Sunday Drive

Hey, baby!

You wanna cruise?

What's in a Name

Best show bike name ever?

The Pink Taco.

How can that be topped?

Beyond the show scene, whenever somebody as what you have been up to - "Riding The Pink Taco, every chance I get."

No details on this other than what you can see, as seen at the GNRS.

That is one hot Pink Taco.

Eye of the Tiger

I am putting you all on notice...

The Year of the Tiger is coming up, according to the Chinese calender.

It is going to be awesome.

Like a tiger.

I will be listening to this song for the entirety of The Year of the Tiger.

Because it is awesome.

I am talking constant repeat.

For the whole 365 days, or however long a Chinese year is.

If you are planning on hanging out with me, in the next year or so, let me just go ahead and say -

No, I will not change the music. We are listening to Survivor. This song is awesome.

Chinese New Years starts on February 14th, I think.

While you are getting all kissy-smootch-faced, you should play this song.

You will, most definately, score.

This song is that awesome.

Year of the Tiger!

The Eye of the Tiger!

No Time for None

Robbing the Rainbow

Words

"The mere word freedom is the only one that still excites me. I deem it capable of indefinitely sustaining the old human fanaticism. It doubtless satisfies my only legitimate aspiration. Among all the many misfortunes to which we are heir, it is only fair to admit that we are allowed the greatest degree of freedom of thought. It is up to us not to misuse it. To reduce the imagination to a state of slavery—even though it would mean the elimination of what is commonly called happiness—is to betray all sense of absolute justice within oneself." – Andre Breton

27

Taco Truck Tuesday

So You Think You Can Dance?

The Ultra edition.

Barbara Kruger

Time for another art post.

I saw that there is a retrospective of early work from Barbara Kruger up in London.

Kruger may be my super-favorite visual artist.

I could talk about that myself, but I will allow the exhibit promo to reduce my keystrokes.

Using contrasting layers of text and image, Kruger’s work has for almost three decades probed the nature of a media-saturated society in late capitalism, and the significance of highly evolved cultures of consumerism and mass politics to the experience and making of social identities. In addition to offering acute, indeed often piquant cultural insights, Kruger’s work also presents a serious conceptual exploration into the relationship between language and image, and their dynamics as collaborators and antagonists in the bearing of meaning. The artist’s unique blend of conceptual sophistication and wry social commentary has made Kruger one of the most respected and admired artists of her generation...

How could I not like it?

You can see much more here.

Go Write a Novel

Just something to think about-

...everyone (with the least bit of inclination) should write a novel, and society would be much better off for it. Like so many forms of introspection (in many ways the enemy of fundamentalists and political zealots of all stripes), it can be one of life’s great pleasures, but (unlike many others) is not one that falls into the category of immediate gratification (like say, that mammoth black-and-white cookie I just scarfed down). It’s sort of like running a marathon; you have to train to build up to it and maintain some discipline, but ultimately, when you cross the finish line (even if you had to crawl the last __ miles or walk part of the way), you’re going to feel a great sense of accomplishment (even — or especially — if you didn’t win), and for at least a few seconds have some warm fuzzies about being alive and completing something that nobody will ever be able to take away from you. Whether the novel will be ‘good’ or not — much less successful, however you want to define that (but let’s think about it in crass, commercial terms as opposed to a sense of accomplishment) — is a completely different question, and I tend to think that not so many people have it in them to be ‘great’ novelists, much the way only a few runners can ever expect to win a marathon, because I think it requires a certain obsessive personality that falls way outside the boundaries of what most people would consider ‘normal’ and often borders on the psychotic. (Hey!) What I think NaNoWriMo demonstrates (and perhaps to echo Choire’s optimism) is that increasing numbers of people crave some justification to be alone and think about their shit for at least one month of their lives, because society in the modern (i.e., capitalistic) era demands a lot of fucking attention just to survive, and you can easily let your entire life slip away without pondering the (generally unproductive in the economic sense, but intellectually rewarding albeit probably depressing) questions of why we’re even here to begin with, what the purpose of life is, and so on. So yeah, writing any kind of novel is a tiny revolution, and that alone is a reason for hope (and there aren’t too many of those floating around in 2k9, n’est-ce pas?)

I found this through the Tomorrow Museum which found Matthew Gallaway rambling here...

I think maybe I should write a novel, after I finish building my own car and taking over the world.

Sunday Drive

Who wants to go?

Sleighbells

Are you listening?

After Work?

Hey!

What are you doing after work?

I wanted to "talk".

Frito Pie Friday

I have no explanation for why I continue to feature Frito Pie on Fridays.

Deluge

Still raining here...

They are measuring it in inches per hour.

I am sure we will be fine.

And soggy.

Still better here than Haiti, if you are planning a vacation...

History

Well...

You sure don't see that everyday.

I mean I don't.

You might be a lot cooler than me.

Taco Truck Tuesday

7089

Sometimes, you have to break a few laws to make things right.

Manager Monday

toothpaste for dinner

OMG! It's Not a Bomb!

I assume you saw this story, about the kid who scared his middle school with a non-bomb?

SAN DIEGO — Students were evacuated from Millennial Tech Magnet Middle School in the Chollas View neighborhood Friday afternoon after an 11-year-old student brought a personal science project that he had been making at home to school, authorities said.

Maurice Luque, spokesman for the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department, said the student had been making the device in his home garage. A vice principal saw the student showing it to other students at school about 11:40 a.m. Friday and was concerned that it might be harmful, and San Diego police were notified.

The school, which has about 440 students in grades 6 to 8 and emphasizes technology skills, was initially put on lockdown while authorities responded.

Luque said the project was made of an empty half-liter Gatorade bottle with some wires and other electrical components attached. There was no substance inside.

No bomb, turns out, it was an electronics project.

The kid was actually using his head.

He was making things.

Making things.

Christ, this story pisses me off and bums me out.

This story speaks to our national economic decline, while simultaneously pointing out our de-spine-ification.

The kid was even in a school where science and technology is pushed in the curriculum.

You would think that the teachers and staff would be used to seeing stuff that kids made, that has wires and lights and stuff.

That is what kids are supposed be doing right?

Figuring out how things work...

Becoming the future thinkers, makers and leaders of this country...

Right?

Ahh, hell...

Sliding Cars

I have been in a pretty foul mood for a few moments.

Totally justified, mind you, and well above my usual state of ill-temperedness.

Anyway, I am not going to bitch about that.

Today...

I am not going to go off on some tangent about Haiti or Fox News.

We both are well aware that the situation of either is ghastly...

No, today I suggest we just watch some sliding, crashing cars.

It makes me feel better.

I Get Around

Alright, I will just come out with it...

I like The Beach Boys more than The Beatles.

Always have.

You can tell me about how The Beatles grew artistically and spoke with deeper interest in bigger causes and anything else you care to add.

Whatever...

I am an American, god-dammit.

I like songs about girls and sunshine and cars.

The Beatles only cover two outta those three.

Honestly, I am just posting this so you check out the cars in the background...

Firebird Friday

Yeah, it is Firebird Friday...

Because I said so.

Don't act like Firebirds are uncool mullet machines...

Firebirds are fuckin' awesome.

Why do I bring this up?

Well, I watched Smokey and the Bandit last weekend.

The first one, not the stupid one with the elephant or the other one.

God, the purity of the first Smokey and the Bandit is amazing.

They sure don't make movies like that anymore...

Read through this for some of the plot points.

As the movie begins, rich Texan Big Enos Burdette (Pat McCormick) and his son, Little Enos (Paul Williams), are trying to find a truck driver willing to haul Coors beer to Georgia for their refreshment. Unfortunately, due to federal liquor laws and state liquor tax regulations of the time, selling and/or shipping Coors east of the Mississippi River was considered bootlegging, and the truck drivers who had taken the bet previously had been discovered and arrested by "Smokey" (truck driver and CB slang for highway patrolmen). At a local truck rodeo, the Texans locate legendary truck driver Bo "Bandit" Darville (Burt Reynolds) and offer him US$80,000 (US$270,000 in 2007 dollars), the price of a new truck, to haul 400 cases of Coors beer from Texarkana, Texas (the easternmost part of the country where Coors was legal) to the "Southern Classic" truck rodeo in Georgia— in 28 hours. Bandit accepts the bet and recruits fellow trucker Cletus "Snowman" Snow (Jerry Reed) to drive the truck (Snow brings along his dog, a Basset Hound named "Fred", for company). Bandit purchases a black Pontiac Trans Am, which he will drive himself as a "blocker" car to deflect attention away from the truck and its cargo.

I mean really!

It is a movie about a show-off trucker/bum, his buddy called Snowman and some random chic hitchhiker bootlegging Coors!

And they are chased by Jackie Gleason!

Smokey and the Bandit is a cinematic triumph.

It didn't take millions of dollars worth of CGI shit, 3D or years to produce.

Nope...

Just some dudes with mustaches, Sally Fields, a basset hound.

And a sweet Firebird.

Kwackers

I am fairly sure there is a serious conversation about lines and braking and cornering going on right here.

The guy with his back to us I likely explaining how the guy on the Kawasaki perhaps was a bit too enthusiastic about gaining position.

I would additionally guess the three guys in the background are part of the Kawasaki team and are about to suggest lunch, right after they get the grease off of their hands by washing them in the blood from the other guys face.

Afterwards, I imagine they will rock out to some Queen.

According to their hats, they are the champions.

Peace

Little Guys

“Homunculus” a creepy experimental stop-motion film created over a 4 month period by the directing collaborative Hydra at the New York based production company Humble.

Conceived of and directed by Sam Stephens, Homunculus is a dark and twisted fable of spontaneous generation and untrammeled id. Taking its title from the Latin word for “Little Human”, the piece is an associative mashup between the two concepts behind the word: The first being middle-age alchemical beliefs that “little men” could be spontaneous generated from dead or decaying matter. The second being Carl Jung’s usage as a personification of pure id. These ideas, combined with our love of Dutch still life’s “beautiful decay,” sowed the seeds for this unique little monster of a film.

Lifted completely and directly from Laughing Squid.

I couldn't help but notice visual similarities to KVC's descriptions of her "little guys."

Taco Truck Tuesday

Today Rocks!

Almost as much as this image.

2010 with the T

It is another year.
Another year in which I might drive the T around...










The headers are painted now.
I figured that painting them made sense.
I am not gonna afford chrome.
Not this year.
And I think they make sense with paint.

I am no dandy, after all...


I made a center for the steering wheel, too.
So, now when you turn it the wheels turn.

The outer bit was some after-market MG bit, which hung in some guys garage for years.
The age of it matches my nut-job aesthetic.
I think...
Combined, the whole deal seems like a part of the whole.



I have been sorta interested in the premise of the "Golden Mean" lately.
I have discovered that there is some of that math in the ratio of things on the T.

Totally accidental, on my part.

Or maybe, selective measuring.

But it is there, which I find interesting.


So, the T just keeps existing.
I try to influence it to my vision.
Still...

Earthquake?

Yeah, I guess we have had some shaking going on out here...

But we're fine.


It is how we roll out here, on the West Side.



Like a six-four Impala on hydros.
A Bakersfield trucker on No-Doze.
Mackin' fake titty bitches from reality shows.
We are rollin' with how it goes.

Snoop Dogg tree smoking.
Larry David's bad show joking.

We are flipping switches.
Chilling daft prison snitches.

A 6.5 shaker ain't no impetus,
For all you folks to sweat for us.




Things are as per usual, here.

Let's Talk About It

No No No

Well, This is Depressing

We're eight years in to this whole Afghanistan thing.

Remember that deal?

We sent a few troops there to fight the war on terror.

Capture the bad guy.

Remember?

We were looking for that bad guy.

The one who might have been in Afghanistan, not the other guy in Iraq.

Guys who are kind of important in the whole thing that we are still screwing with in Afghanistan, like generals, are not feeling so good about how it's going.

Still...

After eight years.

And they are talking about it via some unusual channels.

If you have not, perhaps you should read what they have to say.

It is only twenty some pages.

Frito Pie Friday

History

Berets?

This morning I was confronted with the unthinkable...

Until now.

I saw a dude wearing a beret - and he was actually pulling it off.

I don't mean taking it off, which is the natural human reaction to seeing anyone wearing a beret.

No, this dude was totally rocking a beret.

He wasn't even in the military, where they give guys special training just to deal with the ridicule of wearing berets.

Don't worry, this by no means has me contemplating beret shopping.

I will pull off some odd fashion and haberdashery selections, sure...

No berets for me, however.

I know I would look like one of the Griswalds in Europe, wearing a beret.

The only people who should be wearing berets, here in the states, are French teachers and militia members (so we can spot their weirdo asses in public).

And the one guy I saw wearing a beret on the train.

Only because he seemed to know how to do it without looking like a total douche bag.

Fan Mail

I get this kinda shit all of the time.

Taco Truck Tuesday

Holy Crap!

Why I Aught-a

It is that time of year, I suppose.

When you read piles of folks blathering on about last year.

We even get blubbering about the past decade this go around.

I am going to spare you that cruelty of my own worthless word pile.

Instead, here are a couple interesting things to go read.

Over at The Daily Kos-

I was nice about it. I didn't make any demands on 2000. I didn't fuss that we were nowhere near launching that manned mission to Jupiter's moons, that we hadn't broken regolith on the lunar base, or that Pan Am's service to the orbital hotel was very far behind schedule. I did not even demand that most basic right of every American -- my own flying car.

Bruce Sterling chats up the world status over at The Well-

*Y'know, these very dark imaginings of utter civilizational mayhem --

I have to confess I don't find them very interesting. People always ask

me about 'em, more so now than before, but I'm unmoved. It's routine.

*When I was a college student in the 1970s, cataclysms were pretty

interesting to me, in a kind of edgy "No Future" punk way. By now

they've been almost completely mainstreamed. As a creative, I find

that they lack their old charm.

What manner of crap have you got on your mind, with this new decade bearing down on us?

Sunday Drive

Who's comin'?

Attitude

Bad Brains

Resolution

Also, this year, resolve to wear clothes in social situations as necessary...

2010