"Santa, what's the meaning of Christmas?" "VENGEANCE!"

This was supposed to come up on Christmas automatically since I knew I would not be able to, but blogger failed apparently.

Well, here it is.

The date says Christmas, but really I'm posting this on January 3rd. The first post of the year [technically].

Already its busy.

I got caught in a snowstorm yesterday, in basketball shorts, not something I wear out a lot so living in Southern California I never EVER thought I would be caught by surprise in a snowstorm whilst wearing basketball shorts.

I have no pics, but I do of other things which I don't really have a lot of time to post. But I will soon.

"Nirvarna is cool."

If Katie fails to get me out of the house, this is what we end up doing. I can translate life through Youtube.

I'm very much the Beavis, she is Butthead.

Finals are almost over, its the home stretch but its getting excessively difficult to focus. My professor however has deemed another term paper as award-worthy, so another check maybe? That would be nice. Last time I got something like $400, could've been more but I had to share the money with three other people. Buzz kill.

For things that I have been putting off, they are not forgotten, I will attend to them as soon as possible.

I was at the library book sale and I picked this up.

It looks cool. Its like Haeckel-esque artwork and dissected bugs. "Postmodernist" biological works of art the back promised. I am unfamiliar with the artist, Mark Fairnington, however I couldn't pass this up. It seems most interesting.

I saw a live Mantis however chilling upside-down above my mailbox, I took a picture of it, but I do not have it readily available right now. So you'll just have to wait.

"Translation is the art of failure.”

Next time anything I'm involved with that requires a title needs a title, I have it.

"But what would I wear?"

Literally this is exactly how it goes whenever Katie tries to get me out of the house.

"I hope my tongue in prune juice smothers, If I belittle dogs and mothers."

Self-prescribed. I realized that recently.

Its finals week, and thus the scramble to finish everything that needs to be turned in, in the very short amount of time left, must be completed (though realistically I started this push since November, beginning of). So as a result its harder to do basic things that are healthy for me. My digestive system sucks, I need prune juice to counterbalance it, if I don't I hurt, and I forgot for a while to drink it and I had some problems. Sleep is deprived, late-night showers, poor diet...All a part of college life.

But anyway, its almost over, just another week of pushing and I'm free. For a little bit anyway.

I picked up "The Infernal World of Branwell Brontë" by Daphne du Maurier, I've been eyeing her work for awhile but never got to reading anything from her yet, except for "the Birds" but that was from a long time ago. However, I'm trying to finish the letters of Vincent Van Gogh, not particularly depressing in its text but we all know how that story ends, I'm not so sure I'll read this one from Maurier just yet, which ends in a very similar fashion.

So I have "A Scanner Darkly" lined up, I'll probably read that first.

I'll be absent soon, so thanks for reading, I hope my trivialities aren't a waste of type.

"I'm one flop, a tin cup, and a monkey away from organ-grinding on a street-corner in Santa Monica."

My air-freshener, the best.

Some stuff at La Luz de Jesus Gallery.

We decide to head to Santa Monica from Silverlake because we had nothing better to do, this was at around 10-11pm. We got hungry and we were in West Hollywood at the moment, I assumed that a Trader Joe's in WeHo would be open late for the bar-hoppers but it wasn't so I had to buckle to the demands of Katie and Monty for Yogurtland. I told them yogurt wasn't dinner and we'll be hungry again in a couple of hours, but they did not listen.

Thinking about Magneto at this moment.

We were looking for the bathroom in the new mall, and we found this.

Good thing we found the bathroom before.

Lite-Bright.

Some signs you can't take seriously.

This is the second time in the second place I've seen this noodle.

I have no idea what its for.

Me.

At the end of the pier at around 12:30-1:00am.

There is a strange phenomena we noticed.

People, including us, staring out at the pure black endless void of night.

We can't see anything, it feels like the end of the universe yet everyone just stares out into it as if something was about to happen.

Reminded us of the Restaurant at the End of the Universe.

I thought it was interesting.

Except the end never came.

S&M Guards.

Late-night Santa Monica is a strange place. We ended up having to eat Taco Bell at 4am.

Blogs are the lava lamps of the 2000s pt.II

I find people interesting, thus I find blogs interesting.

Maybe that's strange, a lot of people complain about the amount of desocialization that has been occurring recently but I find it not so impetus on my own life. People (including myself) block themselves off in public, you block yourself from me and I block myself from you, but here, with no face, no judgements, no opinions, we are free to take up that niche missing with another person and impose our full personality into that dimension of interaction in this digital nonspace. So I find that most people are a lot more interesting then they let on, but then again, I don't really know people, maybe you feel differently, perhaps I'm much more dull to you than you are to me. I do not think it would make much of a difference to me whether texting is taking over people's lives or not, you are not going to talk to me anyway, and I am not going to talk to you, and that's because you are a person, with a face, with judgements, with opinions, and we both fear those things. On the other hand maybe these blogs actually are helping me "get" people as a whole, I just haven't tried it yet, I don't know. All I know is that you are interesting.

I'm probably not a big a loser as I make or think myself to be, I do things when I can and I know people.

But that undulates between thinking that I am quite drastically.

I missed Lyn-Z Way's art opening, and I'm really bummed about that. Completely just flew over my head.

But this weekend was really nice.

"Do you ever get the feeling that everything in America is completely fucked up?"

In case you were ever curious about my choice for the blog title...



One of my favorite movies of all time.

“Bad artists always admire each others work."

The sketches were done in pen on notebook paper 9 ½ x 6 ½ inches.

"Primitive Kirby Fleeing from Transitional Unagi" - Rough Sketch, part of a "Primordial Nintendo" series I want to do, I got lazy with the background.

Inspiration:

"Untitled" - Rough Sketch, part of a "Arms" series I want to do. I couldn't get the steam right, I'll name it later.

"Eggplant Man" - 2 ½ x 3 ½ inches, Acrylic on Canvas card.

~8:00 am
Mom: Have you seen the movie?
Me: [Asleep] What?
Mom: Fahrenheit 451, its really good, you should watch it.
Me: [Half asleep] I've only read the book...
Mom: [Saying something about the movie that I couldn't understand]
Me: [Asleep again]

She only wants to talk about these kinds of things when I am not conscious.

"Inevitably, irrevocably; happy birthday? No such thing."

Outside its America.

Sometimes I feel like grinding my own teeth together until they break in my mouth.



Othertimes I have dreamt about it.

"Painting and fucking a lot don't go together, it softens the brain. Which is a bloody nuisance."

I just got lost for a second here on the Internet. That was weird.

This is a very lonely place, both digitally and where I am physically, and where I am at my most pathetic, I hate it when I am this way. I have sketches that I really want to post up, but I don't have a scanner and my computer at home sucks, I hardly use it.

Speaking of which, winter break is coming up, which means I won't be posting on here every damn day, not until I come back to school. But at least then I'll go and hang out with my friends. I miss them and I want to see them. I'll take my girlfriend out on dates like we used to, she is busy, but I want to give her a fun time and let us be together without worrying about work and deadlines like how the last few weeks have been. I want to paint, I want to make music, I want to listen to music, I want to go to art galleries, I want to make new friends.

I want to go to Amoeba.

My bucket list.

All I have to do is get through this next couple of weeks, I'll be gone from here but that will be good for me, waiting for contact on here is too depressing. Maybe for once something new will be waiting for me as opposed to the opposite.

When I think about these kinds of times a couple of years back, I'm surprised I didn't plug myself.

Here's the problem, I'm disconnected. I'm pushed into academia when honestly, I just want to make art. So I'm here with a bunch of people I have nothing in common with and I am debilitatingly shy. What that equates to is chronic loneliness [I hate that word]. So two years of that left me overly sensitive and neurotic. I can carry myself in certain social settings, but there is something in me missing where I can't interact normally. In high school, I've compensated that with sexuality, I was fit, energetic, and I felt good about myself. Now I am not like that. I've gone from 6'0 and 150 pounds at the end of high school to now 6'1 and ~175. So I'm pretty self-conscious about my body. I have to wear skinny jeans, unless I just hate the way I appear.

I am reading the Letters of Van Gogh, he went through the same kinds of problems I am, I wonder if that is universal to all artists. If not, that is both extremely encouraging and discouraging at the same time.

Go ahead, roll your eyes at me
Its happened more times than a car off a cliff
And the scoff I heard is an impact that break necks
But not mine.

“There is no end of craving. Hence contentment alone is the best way to happiness."

This week for some reason I'm being contemplative, I'm thinking a lot about significance. Maybe that's because something is going to happen soon, I hope so. At any rate, this post is about mein vice.

Craving [ˈkreɪvɪŋ] n: an intense desire or longing.

There are lots of things I need to do, I don't care if I won't be happy its just something that needs to happen. I realize that craving would not make me happy but that's not the point of it, and I'm a pretty vain person, it might if only artificially but that's okay.

I'm ambitions, but I'm also lazy, I want to do a lot of things in my work, but that also includes having: fun/sex/intoxication/socialization/famous and beautiful friends.

I'm arrogant, or at least I've become arrogant, I'm no longer that kid that just wants to play modest punk music, I'm a person that wants to make big ambitious music like Queen (if Queen played punk music).

I no longer want to be in a "band", I no longer feel like I need help from anyone in making music, just my brother, we are now able to stand on our own and it feels like if we don't have complete control and have to compromise with a third party it would turn out worse.

My band is now a duo and I'd like to keep it that way. We've been slogging it out in my room for this whole year tightening up, with all of that work we've reached another level musically beyond where we are physically. We've been asking the same of anyone that was a part of what we are doing, only two people have been able to step up ability-wise, one diligence-wise.

I want to be good at art, not like Todd Schorr or Greg Simkins or anything, just respected.

I want people to appreciate what we do, and I want to appreciate them.

I am sounding incredibly self-righteous right now, I know. This is probably what selling-out is to most people, but I can't ignore the things I want out of life. I cannot do the normal 9-5 existence thing, its not my nature, and invariably that's what things would lead to. Ever since I was a kid I knew that's what I wanted, punk music forced me to repress that, but I was just conforming to everyone else. For me ambition is good, contentment is not, and I like that there are people in the world that focus on contentment, we need them, the world would be much more violent if there were more people like me.

"For my part, champagne doesn't cheer me up, it makes me very sad."

I'm pretty sure no one really reads this. Its helps though because I don't really talk to people much.

If you do though, follow the blog, it helps morale.

It reminds me though of a scene I saw last night on the "Walking Dead".

"I think I'll blow my brains out tomorrow."

I'm not going to by the way. I haven't figured out yet if I like the show, not that I'm waiting for that.

Point is I'm not contemplating suicide.

I resolved to paint during thanksgiving break, but it didn't happen. Somehow, and I do not know how, I didn't have time, even though I didn't do much, isn't life funny? When I am in situations that I want to get through quickly time slows to a grind, and when I need time to slow down it doesn't. I have the canvas lined up, the graphite paper bought, even a fucking stylus. Oh well, maybe tomorrow as always.

Music seems to be getting though, finally, this might work. My bass playing is getting better too, that's the good thing about art, you never stop getting better. And I snapped another string, my brother says I am the only person he knows to regularly snap bass strings.

Not the 4th string (at 110 mm) this time (a major achievement, like a trophy), the 3rd (at 90mm), however, I do not have the proper size to replace it with, I've had to use a spare 80mm which makes the 3rd and 2nd strings look almost the same size, (which they are technically with the 2nd at 70mm) but it looks funny and doesn't really sound good.

At any rate, I'm applying to grad school, and life is funny. I went from a punk barely getting through high school (summer and winter classes are a life-saver) to actually applying to grad school. It would be even funnier if I got in. I even had to mention that I'm not their typical applicant, but I have good work ethics. I'm only applying to places near the beach, no point in making myself depressed, and though I applied to UCLA, I wouldn't be sad if I had to leave L.A. for awhile. Santa Cruz looks really nice, so does Santa Barbara and San Diego. I'm just worried about my girlfriend though, there is a critical bridge that needs to be crossed, I hope we'll be ready for it.

Not sure why I have to be near the beach, I guess somewhere like Riverside would leave me trapped, land-locked. The ocean gives me a sense of an escape route, even though it isn't really...But it feels like it. Like if I needed to drop everything and become a pirate I can. Not the Somali kind, the Johnny Depp kind.

I'm rambling, but I feel like we are friends now, I can talk to you, even though you do not exist in my universe.

[If you followed me though you will.]

Consider this post the copulation of consciousnesses, the unfertilized egg awaiting the semen of camaraderie.

Birth yourself in my universe, even if its but a distant orbital visage.

"...and even if they die they're never dead in your heart.”

About a year ago this time one of my friends took his own life. We hung out a lot during high school doing lots of crazy stuff, when he changed schools we didn't really talk anymore, that was my fault, I saw him a couple times after that and then he died.

I still think about him whenever this song comes up, RHCP was his jam.

Things that Nietzsche never talked about/Live Through Thus

Plants not sins up in a park, but if Jesus can't love some I've no doubt,
If he won't then I promise them I will.

I don't like the term "political correctness", its not politics, only being a decent human being.

-------------------

Post Script: Live Through Thus

I'm writing a term paper, I'm almost up to page 18, ~5300 words. I probably have about two dozen windows and tabs open and its very claustrophobic in a digital way. I haven't painted in over a week, I haven't seen my girlfriend in almost a week, and I miss her terribly. My ass hurts, my hair sucks, I wish I was dressed better, and I'm sick and tired of Subway sandwiches but I have to eat them again later today.

*A shoutout to CSUN by the way, thank you for providing a cacophany of delicious healthy vegetarian/vegan alternatives to your everyday choices of Burger King/other fast food. Thanks to you and your attention towards a healthy lifestyle, I've gained thirty pounds since leaving highschool.

My hands are always cold from being in this room, my eyes hurt from staring at this radiated screen, I haven't been outside very often, and I haven't seen anyone in awhile.

I asked a boy if we can make out yesterday in front of this jesus-nut at school, he turned me down. After that I had Subway [fucking again] (but to my credit I had tomato soup to break the monotany), and after that I went to a feminist symposium.

Today I just want to go see my girlfriend, I've been looking at old pictures of her and us whenever I couldn't stand to think about Joseph Nye or John Meirsheimer another moment.

I'm just frusterated, its not a big deal when I take everything into account, but that doesn't make me want to break-out any less.

Art Can't Hurt You.

I was exposed to Fred Babb by accident actually, I found one of his shirts at goodwill in which its his painting that says "Art Can't Hurt You". I went through life for awhile not looking into it until one of the guys that works at this small guitar store I frequent noticed it and brought to my attention that it is a jazz album from Doug Robinson. It was indeed the same guy that did the artwork for the record of the same name. At any rate, he died in 2006, but his work is really good.

Shit my brother says.

"Do you think I WANT to install a fucking fax machine at 11 o'clock at night!?"

"Did you know they have automatic staplers now? I hate them."

"If I hear one more Kangaroo wrestling name I'm going to snap."
 
"I didn't get that song as a kid, what DID they do on the Discovery Channel?"
 
"You do not have passion for anything." - "What are you talking about? I was willing to kill someone over Risk yesterday."
 
"Rod this food is terrible. [Pretending to me me] No its 'Avante-Garde'."

"There's pink pee in the toilet, I think someone needs to see a doctor."

"Well if you take the cosine of the results then..." - "I will cosine your death warrant if you don't shut up!"
 
"Well shit, I don't know him well enough to share a pickle."

"This is Tulsa, the town that everybody thinks is Oklahoma City."

Meet the Beat-Alls

Dumb sky rhinocerous glum.

“Pricing a concert ticket is very different from pricing a Lexus or toothpaste"

In Europe, the act of scalping tickets are widely condemned, as cultural events are considered a RIGHT of low-income people.

Keep it heavy.

"Serenity, that nothing is."

Images from my room I did out of boredom.

I hate the taste of fish, so it would be pretty sociopathic of me to go fishing. I'm not exactly sure why I have a box of tackle.

Oyster Fossil

Recent life.

Livingroom art installation