This sort of thing happens all the time!

When Samson and I finally got passed the gates of the zoo, we knew we were home free.

My Weekend With the Sons of Anarchy

I went camping in the San Gabriel mountains this weekend with my in-laws and some outlaws -well, only a handful were real outlaws, the rest were Messengers of Recovery Motorcycle Club. The MoRMC is made up of recovering alcoholics/addicts. My father-in-law is a patch-holding member of the Riverside chapter of the Messengers of Recovery biker club. I had studied the ettiquette and protocol of Outlaw and AMA (non-outlaw) biker clubs and written a research paper on them a few months earlier for my Cultural Anthropology paper. Did you know that they never lock their bikes at a rally because it's an insult. It is like calling the other bikers thieves. Also, you should never touch another man's "cut" (vest with the club's patch, which has had the sleeves cut off). If someone loses their cut, it is a big disgrace. Worse than that is to lose your patch or be forced to surrender your colors.

Lately I've been following the new FX series Sons of Anarchy, a show about a fictitous California outlaw biker gang which co-stars Beast/Hellboy/City of the Lost Children/Harry & the Henderson's Ron Pearlman.

by the way, did you ever wonder if he might have been Tom Waits fraternal twin, separated at birth? It's a lot more believeable than Sczhwarzenegger and DeVito, but probable a bit less comical.

Many of Riverside MOR members have been in several of the shows, playing bit parts and extras. I heard stories about Pearlman dumping his bike so often that they just cart him on the back of a trailer to film his riding scenes. They hire porn stars for the party scenes, which the Messengers find amusing because, as I noticed, 99% of the women in the clubs are someone's "old lady(wife/longstanding girlfriend must earn old lady status by showing loyalty to their men- old ladies are not to be confused with 'mamas')" and have the complexion of a pair of leather boots with breasts that have surrendered to gravity long ago. Nothing like the plastic party girls with double basketball chests that you see on the show.

One of them said he gets paid just to have his bike placed in a shot, so he usually checks the scripts and shrewdly finds the best position to have his bike parked. They also got to shoot rowdy party scenes in which one of the bikers had to endure shooting 3 versions of being passed out at the bar while the others spilled beer over him and whatever else they dished out. They even get paid to eat lunch. It pays around 17.50/hr. for 8 hours of "work."

Other highlights of the weekend were the view from my tent, which I pitched right on the edge of the river, the sound of the river lulling me to sleep, running live sound for the hired band, and hearing the recovery story Paul McCartney's original drummer, Denny Seiwell. Apparently Seiwell was swindled out of millions of dollars of money owed to him for playing with Macca from the "Ram" album, on up the first few Wing's albums. Paul, as it turned out, had no idea this had occured over the course of more than a decade, and recently righted the financial wrong and restored the relationship with Denny.

I have a ton of shirts to screen for tomorrow's big show at the Glass House. I'll leave you with the view from tent:

Throw Stones

I'm going to be doing my first event selling Spitting Image stuff, Saturday, Sept. 20 at The Glass House in Pomona. Also featured will be Kid Robot (yes!) OBEY (way too trendy), Paul Frank and some others I haven't heard of, but I probably should have. I went to an art gallery in Tribeca last year featuring Souther Salazar (a fav of mine and my sister Amy's) and the adjoining room was Shepard Fairey and all his OBEY stuff that has once again become popular.

Here are some pictures of the Souther Salazar exhibit I attended, many of which I took, the others are from his site:

Speaking of exhbits, I need to write up a blog about fellow etsian, Timber, who I chanced to meet here in california at a silkscreen shop. He recognized the mustache man shirt I was wearing and asked where I got it. I told him I made it and he revealed that he was Timberps, which is crazy cuz I've been wanting one of his shirts for a long time. I'll post that one later.

Speaking once again about art exhibits, come on down to the Glass House Sat. Sept. 20
"Bring the litle pardners, hell, we got plenty of snakes and lizards for them to play with. Say it once, say it twice, third times a charm - and remember: I'll eat anything you want me to eat, I'll swallow anything you want me to swallow. Come on down, I'll chew on a dog. Arooooooooo!"
this is for Amy:

Pop Cannibalism 2

I really should be sleeping but instead I'm going to grab some extra credit for my Mass Media course and blog a bit about another blog I"m currently reading, QuizLaw.

I'll start out by telling you that I have always hated the show American Idol until last season when a rocker with some taste won out against the usual Britney/Whitney-wannabes. I got hooked on the vile show the first time I heard David Cook bust out the Chris Cornell version of Jacko's hit, Billie Jean. We TIVO'd it and watched it as a family each week.

The season ended with an exciting victory for the Cook the underdog, but as the show concluded, it left me with a sense of loss. I've felt that same sense of loss after watching something like 8 straight hours of MTV's the State. My friends and I mused that we felt like we should call Michael Ian Black or Michael Showalter and see how they've been since we last saw them. The edges of tv and reality blurred and I missed my tv friends. sick.

Well thankfully we've got reruns, but better still is this season of American Presidential Elections. Like American Idol, I never really cared for the "show" or the irritating people involved. Then we got our David Cook: Barak Obama. According to the blog Quizlaw, we even have Sanjaya:

Sarah Palin is the next Paris Hilton.
Not that I’m trying to minimize her speech. But, I lump her into the Sanjaya Malakar phenomenon. Two seasons ago, Sanjaya Malakar — an incredibly untalented singer — managed to remain on “American Idol” long past the point his talent warranted. But each week, Simon Cowell — like the media with Sarah Palin — attacked Sanjaya with brutal honesty. The audience at home, recognizing that Sanjaya kind of sucked, voted for him all the same, partly because they felt sorry for him and partly because they wanted to see the train wreck continue. Ultimately, the “AI” voters came to their senses and voted Sanjaya off, as I assume the American public will also do when it comes to Palin.

I personally am less interested in the candidates and there policies, and more or less swept away by their techniques. Picking a naughty-secretary looking female running mate - outstanding! Piggybacking off of Hilary's achievements dspite having diametrically opposing political views... so cool! But having a lectern with a mock presidential seal...niiiice. Telling voters that electing McCain would be the same as giving Bush a third term, oh yes! The Demo-vention was almost as cool as the last Radiohead concert I went to. Have you seen how swiftly (and often, come to think of it) Obama gets water bottles to his fainting audience members?! Stunning. Soon he'll be doling out fish and bread to the masses. But how will the contestants handle Mariah Carey week? can McCain and Palin rock the House of Representatives with their playful rendition of Carey's "We Belong Together," or will Barack slay the Electoral Cowell-ege with his take on "All I Want for Christmas is You?" I just can't help but get sucked into the whole poplularity contest. Its an exciting election season, maybe I should TIVO it.

Oh, and coming back to Paris Hilton, here's a spot she did in response to McCain's Barack/Paris comparison ad that she shot for Will Ferrell/Andy Mckay's Comedy site, FunnyOrDie. I almost have a shred of newfound respect for her, but it turned out to be gas.

If you live under a rock, check out Landlord and Drunk History while you're at it

one last thing: Last week at campus I was coaxed to register to vote in California by two old black dudes at a folding table. They hastily led me through the forms and then asked me to fill in the circle next to the political party I wished to affiliate myself with. They made sure to let me know they only got paid if I filled in the Republican circle, and assured me I could change my affiliation later on but I would have to vote along party lines if for everything but president.

After all was said and done they handed me another form representing the Republican party. It was a statment that I had to sign stating that I was in no way coerced or influenced to affiliate with the Republican party. *sigh*

pop cannibalism

I went clothes shopping today and I was dismayed yet again. Its hard to find clothing that fits me, I'm not that tall and I'm kinda skinny. I can no longer stand the skinny jeans, (which I'm wearing as I type this, ironically) they only look good on a few people (and they aren't male). They make a top heavy woman look like Dr. Robotnik from Sonic the Hedgehog: They make me look even scrawnier. So I went shopping for nice jeans, and I'm glad the fashionistas that be have allowed the low-rise boot cut to return to the marketplace, because they're the only decent looking pair of pants I've ever owned short of tailored slacks. I hate that word...slacks. By the way, is it me, or is Hollister just Ambercrombie & Fitch, and isn't Abercrombie & Fitch just a cologne-saturated gay club (the music's loud as hell and theres pictures of half-naked men everywhere).

Anyway, I've just started this Mass Media Course, and it got me thinking about how much I hate that society and culture shape what I should wear. My wife and I watch "what not to wear." on a fairly regular basis, and while I have my snobbish/critical side, I hate watching Mrs. Pretty and Popular, class of 77, and her identical male cohort get paid to repeat high school history by snickering at the poorly dressed and clueless subjects of their tv show. It's culture enforced conformity taken to a new level. I have to admit, though they make their subjects look much better when they're done.

So, getting back to my trip to one of the billions of O.C.'s malls, I can't seem to find a store that fits my tastes. There are so many subconcious messages behind what someone wears, and I don't always like the way it "defines" a person. I don't want someone to categorize me by my pants and shoes. Still, I can't help doing it myself, watch:

Dave Matthews/Phish fan and probably a stoner and or frat-jock: shops at Steve & Barry's

Favorite band is My Chemical Romance or Staind: shops at Hot Topic

John Mayer and Jason Mraz on the iPod: go to the Gap. Guess whats new this fall, something Khaki...again!

I also can't stand how men have so very few choices in style. Men's clothes are either too safe for my tastes, or too obnoxious. I am an artist and a rock musician, but I don't want to look a "rockstar." Also, Khaki cargo pants, how the hell are they still cool with anyone not at a Dave Matthew's Band concert!? I was there, back in in 1998, so were my cargoes, Dave played two encores, but unfortunately, so do the pants.

I am also grossed out by American Apparel's neon child porn look. The shirts I make are from AA shirts, but I won't be caught dead wearing a vest and hot pink pants with a polo with popped collar and visor shades. Polo's are for Best Buy, Pizza Hut, and tanning salon employees. I am weary of all the studded belts, skulls, grenades, grenade hearts, grenades made of skeletons, guns, flowery guns, guns with hearts, basically any peice of ammunition combined with anatomy or flowers. I don't want my shirts emboidered with family crests and ivy and lions and bombs. Thats for the Euro 'bags. These are european, or (mostly) american males trying to look european, with pointy-toed boots, tons of jewelry, and a faux hawk full of product. I remember these guys from the highschool football team. They got drunk, stumbled into Metro Park, and haven't found their way out.

There's a great site (and abook) about the cultural phenomenon of "douchebags" and beautiful women. You can see what I mean at http://www.hotchickswithdouchebags.com/ .

I had noticed the sudden surge of these people, but couldn't quite articulate what they were or what it was that I couldn't stand, but the book put it all in perspective:

Greasy foreheads. Spiky frosted hair. Oiled-up faces dripping with Tag Body Shot spray. Armani Exchange T-shirts and rank cologne wafting off their backs like fetid pollen clouds as they pump their fists and attempt to grind into any hotties nearby. Young beauties oblivious to the hulking monstrosity clutching at their butts like snapping turtles on Red Bull.
From sea to douchey sea, ours is a culture plagued by this festering blight. By the dark forces of über-douchebaggery.

This guy won the Douchie 2007 award.

On the other end of the spectrum, men's clothing is hopelessly tame. I guess thats why I have Spitting Image. I like having shirts that no one else has (there are a few exclusives that we have made that aren't available to the public on our online site).

But still, what I really want isn't always available

I like Classic American style and I like unique twists on things. Here are a few of my favorite looks, several of which were lifted from a great blog called Manshion (he also has a great guide to shopping for the vertically challegened):

Je ne suis pas cool.

I was in a group called the Source Room in grade school, and up until this very moment, I have never really wondered why it was named Source Room. I would jokingly say it's the source of my sense of entitlement.

When I joined, the Source Room was a fledgling program for gifted and talented grade school students in which we (a handful of first graders) were taken out of class in the afternoon to learn french, how to brainstorm, go on feild trips to learn how things are made, cultivated creativity, invented products, gave oral speeches and presentations, followed current events, and formed our own opinions (biased largely by the world view of our libertarian teacher, Mrs. Stacy). It took me years to finally see it in myself and reconstruct my own ideologies. Geography was usually held in the afternoon, but I was always in Source Room, so I think that accounts for my lack of solid geographical and history education. Our Source Room group grew in number and dropped in IQ over the years, which I assume had something to do with a few upset mothers complaining their child's way into our group. I wish I could get my hands on some of the videos we made, because there were some dumb kids forced into the group. I remember one year we filmed fake commercials and we had to teach one of the actors how to sweep the floor convincingly. He looked like he was mopping the floor.

That said, the original group, Katie, Leah, Erin, Amanda, and I were invited to join the Source Room for various reasons. Katie skipped kindergarten, was exceptionally bright and younger than her classmates, Leah was also intelligent, but showed an early knack for art. Erin didn't stay with us for too long, and I'm not sure what her story was. Amanda was/ is a humorous and intellegint individual. She has a unique approach to life to say the least. I was taught to read before school and was intensly inquisitive. By the time I reached first grade, I was usually the first one finished with my school work in class so I used my spare time to crack jokes and make fun of kids who were just learning to read. When I received the initial invitation letter from Mrs. Stacy, I never gave it to my parents because I thought I was in trouble (I got in trouble a lot, and therefore had a lot of letters to take home to my parents). My parents were informed of the giftedness of their child with a phone call. Just a year earlier my kindergarten teach had informed my parents that I was a slow child and had developmental problems. Take that Miss Watson, you stupid cow!

Today, most of the originals haven't quite achieved anything of note. The ones that finished college have jobs completely unrelated to their majors. Amanda has several schemes, but she has mainly worked for Fed Ex for the last decade, Leah has not become the artist I thought she would be. Katie became anti-social in her teen years and became somewhat goth, changed the spelling of her name and now she sings in a goth rock band ( I guess thats something).

Me, I've started a business that I'm struggling to break even with, I played in a band that opened up for the Wu Tang Clan's RZA, then I had to quit and move away before recording anything with them, I worked at an amazing record studio for free, I went to one of the most prestigous music colleges but I was unable to afford it and dropped out after a year and a half, I have written several albums worth of songs and recorded most of them without vocal tracks (so they sit, unheard),

and need I mention that I have attended 4 different colleges with 3 different majors, amassing over 67 credits and have no degrees or certificates to show for it.

I'm working oon a plan though,

and it has nothing to do with "plastics"

Rock N' Roll Suicide

I've started a small band and I'm doing a four week intensive in Anthropology and College Algebra, so I've been away a while. I'm attending my fifth college right now.

A year after I graduated highschool I moved to Boston to attend Berklee College of Music, dropped out a year and a half later, moved back to Wisconsin, went to For His Glory Bible College for a year and a half, dropped out and got married. Then I moved to New York, went to Dowling College to study business, moved to California, and now I'm taking Gen Ed's at Santiago Canyon College (it's in a beautiful canyon surrounded by mountains) to transfer to Chapman University next year for Music Composition with a film emphasis.

At first I was nervous about being 27 in classes full of 19 year-olds, but there are some geezers in my class, so it's cool.

So today being one of my first "days off" in a while decided to squander it on the Internet. So far I've read three wikihow articles on how to clean mineral deposits out of your shower head ( soak it in a pot full of simmering -but not boiling - vinegar), how to clean a shower liner, how to get the mold smell out of a front load washer and dryer. I'm not really interested in how to do these things, I just kept clicking the links.

After a while I started searching arts & entertainment hows and found myself editing how to articles that sound like they were written by foreigners. Then I got a little creative with it. I had clicked on How to Form a Band - wikiHow out of curiosity because I've done it so many different ways, I wanted to know how others went about it. Towards then end I saw two naive steps in the process, "get signed by a label," and "get ready for stardom." I quickly deleted the first one and replaced the last one with this:

# Get famous, take up a debilitating drug and/or alcohol habit, lose the sense of who you are/were, go in and out of rehab, remarry a few times, quell the inner band fighting by throwing your mic at the drummer during his self-indulgent drum solo and flip off the audience while exiting the stage, get plowed in your trailer (extra points for overdosing), if the band confronts you with an intervention, go get your samurai sword that you picked up on your Japan tour and start swinging), break up the band, release a lackluster solo album, drop out of the public eye while your former glory is forgotten to the next two generations and your music goes out of fashion, spiral into a cycle of depression and substance abuse, alienating yourself from friends and family, walk onto the set of MTV's TRL and make a spectacle of yourself (this can also be done at any televised awards ceremony pre-show parties), enjoy a little bit of embarrassing notoriety (at least they'll know your name again), drop out of sight for ten or more years, sell your hit songs to commercials selling cars, mayonnaise, and feminine deodorant, sober up, find religion, make amends with your past and your band mates, do what is known in the industry as "staying relevant" by doing cameos on the Simpsons, playing a judge in Zoolander, or performing a show with Britney (if you are Britney, try a spot on Saturday Night Live, its the platform for stars who have fallen from grace and need to make good with the public by mocking their infamous behavior i.e. Winona Ryder and countless other scandal-ridden stars),plan a reunion tour, charge upwards of $150 a ticket, sell out shows worldwide, cancel shows due to drug/alcohol relapse, get your stuff together and keep rocking well into your sixties, remarry to someone younger and hotter, lather, rinse, and repeat, hang out to dry. A tangential version of this would be to find religion that doesn't allow music or the excess of stardom, release an album of watered down versions of your greatest songs with MOR world music beats and instruments.

I guess you get a bit jaded after reading about all your heroes and what happens to them. The above list contains similarities to stories of many of my favorites including David Bowie, Elvis Costello, Jeff Tweedy of Wilco, Sting and Police, Cat Stevens, David Lee Roth, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, and some of my non-favorites (Courtney Love)

The sword incident happened to me when my band mates and I intervened on our coke addled lead singer the night after he lost had our equipment trucked for being parked at bus stop in front of the strip club where he got drunk and subsequently botched our gig, forgetting lyrics to his songs and verbally berating the band and the audience. I'll spare you the story of the legal battles, I'm too busy wasting time on you tube now.