PLACES AND THINGS....I LIKE THIS POST

PLACES

Just another city....I think not....

I'm sure his mother is proud....

The buildings (including balconies) are overflowing...

The only electricity in this North Korean city is used to illuminate the picture of the Great Leader....

So, with so much power, how do we Americans live?

Dear Readers,

The landscape we are building is the most depressing of all landscapes. No aesthetics. No grace. Mere commerce.....GIVE ME YOUR FUCKING MONEY AS QUICKLY AS ERGONOMICS WILL ALLOW!!!

But it doesn't have to be that way.

I opted out.

This is my neighborhood. The two story restaurant on the far right sports three of my murals as fake windows.

These are my daily environs....

This is one of my wife's stores. I painted the sign on the awning, which is in reference to the Sex Pistols....very clever that.....

 Once it was written up in the newspaper as Nancy Pis.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!

I just got back from the fair. There was a "Guess Your Weight-Related Illness" booth.

Now, let's get all educational and shit.

This is an award winner in an international photo competition.

Look at it for a couple of minutes....there will be questions later.....

We all recognize grieving when we see it....the despair, the utter pathos....we all get that.

But why did it win the contest? There are lots and lots of sad images.

Now let's look at the reasons that photo is Art with a capital A.

Sympathetic angles are made to ease the efforts at analyzing an image. The photographer may have taken 80 clicks of the same event in 10 seconds, but he chose this one to submit. Why?

Let's look at the sympathetic angles....

Then there is the repetition of shapes....

But unknown to art illiterate people, it follows the most powerful pyramid format ever invented....

You tried to find the sympathetic angles in those pictures, didn't you? I'll make it easy...check the one on the lower left, it's a gimme.

So this photo has repetition, mild pathos, etc, but I would give it art with a lower case "a".

This, on first impression, is impressive until it occurs to you that it was just pure dumb luck and timing. And there's no pathos...

Now let's look at the exact same subject and add just a dash of pathos....

Same here....entertaining, but no where near Art....

Many people try to get around the "Art" in photography with very expensive lenses to get dramatic effect. Trust me, it won't work.  The first thing you have to learn is what satisfies the eye. That is good design. Without knowing the elements of design......you are just pointing a fucking machine that remembers stuff.

Now we get to image manipulation.

Here is a very famous photo of a bomber going down in WWII.........maybe.

And before you tell me that back then they didn't have Photoshop, take a look at these....

This is a dramatic portrait of Mussolini.......on a horse being held by a little girl....who was erased...

The original on the right shows that the second man to raise the flag wore a watch. For whatever reason, that was found offensive and edited out of the published image.

This change was made for aesthetic reasons. I guess someone thought the fence post made her looked like a unicorn....

I am very skeptical about anything I find on line (of course), but if I post something doctored, like I think this is, and you find the truth, please let me know....

If I went back to college, this time I would major in recreational drug use.......Four point fucking 0....

 So, everybody knows what this is......right?

 It's got something to do with this.........right?

Well, no. The first image is merely cauliflowers placed on a black piece of paper.

The human mind is extraordinary.

Check this out.

 There is no dark yellow in that image. Your brain did that.

The same way it found those sympathetic angles in that award winning photograph, but you didn't even know it.

Want more evidence? Let this freak you out....

 And we all know what that represents.

SIDE NOTE: In the middle of a slide show in art history class we were shown something akin to this and the professor asked, "What are you looking at?"

Most yelled, "Mona Lisa."

The professor said, "Anybody else?"

Other suggestions were about dots that made us think of a great work of art; a piece of art hanging in a gallery; a art history lesson; etc.....but no "right" answer.

I'm going to give you a moment to think this over.

I play games like that for a living (poker) and finally I was the only one left.

I said, "You asked what I was looking at. I am looking at the reflection of light bouncing off a screen after passing through a colored piece of film."

Yeah, that's one of the reasons they shoved me up stairs with the graduate students.

Patience is not the ability to wait.
It's the ability to keep a good attitude while waiting.

This is interesting to look at and to contemplate the effort required...

But nowadays you can't throw a dead cat without hitting someone making art out of stuff that has never been used to make art before. Is that what art is about? Just thinking of another tool? 

When someone says "Expect the unexpected", I slap them in the face and say "You didn't expect that did you."

Take a look at this guy....

I find it hilarious that this smug motherfucker would change his tie to ANYTHING to remain in fashion within a week of the secret code being sent out to haberdashers by voices far, far away....

You think he wouldn't wear one of these if it were fashionable? You are wrong. He would.

Be a Minimalist.
It's the least you can do.

More fun with electricity...

Giving someone else equal rights does not infringe or take away rights from you.
It just makes it illegal to enforce your prejudice and hate.
It's that simple.

Paranoia: I was walking home today and a guy hammering on a roof called me a paranoid old fart.....in morse code.

When reading the instructions (especially the left/right part) is extremely important...

Cat hell is full.

When more shit goes wrong...

Tonight my wife and I had BBQ ribs. What with me sporting a huge white mustache and beard, when we finished she told me I looked like an albino roadkill.

Life Magazine once did a spread on the introduction of Coca Cola in France. These are my two favorite photos...

My kind of guy.


Let's talk about water and Coca Cola, shall we...

The Coke photo reminded me of this WWII poster...

 Anything, and I mean ANYTHING, that could hurt war readiness was an enemy. 

If god exists, I hope he has a good excuse.

PRODUCTS OF QUESTIONABLE VALUE

 Yeah, my mom would have loved cleaning slimy potato shit off her floors.

The UN wants to circumcise 20 million African men by 2015. Some say this is making a mountain out of a mohel.

Pleeeeeeeez......IT'S A FUCKING DOG!

Remember girls, when Prince Charming didn't come to her, Cinderella went to the castle to get him.

For the family who doesn't know a rat's ass about the dwindling fresh water supplies.....

TRUE: All windmills in Ireland turn in a clockwise direction, while the rest of the windmills in the world turn counter-clockwise.

NOW SOME PRETTY GOOD IDEAS

I think my dog has finally figured out that I really don't want the fucking ball.

I hope like shit this is not photoshopped but painted.....

(but deep down I know it is)


TRUE: Shockinglly, that towering icon of civic virtue, competence, and incorruptibility, former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin is under investigation by the FBI.

(an old poem)
I never saw a purple cow
I never hope to see one
But I can tell you anyhow
I'd rather see than be one.


(new version)
I never saw a vitamin
I never hope to be one
But I can tell you anyhow
I'd rather C than B1

Speaking of drinking....

If this doesn't make your mouth water, it should....

I thought it was about Bruce Springsteen solving mysteries, but "Undercover Boss" ain't even close.

Why? Let me guess. You are having a party for some very picky motherfuckers?

There's one thing you can say to your dog that you can't say to your wife.
Come.

We used to call this a Church Key....

NOW SOME SERIOUS SHIT

The world's largest emerald...

The actual battle plan to drive Iraq out of Kuwait....

 (did you notice were the French were sent?)


An observation about the above map:
We have seen what Israel has done during the 6 Day and Yom Kippur Wars. We have seen what a short amount of time it took America to kick ass during the war in Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Further, we saw what Iran did during it's war with Iraq. Wave after wave of live, lightly armed young men who were soon turned into unarmed dead young men.
My question is.....do the Iranis think they can win if Israel and the US opened a huge can of whupass on them?
I just don't see the logic.

And now, something I am convinced is true....

When I was growing up my mother always gave us choices at dinner. 
Take it or leave it.

TODAY'S TOONS....

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAH!!!!
(I have no idea why that makes me laugh out loud...but it does..maybe it's the expression on his face)

Need some help with that last one?

ONE OF MY VERY OWN....

THERE IS SOMETHING ABOUT LARGE WINDOWS THAT JUST SEEMS TO SUCK CLOTHING OFF NORMALLY NORMAL WOMEN....

(MAKE WHOOSHING SOUND HERE)