30.11.08

Thanksgiving Recap. lite.


Best ALBUMS (not songs from them) listened to on a lonely 4 hour ride:




Best Black Friday Purchases':

My 30 dollar 'get everything out of the store cause we've been bankrupt' bedseets

And the two disk version on Disneys Peter Pan on DVD







Its late, I'm tired, and so this  beautiful photo of Miles Davis is freakin' my trip.
And if there is an opposing emotion to the way that Miles Davis is making me feel, it is being induced through this photo.
Ew. Fucking Cute.

26.11.08

THANKSGIVING: Doomsday for Turkeys on Farms and Families in Midtown.


Happy Thanksgiving. An american holiday built upon slaughter and backstabbing. 
I could care less about the pilgrims and indians. 
I could live without the cranberry sauce and stuffing  (from what i hear, the caned and boxed type is some of the bast anyways)
All I've ever cared about is 
  • how to perfectly peal a potato in the least amount of shavings possible 
  • and waking up at some god awful time to hear the chaos of Macy's thanksgiving day parade in the background as i nod in and out of sleep under the covers. 

Unfortunately: I will be navigating my way through the mess of children, tourism, and massive balloons in order to get out of the city at 8am this year.
Fortunately: I will also be able to spend 4 hours on a bus, without having to speak. I don't remember that last time I was able to do that. 
Thanks to not giving, I suppose. 

I will be departing from my small dysfunctional European family in order to make it to a larger dysfunctional European family, before dinner.
I've downloaded three Louis C.K. podcasts, photos to shop, and all of my Wire albums, for the bus ride.



The best part of Thanksgiving: a background story.


25.11.08

A Starving Non Artist

Goddammit. I came online to google how long one should steam fresh brussels sprouts for, and got side tracked by more entertaining less important things.  

This velcro lamp shade created by Luis Eslava


These crazy little sculptures by Tessa Farmer


The End. A set of the last moment of a movies and shows. It does have a way of making you want to go backwards in every film, to see how it was finalized at that moment, eh?
 

24.11.08

Unexpected Home for the Gypsy.


This was a photo taken of the current room I'm working on, when it was still a living room that i had just cleaned and moved the furniture around in. Nothing was mine. The pea soup green walls, the Grimace purple wall in the back room) and all of the furniture were a decision made before I was around. 


After I moved the living room into a different part of the house, I was left with this big empty room and no idea how to utilize it. I'm still not sure what I'm expecting from it, but it is the first room you see when you walk in which was an embarrassment. And the green walls and piles of toys and sewing objects began to drive me nuts.
So this is the result of my Saturday. (I painted and lit the red room, back in July)



I've been going though another wave of domesticity. I constantly find a ned to make my home more homier. Its something I've craved my entire life. 
  • Between living at home where I was strictly forbidden to paint the walls of our apartment rental or to get furniture that my mom didn't approve of.
  • Being on tour where I spent months finding things that I loved and hated about the more chic hotels, and how i would someday apply it to my home when I decided I would no longer consider myself a vagabond.
  • Watching tacky domestic shows on TLC about turning one version of an ugly home into a more organized version of an equally hideous home just for the hope of once in a while getting an idea on how to hack a skateboard into a shelf or something that would stimulate my creative mind.
I've been spending the past 2 years slowly turning a dude palace of beer cans, cat urine, and cigarette butts into my dream home filled with lots of light colors, well coordinated book placement, and no cats.
The process seems like it will never be done, but everytime i make a tiny step closer to my end result, i feel better than i could ever imagine. 
I get high off it.  Redoing a room, getting every knick-knack off of the floor, replacing an overhead light with something softer, then walking into that room and realizing the drastic change makes me feel better than any drug. Unfortunately, it is usually followed by the come down. I think of how the whole house NEEDS to flow, but all i can do is stare at the imperfections, immobile and unmotivated to move forward. 
This is usually about the time that i look at interior design blogs and wish that i was living in those rooms, before figuring out how to apply it to my house. these are some rooms I love this week:














I'm Feeling Gloomy

photo by Tom Sandberg

Photo by Sally Mann

photo by Przypa



Photo by Abeless

23.11.08

Acid Tigers Cigar Diet Review.


For a band that may have started as a fun way for friends to be able to share a common dedication, it has done so since the very first riff I heard, and when I first heard it put along side drums, my mind was blown. 


I felt like I was re listening to classic music that i used to love before it was ruined by musicians finding a single catchy beat or melody and milking it for an entire 4 minute song. Or by music that had an almost pretentious amount of mathematical involvement, making it intricate to enjoy the talent that goes into making  it without causing a headache 5 songs/ 3.5 minutes into the album.
But even now, I don't know how to say what Acid Tiger reminds me of. What is it that I am re listening to for the first time?


Is it coming from my love for Black Sabbath and the stoner metal that followed in its footsteps, like Sleep?  
My dedication to listening to shitty punk music like S.O.D. and Bad Brains because i can hear the hyper emotion and synchronicity within the anger, chaos, and bad drumming?
Or from my time of listening to real deep soul music from the south, like Robert Johnson or Skip James, and really understanding how rich the simplicity in it is?
All of these comparisons makes Acid Tiger sound like a dirty angry spastic slow metal band with roots that stem back to the devil worshiping south. 
Which is true, to an extent.
And in a positive light. 


That real twist in this bands music that makes them more creative and original than that, may have to do with their most mutual inspiration, a little bit.
All four members have declared without any knowledge of each others answer, that Led Zeppelin was their all time favorite band, if it came down to it. The parts I find similar in both Zeppelin and Acid Tiger, if their ability to make every song into an epic adventure. 
Being able to do what bands will almost never challenge themselves to do, and those who have typically failing or keeping it to subtle to let the listener be effected by the transition or unusual sound.

Acid Tiger stands out from the crowd of American bands that you want to raise your fist to, because of their ability to start out a song unlike any other song they have, and mid way through they completely switch it up into a different type of song while keeping the roots grounded. Something I haven't heard done so well since the Refused came out with The Shape of Punk to Come.


Acid Tigers natural chemistry has made this constant drastic change within a single song, seem to flow so naturally within a sea of abruption that has made me drool and laugh unconsciously because it summons an emotion that i wasn't aware i had in me. Much like Zeppelin. This is a quality they have had since they came together, playing their music as raw as a band starting out should. 
But now the full length has been made. Extra little things have been added to take the music from a live band with a brutal set, into an extraordinary mastery of musicianship and creativity though buffering the fine details and adding elements that make getting a blow job into getting a blow job while having your balls fondled lightly


I took the photos below of Acid Tiger during their first show It was New Years 2008. Not even a year has passed, but a lot has happened for all of the people involved. I'm so happy for them to have made it so far with so much dedication, since these photos at some shitty bar in Brooklyn.




This Is England



I was recommended a Shane Meadows movie that ended up being a visual pleasure, and a roller coaster of heavy emotion. 
This is England, is a movie made with every aspect of it being brilliantly thought out. It was well paced, visually mind blowing, with close attention paid to the inflections and style of each character. 



It dealt with the culture of Skinheads ad the violent turn they took as a community, in the early 80's. It showed the divide from the origin of how skinheads came to be. 
From a non violent crew of people who were able to understand each others differences while not feeling the need to accept them, to the more aggressive side of the culture and how it came to be that way due to emphasis on the change of the land through (what some found to be) the Falklands War which was thought to be an unmeaningful war to many skins, alongside racism towards whoever could have their finger pointed at for being part of the issue. The National  Fronts effort to keep out immigration and the keep England English, played a large role in this film, as well.


The main character was a kid who was introduced the skins after being picked on in school and loosing his father to the war. All actors in the film did a phenomenal job, but this boy stood out particularly. His real name is Thomas Turgoose. Previous to this movie, he never acted and while on set, was showed manners and how to be more respectful and responsible by the people working along side him....on set. 
This was all part of an interesting article that i just read about him.
 


Signing off with a photo by Iain Mckell, that is not related to the movie

About Me

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Likes to hate things like: The color pink, My Little Pony, ambient music, Coca-Cola products, high waisted everything, cats...all of them, bananas, most female singers, Adult Swim humor, chopping onions, bad parking jobs, sentences that start with 'i had this crazy dream', shimmery makeup, unmade beds, cursive fonts, bleached hair on the crown of black hair, Palin, those strappy jesus shoes, Mac 'genius' bar, responding to my cell phone

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