Monday, November 9, 2009

Fare Thee Well

Were he still among us, today would be Carl Sagan's 75th birthday. I've always respected the man immensely, and today, he and his philosophies weigh especially heavy on my mind. He is missed by many, and I feel the world is at a severe disadvantage in his absence. Below are a few of his more poignant messages for humankind.







And with that, I retire this blog. I may return to Internets in some form or another, and some place or another. I didn't know it when I started my little web journal here, but this was a finite thing, and now seems the right time to say good bye. Good bye.











Monday, June 8, 2009

AM 1000

         
And here's a version with better resolution for you qualityphiles out there.

Friday, May 29, 2009

Gosh, Blog,

I feel just rotten having forgotten about this thing for eighteen days. There were things getting between me and you, my public; things you wouldn't understand, shouldn't understand. I couldn't have updated, and I didn't have.

The last couple of weeks have been spent trying to reconcile my unemployment with my money-wasting lifestyle. The latter has shown to be the victor, and I fear morbid results are on the way.

Checks and balances; last week, I adopted a new cat from the Humane Society. His name's If Gary Busey Were a Cat, although we've been calling him If Gary. Then, yesterday, my mother calls to tell me my little old dog has died. She was the first living thing I was ever charged with caring for, although I never really took too gooda care of her. I remember once, I couldn't have been more than five, in the middle of the winter when I carried her up the stairs of our front porch, which couldn't have been more than four feet or so, holding her out over the icy garden, and dropping her into the yard on her back, I guess just to see what would happen. My mom yelled at me; I don't remember how I reacted immediately, but whenever I think about it now I feel awful, and shit if I'm not gonna miss the hell out of that little dog.

A more author-centric entry than usual, but I haven't been feeling all that ephemeral recently.

Monday, May 11, 2009

Extraordinary Rendition (of this song)



This entry dedicated to my wonderful mother, who hopefully isn't aware of this blog.

Friday, May 8, 2009

For the Love of Lightning

It has come to my attention that the site of Wardenclyffe Tower, Nikola Tesla's last and most ambitious project, is up for sale to whoever wants it and has $1.6 million.  Friends of Science East, a nonprofit organization whose name pretty well explains their mission, is working with the State of New York and Suffolk County to purchase the land from Agfa Corporation, the company which owns the land and manufactured photographic emulsions there, and which has threatened to destroy the buildings on the property (one of which was the laboratory, originally (I guess to make the land more appealing to developers?)).  

So, to quote Billy Joel (verbatim), "Who gives a shit?"  I do.  I give a huge, corny shit about this.  Tesla, to me, is easily the raddest dude of both the 19th and 20th Centuries.  

A little background about Wardenclyffe.  Tesla bought the 200-acre site in 1901, and on the land he built Wardenclyffe Tower, an early transmitter of wireless telegraphy and a facility which could be used to demonstrate the wireless transmission of electrical energy.  This revolutionary invention was initially backed by J.P. Morgan and other heavy hitters in industry, who believed the development of a wireless power grid/communication system would be very lucrative.

Then, however, Tesla gave a public speech about Wardenclyffe, during which he made the following statement:
"As soon as [the Wardenclyffe facility is] completed, it will be possible for a business man in New York to dictate instructions, and have them instantly appear in type at his office in London or elsewhere. He will be able to call up, from his desk, and talk to any telephone subscriber on the globe, without any change whatever in the existing equipment. An inexpensive instrument, not bigger than a watch, will enable its bearer to hear anywhere, on sea or land, music or song, the speech of a political leader, the address of an eminent man of science, or the sermon of an eloquent clergyman, delivered in some other place, however distant. In the same manner any picture, character, drawing, or print can be transferred from one to another place ..."

Tesla believed the services provided by the tower and others like it could provide a free, "world system", making telecommunications and electricity available to all people, all around the world.  Morgan and the other investors, however, disagreed with Tesla's philanthropic views and immediately withdrew funding.  Morgan also convinced other potential investors to avoid funding the project.  With the funding collapsing and debts mounting, Tesla eventually awarded the deed to the Wardenclyffe property to the owner of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in order to pay for his lengthy stay there.  In 1917, the tower itself was eventually demolished because the US Government believed it could be used by German spies.  He died penniless, insane, and obsessed with pigeons.

Friends of Science East wants to take the Wardenclyffe property and restore it to its brief former glory, with plans to place a museum and research center in the original structure, and to rebuild the 187-foot tower.  Although I assume anyone reading this will be one of my penniless friends, they have set up a fund, to which you are welcome to donate, which will hopefully gather enough money to allow the memory of Nikola Tesla's achievements to finally be recognized in a public venue.



Friday, May 1, 2009

Good Night, Sweet Prince

A couple of weeks ago, while I was at work, our (my roommates' and my) cat, Eliot "Three-Jay" Marcoullier, was struck and killed by a car, or an SUV, or a lorry, on Minneapolis' busiest thoroughfare.  It was a heartbreaking experience for all of us.  I loved the little guy to pieces, and the following video is dedicated entirely to him.

                
Here's a link for those who like their videos in better-than-youtube quality.
The music, by the way, is Duster Bennett's brutally moving "Everyday".


In Loving Memory
Three-Jay
2008-2009

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

I'll Steal It! NO ONE WILL EVER KNOW!



I saw a still from this posted on John K.'s animation blog, and it all came rushing back into my consciousness. I love Chuck Jones' sense of design on all the characters, and especially how Dan Backslide sort of looks like Mel Blanc.

Friday, April 10, 2009

Hark, a Canadian

They're on my blogroll already, but that just doesn't cut it.  Here is a short list of comic artists who I would open-mouth kiss and/or with whom I would enter into a common-law marriage:






In truth, I'm only interested in kissing girls, but I don't know if I could turn down Tim Kreider or the illustrious John K. if they asked nicely.  Also, the first two entries on the list are friends, so I can't help but imagine some sort of hazy, bohemian loft-turned-opium den in Uptown Minneapolis where I just sit around all day with two sexy lady artists and blow smoke into sunbeams.  That's the stuff.

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

This is Gonna Be a Good Summer

I can tell because my mood today is a mix of this



and this.


Crazy Love - Van Morrison & Bob Marley

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Friday, March 27, 2009

The House in the Middle



Goddamnit the '50's rocked. I saw this video awhile back when I was researching for a project, and I'd forgotten about it until now. Note how they use atomic paranoia not only to get folks to rake their yards, but also to get them to hate poor people! And you've gotta love how the golden reward for people who follow the CLEAN UP, PAINT UP, FIX UP campaign's credo is a charred shack lousy with nuclear fallout.

Also, I wish I'd known about this when I was in Scouts.

Two Facelifts for Sister Jeffrey

As I have become bored recently with this blog, I've decided to, yet again, make a few changes.  I'm trying out a few new names, because I think the Chicago Public Radio pun is getting a little old.  Once I find one I really like, I'll change my URL.  

Content-wise, I'm going to try to shift away from bitching about my endlessly trivial life and focus more on some of my passions:  nuclear explosions, naked girls from the '50's, and pedal steel guitars.  Expect things to get a whole lot more pretentious around here.

















Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Progress Report

Ok, let's put aside how new he is, how handsome he is and how black he is.  Let's put aside the fact that he's not his predecessor, and that his grandmother died a few months back.  Let's put aside the fact that John Roberts fucked up his oath of office, and let's put aside the fanfare and the hair-raisingly ironic Shepard Fairey propaganda, and the speech at the victory column.  In his two months of office, Barack Obama has been, in my humble and perhaps (PERHAPS) uninformed opinion, a pretty crappy president.  I know he's distracted by the strained economy, but even before that, even during the campaign, I never heard him (or John McCain, or Al Sharpton) breathe a word against the Patriot Act.  In fact, I don't think he ever mentioned it at all.  Now, I don't know if this is because he simply didn't have the time in all of his lofty, towering allocutions to say a little something about civil rights, or if he actually supports the legislation (See: Lord Acton's Dictum), or if I just haven't been paying enough attention.  But, I like to think I keep up on things, and I read most of the stories on the President when I scroll through the news every day, and I think that, even if I've missed some citation of the Patriot Act by America's Sweetheart, even if there's a reference to it tucked away in some far corner of the recorded media, my point stands unscathed.  Because, foks, this is EASILY the most vile piece of law to have come out of the last administration, and if Obama means business, he should be shouting its curses from the goddamn White House roof.  This may seem nitpicky of me, but, you know, it's one of the biggest mistakes ever made by our Government, and I haven't heard so much as an apology from anyone for, like, eight years of bullshit man.  
Now, I ALSO haven't heard anything about No Child Left Behind, which is also extremely bothersome, Especially since the President came out of a part of the country that was really taken advantage of by it.  And now I'm hearing that we're spending the better part $700,ooo,ooo to keep Mexican drug dealers out of the United States.  Frankly, aside from what Obama has said he plans to do at some point, I haven't seen enough of a difference between the old boss and the new boss to get me to vote again in four years.  This may change, and I hope it does.

Monday, March 23, 2009

Maybe I'm too Smart to Sleep

Welp, the passion's gone from my life. It left the moment we had a 60-degree day with sun and thawed dirt. Passion, usurped in an instant by the immature freewheeliness of spring. Not until autumn's whipping winds will I again find the perceptive tunnel vision required for me to pull it together and do something. All I can think of as it becomes warmer and friendlier outside is kites and tall steel slides and the smell of crayons. I wish meeting girls in the park was as easy as John Cusack makes it look. I can't wait to start finding tufts of nylon fibers stuck on benches again.

I deleted my facebook about three weeks ago, and my anxiety levels have dropped like a baby bird on the sidewalk. But my connections to the tangential people are shriveling like a baby bird on the sidewalk. Still, I'm finding a lot more time to sit around and be bored, which is something I didn't have enough of before now.

I'm currently taking an introductory course in logic. I'd always thought before now that I was a reasonable, logical person, and now I've been forced to abandon that fantasy like a mother bird who pushes her babies out of the nest and has to watch their swollen, purple, ugly, ugly eyes pop like blueberries on the sidewalk. I miss the feeling of intellectual superiority I once had over people who suck, and I'm finding that I'm pretty much a know-nothing with a head full of 1996 Guinness facts and no real smarts, and those sucky folks have probably had the right idea all along.

Happy Spring!

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

I Tried So Hard to Share Your Fun

I'm finding it more and more difficult to justify having this blog. I live with all the people who read it, and in the course of conversation at home, I usually repeat whatever's on here directly to them, and I always show them my comics with the gusto of a Pokémon kid well before they're posted on this meaningless Wyoming billboard of a web journal. I've had maybe 20 or 30 different people look at this thing since I started it almost a year ago. And let's be realistic, now: the only reason any of us posts anything on the internet is so that we can get attention for it. Nobody does anything just because. Some people get a certain therapeutic sensation from writing on a blog, but as anyone who reads this particular blog can likely tell, that's not the case for me. I don't really get any satisfaction from writing things down I already know in my head, because nobody's going to see them anyway. So for now, everybody, I guess just brace yourselves for something of a lapse in publishing.

Monday, March 9, 2009

Monsters of Bach

I've started listening to only classical music lately, as much as someone can really "only" voluntarily listen to one kind of music. Maybe it's just that I'm going through a non-musical phase, but I don't think so. I don't really miss rock n' roll or pop or even jazz all that bad; and I think I would miss classical quite a bit if it were somehow stripped away from me. Maybe it's because I've been spoon-fed the young-people stuff since I was little by my parents and friends. It's like some weird, weird psychological thing whereby in order to gain independence from my immediate circumstance, I run to the biggest status quo in music. I think it must be the same way Alice Cooper became a Republican. This is not to say I'm a musical Luddite; I still prefer composers of whom there are photographs to composers of whom there are only portraits. I'm just sick of trying to keep up with the newest Santogold release as if I give a shit, and of keeping company with hipsters far hipper who will always be more on top of it than I am, and of being told that hearing a new song I like in a movie is the wrong, dumb people way to discover music. And I'm sick of tall, birdlike women and tall, birdlike men who wear quilted nylon coats and skinny jeans, teetering around Uptown like blueberries stuck on twigs, who go to progressive films and "care" about "tolerance" but who still have this whole bizarre, elitist Cult of Beauty thing going on, uniforms and all. Now, if anyone really reads this, I'm likely to catch flak about never having been a true "music person" in the first place, an accusation about which I don't PARTICULARLY care. It might also be you could criticize my syntax and word choices today as "pretentious," which is fine. I'd rather be a pretentious jerk with a vocabulary grounded in dictionary English than just another internet dolt, lolling and fapping around in a deep, deep well of stupid, stupid people with no individual personalities or thoughts.

Thursday, March 5, 2009

Space, Space.

A bunch of interesting stuff I've been running across lately:


The Barbarian Group is a weird design/advertising firm that makes all sorts of interesting digital gizmos and software.  They're probably most notable for designer Robert Hodgin's brilliant, beautiful Magnetosphere visualizer.

These dudes are just plain fucking awesome.








Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead

Late Night with Conan O'Brien - The Last Late Night Good Night


I know this is almost a week old, and that everybody who really wanted to see it likely did so as it was broadcast last Friday evening. But I've gotta pay tribute in whatever way I know how (copy-pasting html code) to one of my big-time heroes. Thanks, Conan.

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Victory in Spades, Victory by Coupon, Victory on Reserve

As I whimpered in my last entry, I apologize for the lapse in my usually faithful, near-daily posting. As an apology, I have for you readers today not one, but THREE brand new comics for you to eye-fuck. The first is one in yet another (potential) series, which is yet untitled (because I can't think of a clever pun for it. Basically, ya got yer tarot cards. They're supposed to be magical, an' maybe they are, I don't know. But all people really want to ask about is whether or not they're gonna have 'em some sex or get rich or any such thing in an array of selfish nonsense, or they want it to tell them something they already think, or to do something they already want to do. So this series is dedicated, in whatever strange way, to that whole mess. This particular little number is the dreaded NINE OF BUTTHOLES:



This second illustration is only the second actual comic strip I've posted on here, and at the behest of my seasoned colleague and roommate, I doodled it. This was a good idea, both because I didn't feel like dedicating the time and energy to fully illustrating five panels for a cheap joke, and because I need to work on my doodling skills. Note that drew three different Batmans in three different panels. I know looking at it is sort of like watching a WNBA game--all fundamentals and no slam-dunks--but I need to affirm my existence by foisting even my worst work onto other people. , if you like funny Batman comics, be sure to click on this highlighted section of text. Anyways:


I don't have too much to say about this last installment. I'm a big fan of guns, dinosaurs, and nuclear explosions, and I think that comes out pretty well in this piece. Also, you'll notice President Bush's head conveniently blocks out a portion of the caption which contains the name of the recipient of this drawring. I assure you that you wouldn't be missing out on anything more interesting than a former statesman's befuddled expression if I moved it out of the way. A man's gotta protect his peers' identities, don't he?

Friday, February 20, 2009

Update Announcement and Short Grievance

Sorry about the delay in posting.  Believe it or not, I've been drawing all week, but I've been lazy about getting back up on that horse (scanner) again.  

In other news, EVERYBODY STOP REFERRING TO EVERYTHING AS (adjective)sauce.  IT MAKES NO SENSE, AND YOU'RE ALL STUPID FOR HAVING THOUGHT WELL ENOUGH OF IT TO INJECT IT INTO EVERYDAY VERNACULAR.  NOTHING IS RADSAUCE, AWESOMESAUCE, OR ANY OTHER KIND OF SAUCE.  JUST SPEAK NORMALLY, FOR GOD'S SAKE.

Saturday, February 14, 2009

Bury My Valentine at Wounded Knee


I love V-Day.

PS-I hate V-Day

PPS-Special thanks to R. Crumb for lending his shading technique and his consistent bitterness to this cartoon.

Friday, February 13, 2009

Wantings of a Cloud

Today's comic is part one of a series of superhero trading cards with characters based on vernacular used primarily by Cultural Studies students. The series is tentatively called "Major Cultural's Colleague Batallion", and our repertoire of goodies and baddies will grow in size as I feel the inclination. I've started with a villain because they're more fun to draw. Special thanks to CSCL professor Kysa Hubbard for inspiring this series.

PS-Keep your eyelids paperclipped open for tomorrow's special holiday comic.

Friday, February 6, 2009

"Fairy Larvae", by Franz Kafka


You can see I got a little hasty with the text at the bottom. It's hard to be patient when you're writing captions, because they don't have perky breasts or spittle dribbling out of their fat, ravenous faces. Also, the fairy has a bit of a man-bum.

PS-A special thanks to Jess Fink for indirectly contributing to today's comic; I looked at pictures she drew of herself to try to figure out how to draw pretty fairy ladies. She's sort of my crush in the cartooning biz.

Thursday, February 5, 2009

All Creatures, Great and Small

I've decided, in an attempt to consolidate my efforts of both comics-drawing and blogs-writing, that I will be posting my work in comics and illustration on this here blog. This saves me work and solves a few issues about the weight of what I usually post on this thing. Comic strips are like Sharks fruit snacks: fun-size, sweet, and not a big investment of time or consideration. So anyways, before you lies my first formal attempt at a strip. It's the first in a series of comics I'm planning to draw based on Overheard in Minneapolis quotes. If you've never heard of Overheard in Minneapolis, you're in for a treat. So anyways, I'm calling the series Overherd in Minneapolis, because barnyard humor is, like, the funniest. This first entry elaborates on a post originating from "The following silence was painful", and is narrated by America's favorite sexually liberated parrots, Giancarlo and Crackers. Yep (Sorry about all the sudden formatting issues; if you click on the comic it'll take you to a page where you can see the whole thing):

Parrots

Monday, February 2, 2009

Cogitatin'

Welp, I do believe it's time for yet another change in my blog. I've been usin' 'er as sort of a publishing house for whatever funny or interesting shit I find on internets, which I guess is sort of what Mediation does, and that won blog of the year last(?) year. Meanwhile, most of my profile views come from me, checking to see if anyone has visited my profile. I need something new in here. Sure, posting things made by other people to make oneself look cool by association is an honorable and even an important service. Culture is a lonely, individual experience without dispensaries to spread it around and mush it all together. But I want to be the peanut butter, not the knife. I lust to create things that people think are cool enough to send to their friends and to write praising articles about for alternative newspapers and zines and shit. I've been reading a lot of comic blogs lately, and it makes me wish I wasn't such a shitty graphic artist. Blogs are not the place to drop the kind of heavy truth I'm spitting, and the only ones I read are fraught with short entries and brief, though sometimes profound messages. So, I don't know. Maybe expect some sort of drawings soon.

Sunday, February 1, 2009

History's Raddest Black Dudes

This, like the last volume of "History's Raddest Dudes", should require little introduction. I always try to do something special for Black History Month, and it always seems to come out sounding condescending, ignorant, or uncultured. So this year, I've decided to keep my message as simple and straightforward as possible: I love all black people.

You'll forgive me if some of my choices in this edition are a bit obvious; I'm not as much on the up and up with black history as I might like to be. So anyways, here's what I got:

George Washington Carver




Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez (See also: Guion Bluford)





Saturday, January 31, 2009

Take One Look and Die

High school fucking sucks. God this blog is awesome.





Ace Of Spades

Friday, January 30, 2009

Hannity Fair

I've realized that in order to have a successful (by which I mean, "serviceably popular") blog, I must choose from a very few, unenticing options:

1. I can look for other bloggers who share my interests and sense of humor, join a community, and network until I'm satisfied with my level of internet celebrity (puke).

2. I can post violent, daily rants of a racist/sexist/capitalist/nationalist/Christian/xenophobic nature and just wait until a bunch of angsty high school kids find my blog and try to retaliate with a morass of spelling and grammar errors.

3. I can become famous like Diablo Cody, write entries about what I did today, and then watch as thirty five to fifty MySpace users ejaculate in the direction of even my boringest drivel.

These options all sound like more trouble than they're worth, so I guess I'll remain in the same rut as a few dozen million of my fellow Americans: writing in a glorified, involuntarily private digital journal, waxing poetic to myself about our wonderful black president. One thing I believe the User-Generated Content Generation has yet to face is that, despite our newfound access to information and our sudden ability to network with almost anyone on the planet, most of us are just putting ourselves out there for the world to ignore. Our culture is no more intimate today than it was 25 years ago; at least not on a social level. It is, however, filled with infinitely more misspelled racial epithets, pseudo-intellectualism, and videos of fat people falling down.

Saturday, January 24, 2009

Friday, January 23, 2009

YES.

President Obama Is a Baby-Killer.

Furthermore, He Kills Babies.

Finally, the Prolocaust is here. Let us celebrate with a massive, Swiftian community potluck.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

HIMOMMYI'MREADYFORMYFIRSTDAYOFSCHOOL

Photobucket

From the Desk of U.S. Congressman Tim Walz/Philip Jones Hart:

Dear Readers,
Welp, it's our scary black man President's first day on the beat. I know many of you may be frightened by the implications therein. Is America ready for four consecutive years pretending to celebrate Black History Month? Is she ready for three consecutive years of feeling a little guiltier on Martin Luther King day? Can she withstand sweeping social policy reforms, a renewed interest in international diplomacy, and a Commander in Chief who goes shirtless at the beach?

I know y'all're a little dismayed about this next term. Yer thinking, "this time tomorrow there's going to be tribadism and intercrural sex in the streets and alleyways". Yer thinking, "This guy's gonna just come in here and black everything up for us". Yer thinking, "There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing, result from marijuana usage. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers and any others". And I hope yer right,ya buncha turkeys.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Color Guard, Post the Colors




NOW: Pres. Obama Watches Parade
COMING UP: Crowd Estimate from Exclusive Satellite Image
LATER: The Republican Party Collectively Screws the Fuck Off

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Sleep Walk

Rather than my usual rant about something stupid, something irrelevant, or something I know nothing about, I will, for once, discuss what's really making me so angsty. I hate my life. At this moment, I can't fathom one positive thing. There is no joie de vivre, no pep, no pleasure, no anticipation. The idea of one more conscious minute is agonizing. I want for everyone in my life to stop caring about me so I can be done with it, so I can take my farewell ride with no regrets and no teary-eyed maidens at my back. None of the people to whom I've ever pledged my heart has ever wanted it. It is expected that we should cling to life, but I feel I am instead shackled to it. Perhaps this will change, but it's a deep, deep well I've excavated, and I'm not gazing up for want of a lifeline.