Monday, December 29, 2008

Here's the Truth

I was going to make a flyer, and there's still plenty of time, but why bother?

I Shot a Warhol Quarter-Century Birthday Bash aka Never Better Tour
Friday, February 20, 2009
Rock & Roll Hotel
1353 H Street, NE
Washington, DC 20002

Performances by:

P.O.S.
Sims
Mike Mictlan + Lazerbeak are Hand Over Fist

$10 in advance/$12 at the door

Come celebrate my quarter-century mark with me, while partying with the guys of Minneapolis, Minnesota's Doomtree! I'm going to have a blast by default. It'll probably be the best time of your life, so start saving your money to get through the door, get your train/plane tickets, taxi/bus/Metro fare, and hotel accomodations.

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Hold Me

Hold Me is a custom made longboard fabricated by the father of a friend, who made this deck specifically for another friend of mine.

Once my buddy got his hands on the board, he opted, rather than put grip tape on it for control, that he would place artificial turf on it, because he rides barefoot.

He was happy with the board up until that point, and this is where I come in. He asked me to lace his longboard with a graphic, and naturally I accepted the request.

What kind of imagery fits with artificial turf? I'm not entirely sure, but I didn't want anything that screamed, Obvious!

I struggled for months (yes, months) with an image to stencil on this board, but being that it's Christmas, I figured now is the best time to get crackin' on this piece. Mental revision after mental revision was made, but here we are. Low and behold, when pandas attack! Hold me!

Loyalty

Loyalty is a stencil piece that I did for a charity event earlier in the year called Barkitecture. Without getting into too many specifics about the event, it raises money through selling art, in order to benefit the Faithful Friends no-kill animal shelter here in Wilmington. So, it was for a good cause.

Out of all the dogs and cats on the planet, I went with Lassie. Why? Why Lassie? My question to you would be, why not Lassie?

When I think of loyal pets, I think of Lassie, in all of her splendor, attempting great feats of courage, strength, and loyalty. I view Scots as being the same way (or at least the few that I've met and know). The breed of dog is a rough collie, which originated in Scotland, hence the tartan.

The tartan is not made from a pattern I happened to dream up. In fact, the tartan is based on that of the Scottish royal guard.

Everything on the canvas is stenciled or was taped off, with the exception of the overlapping blue stripes. That part I'm not giving away, but nothing on there is free-hand, or crafted with a brush. Even the script in the lower left-hand corner is stenciled.

This is something I wish I still had, but I'm glad it was able to help the animals a little bit.

Monday, December 22, 2008

Never Got Above 25 Degrees

I meant to post on this a couple weeks ago—with pictures—but I ended up not really documenting it too well. Therefore, this is what I have.

I went to Minneapolis during the first week of December for a huge concert known as the Doomtree Blowout IV. The group Doomtree has made the Blowout an annual show, and this year was the fourth iteration of it, held at First Avenue (as made famous in the movie, Purple Rain).

The night before was the Happy Holidays Tour at the 7th St. Entry (a part of First Ave.), put on by Black Clover Records.

Both shows were fun, but the Blowout was absolute insanity! Just pure bananas!

That Sunday was a lot of sitting around, and Monday...well, I'll talk about that Monday when the day comes.

For the most part, I want to thank everyone who made my trip so great. So shout out to Plain Ole Bill, all of Doomtree, Mac Lethal, Alicia Steele, Noam the Drummer, FranzDiego.com, and all the folks over at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design.

And yeah, it was cold, but so what. I was born in the winter, I'm not phased by it.

Saturday, December 20, 2008

This is the BIG One

I Shot a Warhol's Quarter-Century Birthday Bash

Friday, February 20, 2009

More details to come!

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Thank You, Kind Sir

I sit here in my apartment on my couch, taking part in my daily ritual of vegetating on my couch while watching The Simpsons in syndication. Anyone who's seen the show knows that it's one of the greatest series to ever grace the television.

Now, many people who have had meaningful conversations with me know where I stand when it comes to domestic and foreign relations. Essentially, I feel that, "charity starts in la casa..." With that said, I have no problem with people who attempt to aid others in foreign nations, but there are so many here in our land who need our help just as much.

Even still, many people in some of the worst situations here in the United States of America are better off than people of many nations throughout the world. My dad told me that people in the projects here live like kings compared to people in Iraq (he's in the military). Why wouldn't I believe my father?

During a break, a commercial came on about a laptop that can be purchased and sent to children in developing nations. The laptop goes simply by, XO. The computer can be purchased for $199, then gets sent to children in countries abroad. To find out more about the device, visit www.amazon.com/xo, or stop by www.laptop.org.

Although, if the $199 price tag is a little out of your budget, you can always give the gift of a LifeStraw. I first heard about the LifeStraw during a presentation by an industrial designer, who mentioned the wonderful invention, which makes any water, no matter how dirty it is, possible to drink. How much will the LifeStraw set you back if it's peaked your interest? Well, not much at all. The water purification device will only cost those interested a mere $5, which allows for the purchase of multiple straws.

What's a few lives, right?

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Shooting at Clay Pigeons

Recently I took a trip to Minneapolis, MN for the Doomtree Blowout IV. The trip itself was the best time of my life, but I'll save that for another time. Another time just may be my memoirs, should I live long enough to actually have memoirs.

What this is really about is my flight to Mpls, and my flight back from Mpls.

I booked my trip through Expedia.com, and props to them for their great service, so they weren't my problem. My issue is with AirTran. I had some minor setbacks in booking my trip, but I'm not really trying to point any fingers here or there. Essentially, I unintenionally delayed my booking of the trip by about three weeks, due to the involvement of other parties. Not a single party, but a few different ones.

Rather than having a direct flight to the Twin Cities, I ended up stuck on a connecting flight. That's partially my fault, because I opted to spend less money, rather than shelling out an additional $60 or so, to which I later regretted. The flight was to take me from Philly, to Atlanta, GA, to Mpls. The return trip was the exact opposite.

I boarded the plane in Philadelphia, and as the plane was about to take off, the captain announces to all of the passangers that the ceiling has fallen in ATL, forcing us to stay put until further notice. They didn't expect the delay to be long, which is why I would have left anyway, and arrived on-time. Then again, I'm not a pilot. We finally left after I have no clue how long, and made our way down to Georgia. Reaching our destination, I made my way off the plane, but had to run from one terminal to another. On my way I stopped to look at the Arrival/Departure screen to see where I stood in the world. Apparently I stood stranded in Atlanta, because my connecting flight still left at it's scheduled departure time!

Wait a second! My flight gets delayed, because of the weather, no planes are allowed to leave ATL, or fly into ATL, yet after the weather clears up, everything is back on to it's original schedule? I'm plumf***ingconfused here! I understand that delays happen, but for passengers to be penalized for something they have no control over, is absurd!

After the AirTran personnel told me they couldn't do anything for me until the next morning, I scrambled for a way out of Atlanta, because I refused to stay in the airport overnight, mainly because I had an appointment to keep in Mpls the following morning at 10 am, not to mention I still had to check into my hotel. Making my way over to the Delta gates, as they had a flight out to Mpls within the next 20 minutes, I asked for seat availability. The associate at the desk assured me that seats were in fact available, but that I may not want one after he tells me the price. Telling him that he has no idea how desperate I am, I asked for the seat. $379.50! I'll take it. I needed to run down the terminal, hop on a phone, and book the flight with Delta.

I watched the time on the clock tick, tick, tick away, as I sat on the phone awaiting the voice of a representative to aid me in my departure from Atlanta to Minneapolis. With about three minutes to go until the flight was to depart, a voice answered and took my information. With the charges tacked on, the total now came to $399.50! This is where shelling out the extra $60 or so would have come in handy.

The Delta flight was quaint in comparison to the AirTran flight, simply because it wasn't sold out, the seats were nicer, the plane overall was nicer, and there was no sense of clostraphobia present. I had room to breathe, and no reason to feel confined by my seat, the other passangers, or even the recirculated cabin air. Rather than a 10:30 pm arrival in Mpls, I got there around 11:30 pm, and made it to my hotel around 12:30 am.

The return was once again on AirTran. They were already batting an average less than Michael Jordan's when he played for the Chicago White Sox minor league team.

There was a delay in the Twin Cities due to snowfall, so the plane needed to be de-iced before take-off. How long we waited, I'm not sure of, but we made it down south with time to spare. In a sense, I'm happy for that delay, because it kept me from goint stir crazy in the terminal. The flight to Philly is a different story.

To my left on the airplane was a family: a mother, father, son, and daughter. In front of me was another family: a mother, father, son, and baby daughter. Behind me was yet another family: a mother, father, and child who kept kicking the back of my seat. Try to guess how thrilled I was. The baby in front of me was reassuring me that it's quite okay not to have children, as did the child behind me. Every once in awhile, the fresh smell of baby poop would waft in the air, taunting me, knowing that I had no escape route.

What really got me was when the stewardesses were walking about the plane offering refreshments, everyone around was served, but I was ignored. I didn't exist in this woman's eyes. I looked straight at her as she kindly inquired about what the man and his son to my left would like to have, then brought them back to them, but still neglected to look toward the window. At first I thought families were being served before the rest of the plane, but it turns out that everyone was actually being served—just not me.

Between the neglect, the screaming/crying/pooping baby, the child kicking my chair, being pressed up against the window in an uncomfortable seat, hunger, thirst, overheating, and knowing that your breathing the same air in as all these other people, irritability sets in, and it's enough to drive a man to near meltdown.

I have always loved Philadelphia, so seeing the city from the sky, was a welcomed sight. Stepping foot off the plane was enough to make me want to kiss the ground. And I would have, should Philly not be so damn filthy.

I called AirTran to complain, and as I suspected, they told me that they weren't responsible for the weather, blah blah blah, so there's no compensation or anything else. As for the lack of service on my way to Philadelphia, they gave me a $25 voucher for my next trip with them, which is good for a year from the date of the incident.

Hooray, a whole $25 for an airline I refuse to ever do business with again. Disgruntled people suck, because they do things like this, and recommend to everyone they know not to use a particular group's services in the future. That's pretty much what I'm doing.

AirTran, you lost a customer, and potenially a lot more.