Not being able to find the print online of my favorite artwork...

 

Kurt Vonnegut's self portrait, which also contains his signature, is by far, one of my favorite pieces of art, so much that I have it tattooed on my body (the flesh depicted is indeed my body). The story behind the actual print is that Vonnegut, my favorite writer, was sitting in his Saab dealership on his 82nd birthday and drew a self portrait and signed it. It is featured in his book A man without a country, towards the back, next to my favorite poem of his, the first line being "This crucified planet earth."

Not that it's a super well-drawn portrait, or that it's groundbreaking in any way, this doodle of Vonnegut's is great because of what it symbolizes, which is Vonnegut himself, including everything that he ever was. I'm not a fan of tattoos, but I, out of adventure, decided to get one, and faced with the decision of something that I'd want on my body for the rest of my life, I chose Vonnegut's self portrait/ signature without even thinking twice.

A girl, a rock and a cat.

There was this rock that me and her used to sit on outside of our building. It wasn't really a rock, it was more of a piece of a statue that had fallen off because of weather erosion, or because the city of Atlanta decided they wanted to tear down the building, either way it was there. And we called it the rock.

On the big slab of granite, being supported by three pillars of concrete, there was a scene of a bunch of people, looking like they worked on a farm or something, judging by their clothes. They all had coffee mugs, that was where me and her would put our cigarette butts when we sat on the rock. We'd sit there in the fall, for hours at a time talking about everything.

A frequent visitor of our rock, there was a black cat that we named The Great Catsby. He was a bootlegger, and in himself a critique of the American dream. He was an alley cat that roamed Atlanta, probably had turf that was his and kept other cats off of it. He was the boss. We believed in that stupid cat, it couldn't have been more than three months old when we first saw him, then we started to bring food out and leave it for Catsby, and over the months we saw him grow.

She and I stopped talking, not just on the rock, but all together. I fucked her best friend, and she ran off with a friend of mine from high school. I still see that rock from the road when i drive by it. The thing looks like trash now, cars have wrecked into it, birds shit all over it, and it's covered in broken glass.

I used to see the cat, it looked starved. You're not supposed to feed stray animals, because they get used to it, and stop learning how to hunt or find their own food. When me and her were still friends, we'd feed that damn cat, and it forgot how to survive on it's own. And then when she and I stopped being friends, the cat stopped eating. Catsby's probably dead now, our spirit of the American dream, so thin you could see it's ribs, overcome with disease and mange.

Today looks as awesome as it feels.

Why?

I read this article the other day, and it pissed me off at first, but then I just accepted it I guess.

Most cops are dicks. I know lots of cops personally that are pretty cool people to be around, but that's when they're not being cops. They are just being friends. I'm sure though, that when they go into uniform, they're dicks.

I understand it, I would hate my job if I were a cop too, but the one in the article must have really been having a bad day. Like his dog probably died, his girlfriend broke up wit him, he got demoted for being friends with underage drinkers and he probably got a parking ticket and wasn't in the mood for any smartass bullshit. Not to say that the lady asking "why" was just being a smartass, but you never know, she could have said it in a way to intentionally piss of the cop.

Working in service, I saw it all the time. People just like to think they're better than the person who is supposed to be "serving" them in any way. They think that since the person behind the counter, or in this case, in a uniform, is paid by me, so they should have to take my bullshit whenever I feel like dealing it out.

But that's not how it should be, we all have bad days and have to put up with stuff we don't necessarily feel like putting up with on a given day, however there's no excuse.

My sympathy is on the cop's side here, I don't think he just out of the blue arrested this woman when she asked why she had to move, I don't believe that that was all she said, and I feel bad that the cop is being ridiculed by the newspaper and all, just for doing his job. It is true though, that maybe he could just have let her off with a warning, but he earned his cuffs, along with the authority to use them.

Wednesday Video

This video is full of juxtaposition. There are a number of objects that flash on screen in-between shots to make the viewer see something in a certain light.

For instance, showing the weird vampire looking dudes, and then the liquid falling from someone's mouth implies that the liquid is blood, or the other way around perhaps. No one would really think that the guy with makeup on s a vampire, but if that shot is played next to a shot of blood dripping out of someones mouth, than the thought that this person is a vampire is a little more likely.

Now, why Jay Z chose to pick these characters for his video (almost making it look like a promo for True Blood or something) I'll never know. Jay Z has always been incredibly mysterious to me. I mean, he never really tells too much about his life. And for being so famous, he seems pretty introverted, adding to his mystery.

I'm pretty sure that Jay Z is an Illuminati, or at least a Freemason, or even a shriner. Either way, he's mysterious as fuck, and it makes me respect him even more. And since he's married to Beyonce, he probably knows the real reason that Destiny's Child broke up, and that's knowledge that I'm sure the government wants, so Jay Z is most likely part of some big CIA cover up, to protect himself, as well as Beyonce.

Analyzing a Monday video.

"Cut Your Hair" by California band, Pavement is all about the music scene. It's all about the sudden bloom of new bands, and in all different genres, the singer references "cutting hair" as a change. Meaning hair is the thing that is getting too popular. And that cutting hair would cut back on all of the spontaneousness of things would slow down by doing a spontaneous thing- cutting your hair.

Friday Op/Ed Piece

Okay, it's not curling, but this sport definitely fits into the WTF category of the winter Olympics in my book.

Most Olympic winter games are things that the atheletes already do for fun, such as skiing, snowboarding, ice skating/ speed skating, and [cringe] curling, but what what people are skiing and shooting for leisure?

My mind first goes to some sort of alpine snipers, akin to "bikini stranglers" who go to ski lodges and kill tourists for fun. They wake up in the morning, pick up their weapon of choice for the day and hit the slopes. While they're skiing down the mountains, they pick out a group of girls in fuzzy pink ski wear that are there to get away from the boys for the weekend, and just relax with some skiing. Well, our biathlon gold medalist doesn't like this. So he decided to follow them down the mountain until he picks the first one to kill. She's dead, and the other girls freak out, first stopping to see that she's dead, and they decode to go for help. as they ski down the mountain further, the sniper picks off another one, and this fashion continues until they're all dead and our killer is on his way to the Olympics.