SlapClap

(Above: a photoshop picture. Blagojevich courtroom sketches do not hang alongside Picasso's ... yet)

Great art evokes emotion. I discovered this for myself several years ago when I visited the Reina Sofia museum in Madrid to see the iconic Picasso master painting Guernica. As I stood before this massive 11 x 25 ft. mural in oil I couldn’t move my eyes away from the 4 x 4 photograph of it in the “Around Town” section of my Time Out Madrid. It’s when I noticed the unlit matches tucked inside the pages of my tourism book.

It was no coincidence. Picasso’s masterwork was working through me. Evoking me – provoking me. To do what exactly? Close my book, pocket my camera, and really view the painting? Of course not. It wanted me to set it on fire. To pull out those matches and make a Picasso burn.

I didn’t of course. You would have read about it. I certainly would have blogged about it, and then the inevitable headline: “Uncomfortably Attractive Male Sets Picasso on Fire, Evades Custody, Admits to Crime via Beautifully Composed Weblog.”

But just because I didn’t burn down that Picasso doesn’t disqualify the emotion it evoked. It made me feel something, and whatever that feeling – be it peaceful meditation or the lustful urge of an arsonist’s hate – it is a feeling.

Before my moment in Madrid I was not a big fan of art. More of a Bulls fan really. Up to that point, nothing I had seen stirred up such “burning” emotion, other than mailboxes, and after Madrid no art has evoked me since.

That is until this courtroom sketch of disgraced former governor Rod Blagojevich awaiting the 24 count verdict in his federal corruption trial. It challenges me. Arouses me. “Turns me on,” metaphorically of course. When I see it, I think these things, in this order:

Click and find out.

Continue reading “<span style="color: #000000;">Take The <i>Mad Men</i> Quiz</span>” »

I can not wait for this movie, or any movie that would dare stage a picture like this. This was probably not captured during actual filming, rather it looks to be an outtake of Benicio Del Toro “paling around” with his director.

Kind of like, “Ghaaa, you ponytailed sh*t machine! I can’t believe you talked me into this. Just kidding. No I’m not! I hope this tanks, AND I’M IN IT! That’s how much my career hates you right now. Ghaaa! Now lets get back to work, dummy.“

Guess where her On button is?

Claps, white people are digging.

Slaps, white people… not so much.

Your calls at the top of the hour. First though.. I really like this Shakira video. But then I guess I like anything with a TWIST at the end. And what a twist this was. Skip ahead. It was all happening in her closet! The pen is in your left ear Mr. Shyamalan.

And how appropriate the closet: practically the mascot for female angst. The place where women retire their nude body sock outfit for the evening after a long day of cage dancing. Also, the thing monsters come out of.

Think about all the great lady examples of closets: Angela Bassett in Waiting to Exhale, Faye Dunaway’s timeless “wire hangers” routine, that Heineken commercial, and of course the ultimate GOOP closet presented to Carrie Bradshaw in that movie. Hats off. Shakira, Shakira indeed.

Many Voices, Many Vision, from the PBS archives.  (via buzzfeed)

Now before we get all post-racially outraged about this remember, white people do look ridiculous with perms. Unlike black people, who all look great.

The following is a review of a trailer for a movie. To view the trailer, click HERE.

(click on pic)

On a warm summer’s eve the Golden Gate Bridge spans beautifully against the backdrop of an orange sky. Steinbeck famously referred to San Francisco as “the golden handcuff with the key thrown away,” and it is with that…

Continue reading “Enormous Monster Vs. Very Large Thing” »

The year was 1976: Gerald Ford was president; black people had a comically large belief in their own athletic prowess, and 55 year old men who played golf every weekend went to bed distracted by the crushing need for another man’s touch. Back then, Roman Polanski directed all of the government P.S.A.’s, and back then swine flu was treated by drawing a pentagram on the floor with cat’s blood and making a wish inside.

Richard Branson, everybody. Imagine if he owned a bank. (nsfw)

Welcome to the 2009 NBA Playoffs!

Related:

(1950′s)

(1960′s)

(1980′s)

No matter if I’m slapping fives with the blind guy who sells newspapers on my block, or high-fiving the guy who works at my local fruit stand (also blind), or even when I’m at the barbershop waiting for a haircut from blind Willie (he also owns a newspaper and fruit stand), I always get the same question: what makes a good “slapclap?”

The best example might be The Room, but that’s almost too easy. That’s like saying Winston Churchill would make a good “slap,” or Nazi paraphernalia a good “clap.” [Ed. note: those examples might be incorrect] A better example of a “slapclap” would be, oh I don’t know, this kids toy designed by Mark Ryden- so fraught with psychosomatic distress it would make Nietzsche cry and then vomit. (via)

(photo courtesy: the architectural review)

Been a ton of hub bub about this new “miracle fruit.” It supposedly alters your taste buds, making sour things sweet. All due respect to the “media,” but skateboarders have been doing this for, I don’t know, years. When I was nine, walking home from the dentist, forced to suck on a lime because my step-Great Grandfather caught me playing with his Civil War pistol, I happened past the Young Catholics skateboard park in downtown South Bend, IN to behold a sight:

A young Travis Barker(ish) ‘boarder executing a perfect half-pike spiral 360° inward heelflip maneuver off a kick ramp the size of my step-Great Grandfather’s shrine to Union casualties. My mouth was sore, and filled with citrus, but what I said next is self-explanatory: “Sweet.”

Ps, I hate my step-Great Grandfather.

The mutants overflow with populist rage. TRAILER HERE.

If we didn’t already know he was being followed around by cameras, for his brother’s documentary, we might all think that Joaquin was some mad, fraud genius. We all know though, don’t we?

“Pamela, I want you to keep your left nipple, and its animal facts, under control tonight. This evening is very important.”

“Did you say something Pamela?”

“Pamela please, put a muzzle on that thing.”

“For the love of- shut your nipple up, or I will shut up your nipple for you.”

“Pamelaaa!” (shakes fist)