Caution: The Fourth Wave is Filled with Silicone

escapeintolife: #art #illustration Mario Sughi ‘Grass’ on...

Tue, 16 Aug 2011 17:49:05 -0400

#art #illustration Mario Sughi ‘Grass’ on Escape Into Life

So, I am submitting a work for the self-portrait show at my...

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 11:45:33 -0400

So, I am submitting a work for the self-portrait show at my favorite local gallery. This is it. Watercolors and ink and spider veins on paper.

Don’t judge.

Things I like today. Followed by things I do not.

Thu, 26 May 2011 17:38:00 -0400

It took me years, but I finally like My Morning Jacket. I don’t know what happened. Maybe I grew old enough to appreciate their gentleness. Maybe I finally gave them enough of a shot to grow on me. But their new album is quite all right. Listen to it on NPR.org/music if you wanna.

Other things that are getting me through this week:

1. Memories of my friend Hot Dog’s wedding to his lovely K. Most fun I’ve had in years.

2. Leinie’s Summer Shandy is out for sale again.

3. I started a new painting that I actually dig. That probably means nobody else will, but who the fuck cares?

4. It was sunny here for almost two days. Cold, but still sunny.

5. Ivan Brunetti’s horrifyingly awful but terribly clever and fun-to-look-at comics/illustrations.

6. A severe addiction to Mario Kart for Wii.

7. The cutest toddler nephew a human could ever hope for.

Things I’m sick of and hope disappear from my view soon:

1. Women who drag everyone they know into their divorces. Seriously, I just discarded yet another friend for making me pretend to give a rat’s ass about her marital problems (I don’t care if that sounds cold, either. Fuck you.) while completely losing her mind and beginning to stalk me. That’s two now. I will not tolerate a third. A third will cause me to commit myself to an insane asylum just so I can hide from the people I no longer care to speak to. It isn’t that I’m mean—it’s that personal problems should really remain personal, and I consider your marriage to be pretty fucking personal.

2. Hipster costumes. Seriously, folks. I can’t look at you wearing ensembles created entirely from my fourth grade closet anymore. It’s fucking embarrassing, and nobody needs to wear that much neon. Also, I bet your ankles would love to have the circulation back. Loosen those jean cuffs.

3. Inflammatory joint flares. Seriously, I have the knees, ankles, and wrists of a 90-year-old who’s just been hit by a bulldozer this week, and it really, really sucks.

4. The doomsday-like tactics of the GOP. But that’s fodder for someone else’s blog.

5. Cancer. I’d like to stop hearing about cancer. And I would appreciate it if it would kindly stop killing my friends, okay?

All right, now I’m depressed. I really should’ve started this entry with the shit I don’t like and followed up with the shit I do like. But I do everything backwards, so, there.

Sallie Mae, the Two-Faced Woman. Watercolor and ink on paper....

Wed, 11 May 2011 22:31:10 -0400

Sallie Mae, the Two-Faced Woman.

Watercolor and ink on paper. Based on an actual sideshow performer circa 1920 who had a parasitic twin that didn’t fully develop.

darksilenceinsuburbia: Rich...

Tue, 10 May 2011 14:13:06 -0400

darksilenceinsuburbia:

Rich Gemmel.

http://www.richgemmell.com/

This was taken the night I barfed. I don’t remember taking...

Tue, 10 May 2011 14:02:26 -0400

This was taken the night I barfed. I don’t remember taking this. Eff you, booze.

sunfoundation: Search volume for the word ‘hipster’...

Tue, 10 May 2011 13:57:09 -0400

sunfoundation:

Search volume for the word ‘hipster’ mapped. Who’s #1? Minnesota. Chris Menning says, “Understanding why is easy.”

*sigh*

A weeklong hangover with only two nights of drinking. That's Duluth!

Tue, 10 May 2011 13:50:00 -0400

Well, well. That was my last Homegrown Music Festival. At least in that capacity.

In Duluth, once a year, during the first week of May, we throw a weeklong party celebrating the creativity of our citizens. There’s live music every night, all over town. Just shy of 200 bands play per year, and many are turned away. There are art shows, film festivals, and other weird shit goes on all week long. It’s mostly about the music, but let’s face it, it’s about the art and the drinking and the camaraderie, too. Historically, it’s been a fun week most years.

This year, I don’t really know what happened. I took the week off of work so as to soak in all the fun I could, as I knew my willingness to partake in the festivities would only continue to dwindle as my hair continued to gray and my energy continued to head south. I went out Tuesday night and had a lovely time. Listened to some experimental music and spent some time talking politics with the mayor. Had a total of two beers. “This is a just amount of beer on a Tuesday night when you are in your early thirties”, I figured. I skipped Wednesday night because I had other shit to do, and stayed home doing said other shit.

Thursday night, though, was a SHIT SHOW. Me and a small group of friends headed over the bridge to Wisconsin, where we drank and drank and drank until I no longer knew my own name, and told my friend Pista that I “piss myself all the time”, which really is not true, but I apparently thought she’d find that impressive or something. *NOTE: I did not piss myself that evening. The comment truly came from out of the blue. I don’t know why. I went to Wisconsin with the intentions of enjoying some bands. I am sure I did that. But I couldn’t tell you which ones or what they played because frankly, it’s all a blur to me after I spent ten minutes telling a girl twice my size that her outfit wasn’t befitting her age or size. Do you guys know that I’m a feminist in my real life and would never even have such a thought let alone express it? Jesus, I hate knowing me sometimes.

Anyway, dear reader, at some point I ended up at RT Quinlan’s Saloon with my head draped across the bar hollering at my ride to take me home before I puke. The next thing I knew, I had waltzed into my home, pointed at my husband and (reportedly) blurted out, “I love you, but I’m gonna go make myself throw up,” and then wound up naked on the bathroom floor with a toothbrush down the back of my throat for the next 3 hours, causing all sorts of capillaries to explode in my face and causing all kinds of bile to stain the sides of my just-scrubbed can.

Needless to say, I took Friday off.

Saturday, I went out. My husband’s band was playing that night, as was a couple of bands belonging to my favorite people. I spent the night in the company of upwards of 700-800 people (I think?)—700 to 800 sweaty, drunk, belligerent, smelly, farty, yeasty people. Did I mention I am 5’ 3” and a claustrophobic? Imagine the fun I had that night trying to navigate an over-capacity bar that is shaped like a long hallway. I had a boner in my buttcrack and beer breath in my nose at every given moment that night. Oh, and I stayed sober so I could drive. Oh, and did I mention I am a fucking misanthrope and am easily overstimulated? My head still hurts from all the people and the overload on my senses.

Anyway, the bands were great—all of ‘em. Even my friend Hot Dog’s band, which does rock ballads about never wanting to grow up, and which has only been rehearsing for a few weekends so far, was pretty spectacular. Mostly because Hot Dog tossed a caseload of pregnancy tests and kazoos to the crowd, and ended their set with a vaudeville number that included a top-of-the-line slide whistle. I’m not even joking. This really happened. The crowd was responsive and (according to my friends and husband who played) really fun to play to.

Oh yeah, and at one point, probably at my worst personally, when I was sandwiched between a heavyset bearded fellow who smelled like warm cheddar cheese and a woman whose life depended on getting ahead of me in line to get to the stage floor, this pretty dark-haired girl who I didn’t quite recognize stopped me and told me that she loves my Tumblr. I’m not certain who she was, but I assure you, dear reader, I was miserable at the time she stopped me, and then she said all the lovely things she said, and I felt my face contort into this ridiculous grin that probably didn’t leave my face for at least a couple of hours. Then I read in my friend Pista’s blog that her blog friend, Whiskey Marie, was up that very evening, and now I secretly hope it was her who stopped me. Because if it was, then holy shit, this was a real honor to be told this by such an entertaining and concise writer. It kinda looked like her photo booth photos on her blog, anyway, so I guess I can only hope.

But anyway, yeah. I can’t do that shit anymore. My brain is too old to manage that many people and places and things for that many days in a row. Next year, I’m going to see my husband’s set and maybe one other. And that’s it. The rest of the bands I can just see the rest of the year when nobody else is interested in seeing them play. At least then I won’t end up with someone’s dick in my crack and someone else’s elbow in my eye and yet someone else’s beer in my hair all while trying to bounce along to someone’s cover of a Ween song.

Back to work.

This is what makes me hate Americans. Or at least, the really...

Thu, 28 Apr 2011 15:19:46 -0400

This is what makes me hate Americans. Or at least, the really self-righteous ones.

Window Shade by Clementine Hunter, circa 1950s. Click through...

Thu, 28 Apr 2011 12:45:05 -0400

Window Shade by Clementine Hunter, circa 1950s.

Click through to the artist page.

Funeral by Clementine Hunter. Oil on board. Click through to see...

Thu, 28 Apr 2011 12:17:43 -0400

Funeral by Clementine Hunter.

Oil on board.

Click through to see more of her work.

The Funeral Procession by T. Coleman I have no source for this...

Thu, 28 Apr 2011 11:49:58 -0400

The Funeral Procession by T. Coleman

I have no source for this one, sorry. You’ll have to google the artist for more info.

The Octopus by Natalie Salminen. Oil on canvas. 48 x...

Thu, 28 Apr 2011 11:27:06 -0400

The Octopus by Natalie Salminen.

Oil on canvas. 48 x 60

Salminen is one of my favorite painters. Check out her portfolio for more of her coolly-colored, environmentally-inspired work.

I'm a neglectful blogger...

Wed, 27 Apr 2011 17:28:47 -0400

I can’t seem to form and maintain a habit of writing on this thing. Mostly because I don’t really have much of anything to say anymore. I’m becoming so misanthropic and surmounted with disdain for humanity that everything I say is loaded with negativity and anger. Someday soon, I’ll reach an age where I don’t give a shit if what I have to say pisses you off. I’m just not there yet.

So, in an effort to remain active in my blogging, I’ll give you, dear reader, an update on what I’ve been up to and how that makes me feel. Here goes somethin’…

Work

Sucks. But at least I have a job.

I keep toying with the idea of running my own business. Frankly, I’m sick of busting my ass for no pay FOR SOMEONE ELSE. If I have to work like this and not make what I’m worth, I may as well be my own boss. So I’ve got it narrowed down to two things: Butcher/Cheesemaker, and Art Gallery Owner. I’m trying to figure out if there’s a way to do both. In the same building. In the same storefront. Is that weird? I like meat. I like cheese. I like art. I’d like to do all of those things well and package them in a cute shop.

Social Clan

My sister, nephew, mom, and dad all left me here in the cold and rain to visit family in San Diego. I’m jealous as fuck. Someday I hope to make enough money to afford to join them. Today is not that day.

In the meantime, my husband and I are home watching my folks’ doggy. Which means we’re constantly trying to not step on or trip over this 10-pound high-strung pile of curly fur. But at least he’s cute and snuggly.

Art

Finishing round one of the Carnival Folks. I’m sick of them, frankly, but I’ve got two more to go. First layer of paint is on the paper, and they’re just staring me down , daring me to go further. And my lazy ass is gluing itself to my recliner, because goddammit, that Joyce Carol Oates memoir ain’t gonna finish reading itself. I think I need a scrip for Ritalin, for reals. My focus is garbage these days.

So far, though, the folks include Siamese twins, a jolly bearded lady, a human flipper man, a half-man/half-woman, a two-faced woman, a four-legged woman, and a cloven-hoofed man. So that’s seven pieces. There was a tattooed man in there, too, but I threw him away because he really sucked.

Additionally, I just purchased two new paint additives that do some nifty things, and I want to give them a shot. However, they were pretty pricey, so half of me is too nervous to just try them out willy-nilly on a pointless expedition that won’t become a real project. Pretty certain that’s a nutty way to look at it, I know, but I’m poor. Poor people get pretty conservative with their beloved belongings.

Sometimes I don’t even know why I’m doing any of what I’m doing. Nobody really sees my art. I’m not trying to sell it. Even when I do try to sell it, nobody buys it. I don’t try to show it in galleries, because fuck people. I don’t care what they think about it, really. I’m not trying to really SAY anything with most of it, and even if I was, I’m fairly certain most people take it all the wrong way. But I do it, I guess, because I feel like I have to, or I’ll be a horrible bitch from not doing it.

That being said, though, I am working on a few political posters that will definitely be saying something. So maybe once I really dive into those I’ll feel more driven to complete projects. Who knows?

Other Miscellany

Anyone else really hoping the Mayans’ prediction about 2012 comes true? I know I sure am.

(Maybe I should add an antidepressant to that Ritalin prescription I’m seeking.)

*Fart noise*

I know it's spring because...

Tue, 19 Apr 2011 14:24:57 -0400

…for some odd reason, I really want the world to honk my boobies. Or motorboat them. And my midwestern sensibilities make me ashamed of this urge.

Yaaaay, SPRING!

“30 Pages of Vaginas & Fun Activities”!!!!

Tue, 19 Apr 2011 14:15:36 -0400

“30 Pages of Vaginas & Fun Activities”!!!!

amyyy: by Emma Hanquist Well, this is pretty fantastic.

Tue, 19 Apr 2011 12:38:56 -0400

amyyy:

by Emma Hanquist

Well, this is pretty fantastic.

VIDEO: Low - "Try to Sleep"

Wed, 13 Apr 2011 16:35:00 -0400

minneapolisfuckingrocks:

These guys (Low, I mean)? From Duluth. Good shit comes from Duluth, motherfuckers.

And by “from Duluth”, I don’t mean they lived here for a minute and then left for bigger cities. I mean they LIVE here. Currently. Alan is a friend of mine.

GOOD SHIT COMES FROM DULUTH. You should visit sometime.

Photo

Wed, 13 Apr 2011 13:14:06 -0400

Hairy Sherrie. The world’s jolliest and fattest bearded...

Wed, 13 Apr 2011 12:49:27 -0400

Hairy Sherrie. The world’s jolliest and fattest bearded lady.

Add one to my Carnival Folk series.