCA . For dinner we hit the Applepan. It was all counter seating. It looked like an American diner that you might see in a Humphry Bogart movie. A restaurant that has been in business since 1947. Almost sixty years and I don't think that they have changed much about the place in all that time. Except maybe that they have taken down the coat hooks in the corner. John thought he recognized the guy waiting on us from his days of attending UCLA. Soon after some other customers asked him how long he has worked there. His answer? Forty two years. And I got to watch Alan Ruck wolf down a piece of pie.
Then off to the Hammer. It was pretty cool I have to say, to see some Winsor McCay cartoons that are a hundred years old. I also noticed that a few of the spot blacks were a little washy as if the ink wasn't black enough. I know the ink formula has changed in the last century and not for the better. You still have to put several coats down to get it none more black. One of the artists displayed was someone I had never heard of before. Lyonel Feininger . An American born German and was part of the Bauhaus movement. He drew for American newspapers in the Twenties. His style was weird. A lot of it reminded me of undergrounds from the sixties. Since I was not familiar with him or his work if someone told me it was from an underground I would have believed them.
The other highlight for me were the Segar popeyes . Too much fun! Looking at the Schulz original were fun too. Man that guy drew big. I never knew that his originals were so huge. I know that later in life he drew bigger because of failing eyesight but many of these were from the fifties and sixties. Monstrous.
Chester Gould's Dick Tracys in parts reminded me of Golgo13 manga because the backgrounds and props were done in a fairly realistic style but the characters and especially the faces were highly exaggerated.
We wandered around the other parts of the museum checking out some of the other exhibits. There were a few Monets as well as some Van Goghs. I was glad that we did. I got to see a few paintings that I have liked but have only seen reproduced in books before. Such as the awesome Salome Dancing before Herod by Gustave Moreau.
Then we thought we would swing by MOCA on the way back. Finally found parking and walked on in. We almost made it. Apparently the museum was closing a little early tonight. We actually got all the way into the exhibit floor before someone spotted us and told us the bad news. If only we could have rounded a corner before they saw us. We could have been locked in all night. I know that would have made for a much more interesting blog entry. I can just see it now;
MY KIRBY MY ENEMY!: A night with the king.
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Wednesday, March 08, 2006
Deadlines, deadlines, deadlines. That is all I am going to say about my absenteeism here at the blog.
I must be cranky because lately I want to start a debate. Over rap. That's right, rap "music". I deplore modern rap. I was a kid when rap first came on the scene. It was a great deal different than what I hear described as rap nowadays. I found it a novelty and was a bit nonplussed with such a deluge of boastfulness in music but I wasn't annoyed let alone offended.
But now thanks largely to "gangsta" rap I am impatient for its demise. Folk music died. Disco died. Why oh why can't rap?
The debate comes from a short conversation I had with a friend who claims that there is more to contemporary rap than I am giving it credit for. I don't know. If there is I have never heard it. I mean how hard is it to stand in front of a mic and be both vulgar and offensive.
I wish I was as talented as some of these rappers. I wish I was talented enough to be able to afford some sampling software and a drum machine. Oh to be so talented.
And what about keeping it "real"? If I was "from the streets" then rapping about that would be the last thing I would want to do. Walking around reminding everybody that you were from the ghetto and have pulled yourself up by your own bootstraps, but not really, has got to get tired quickly. God forbid you try to be positive. The more you argue for your limitations the more they will own you.
I have two words for the rap music industry: self respect.
Possibly the worst part of the rap industry is the fallout. Kids today want to dress up like out of work rodeo clowns or streetwalkers because that is how everybody in the videos does it.
The other topic I am ready to Indian-leg-wrestle over, I mean debate is home schooling. I teach art to children and it seems like every time I encounter a homeschooled child I am not surprised. They are easy to spot. And it is not like I ask everybody if they are homeschooled or not but it occasionally comes up. But when it does come out I am usually not surprised because the children tend to be dull and lackwitted if not downright vacant. I would ask a question regarding the day's lesson and have the child stare blankly right at me. Not even the looking up and away as if trying to remember or to come up with some sort of answer. Not remembering is fine but staring like a zombie is just weird.
And the kids tend to be very unsocialized. Making lots of noise, singing or random voice clacking or popping while those around them are trying to work. I usually have to remind them that there are others trying to concentrate. And not paying attention to instructions. There have been a good number of times that I have had to almost yell at a student to stop working an assignment so as to move on to the next project. I actually feel bad for these poor kids because they are going to be undereducated as well as socially retarded. I blame the parents. If you want to homeschool your kids fine but I think you actually have to teach them not just read them a book occasionally and take them to the museum once.
My favorite story is the one where we were using fractions in class for some proportions or something. And this one kid had no idea what I was talking about. I asked if he used fractions and he said he was homeschooled and that his mom had lost the lesson books so he gets to watch a lot of discovery channel.
Another good one is the girl who kept trying to convince me that the government actually had cars that hover but wouldn't let people know about them. Because her dad had taught her that. At school. At home.
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