Saturday, February 24, 2007

mini blogs

tacoma can't handle a simple concert

got free tickets to see breaking benjamin/three days grace/nickleback at the tacoma dome. it should be said here that the band we really want to see is breaking benjamin, which, it appears to us, the casual observers, was treated like the bastard redhead stepson on this tour.

we left at 6 to catch them beginning in the vicinity of 7. we live a mere 15-minute drive from the dome. we didn't get into the concert till 8. yes, 8. 8 fucking o'clock, two motherfucking sodding hours later. why? because apparently the parking lots at the dome were full already at 6. and tacoma's finest was letting no one anywhere near the dome, which meant we had to drive several miles out of our way in stop and go traffic (and i mean no-shit stop and go. i rarely put the car into second, and every time i did, i had to slam on my brakes shortly thereafter) to pay $10 to drive up four levels to park and nearly run five blocks to the dome, only to find out that breaking benjamin had already played some time ago.

we decided to fuck off for dinner instead, and heard maybe two songs by three days grace while all this occured, which, i might add, sounded like refried shit, so i'm guessing the rest of the concert would've bit dead donkey nuts.

headline on the tribune the next morning: more parking needed for tacoma dome? no fucking duh.


just rewards

for some time, my faith in kharma had begun to fail. that is to say, i was beginning to feel that the cosmic scale had gotten it reversed: for every good thing you did, bad things happened to you, and for every bad thing you did, you were heaped upon with blessings.

but my faith has been renewed.

the doss cunt that was a former roommate/bandmate who put his shit in storage to fuck off to the desert and left us with a hefty fine for breaking our lease after assuring us that he was "good for it" at the signing of the papers returned recently from his deployment.

now, in his absence, we have happenchanced upon several other people he has fucked over/hurt in some way. turned out this douchebag only befriends people for what he can con them out of them.

but he appeared to thrive.

until recently. he's apparently hard-up for friends upon his return, as he has tried to contact my wife a few times since returning, to no avail. and he apparently can't understand why she won't talk to him. furthermore, he has been hanging out at work (all day), which he "hates" with people he "can't stand" during his time off, most likely since he has nothing else to do.

and he was recently called in along with one of his other buddies to have his ass chewed by three different and seperate supervisors for being insubordinate and lazy whilst deployed in a war zone. i know for a fact that he had to dye his hair back to normal from some ungodly color (the last one was green) for this "meeting" because every time he comes back from a deployment, he bleaches and dyes his hair.

and his direct supervisor, which he has always been sure he could bulldoze (she is one of the other fuckees of twatboy), made it abundantly clear to him that he is to come in, do his job, shut the fuck up, and quit fucking about. and this was backed by the rest of the supervisors up the chain. in not-so-nice words. at not-normal-conversation volumes.

yeah, his life currently fucking sucks.

and i am laughing my dipshit ass off.


random lines from the past few weeks

it's the instant my face hits the windshield, followed by my face hitting the brick wall, that is what would do it for me.

all we can hope is breaking benjamin goes on late (this was still an hour before we actually got into the venue).

he's gotta be hatin' life. and j.c.'s had an amp for sale that is exactly like the one he spent 1200 bucks buying. i can't help but think he had to hock it. at least that is how the story is gonna go in my head.

stah war' lego. yeeeeaaaaah!!!!

i've been recording music, which means i am going to have to break down and start a fucking myspace to get it out there. (yes, soon i will have a link to my music myspace, god i hate myself hahahaha!)

even though we didn't get to see them, i still had a great time hanging out with you.

i don't care if you don't see it my way/i don't care if you see it at all (low pop suicide)


if you two don't quit fucking fighting, i will turn the goddamn game off.

(this is actually a whole, though short, funny story. i tell the boys i am going to turn the game off if they can't play as a team. in unison, they shout "no!" then begin bickering between the two of them again. click! no. 1 proceeds to have what i can only describe as a mixture of a seizure, aneurysm, thrombosis, and constipation all at the same time. his face is purple, his ears are red, his eyes are huge and moist, his body is vibrating like a chimed bells, and his fists are clenched. no. 2 just began bawling. wonder where he gets that? hmmmm. must do more research...)

darth sardonic

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Friday, February 23, 2007

not an answer, really...

i don't like to think of myself as one with answers. or as a philosopher. i wouldn't even consider myself a deep thinker. i do think of myself as someone who knows how small and miniscule i really am, and believes that others out there are deep thinkers with answers, and that i occasionally come across these answers in whatever form they are presented, and recognize them for what they are: answers, nuggets of wisdom imparted so that we might better live our lives.

life is both good and evil. you ever been crying at something and something in that same moment strikes you as funny and you laugh through the tears? that is life. life is dichotomy. life is duality. the meaning of the devil girl and the angel girl kissing on my back is that: accepting that both things have a place. yin and yang.

seek that which makes you happy. if you are miserable all the time, maybe being miserable is your happiness. if not, change it.

creating is so much harder than destroying. any dozy bloke can take a hammer to a ming vase, but imagine how long it took some fella to sit and create that vase, and paint it, and capture its essence. seek to create, not destroy.

but again, destruction is as much a part of life as creation.

seek the perfection in the imperfections. there is a line in the last samurai which i am going to most assuredly misquote for you now, but must first set the stage: one character is talking about how a man could spend his entire life looking for the perfect cherry blossom. later, as he and his friends gear up for what is sure to be their last battle, he says, with tears in his eyes (and mine too, for fuck's sake), "i just realized, they are all perfect." i have little scars all over my fingers and hands, nicks from fishooks, cuts from carving knives, a few large ones from bigger tools. each and every one is beautiful to me in some way.

why is art important? it is a way for someone to communicate to the future. pictures of immigrants taken in grainy black and white, van gogh's starry night, this stupid little blog, all notes to the future.

all screaming, "i am no different than you. you are no different than me. i am, i was, i always will be."

but the best way to remain forever in some way is to be a positive force in the lives around you.

take good care, my beloved nonexistant readers, o my droogs and only friends, of yourselves and each other.

darth sardonic

Friday, February 16, 2007

i love carhartts, but hate gibsons

the drink, not the guitar. i love gibson guitars (i own a battered and much-loved sg special, the cheapest i could find. it is a wonderful guitar.), but not dry vermouth and gin. which is too bad, cause turns out i love cocktail onions, and this is the only drink i have found that uses 'em. but i love tom collinses. i need to try a harvey wallbanger. just cause. just cause the name is cool.

not everything i write is a gem. or if it were a gem, it would be a big hunk of blue or red plastic in the shape of some precious stone, and set in some cheap alloy treated to look like gold till that flakes off in sheets and it turns all greeny-brown.

thrift stores are cool. the coolest one ever is the one right here on base, that i visit at least once weekly to blow some of my hard-earned mosca on fun stuff that can only be found at thrift stores.

like the $3 leather chair.

my wife says i'm like norm on cheers: soon, i will go into the thrift store and everyone will call out "darth!!"

i wonder if norm drank gibsons or tom collinses? or maybe harvey wallbangers.

probably just beer, which i can tolerate even less than kids who break legs on $3 thrift store leather chairs.

but i like carhartts, which is handy, because the jeans outlet down by the spot where the little leg-breakers have therapy is having a going-out-of-business sale, on everything. levis, dickies, carhartts. or actually, it is handy they were having a sale since i like carhartts so much. that would probably be more correct.

so i purchased a pair of black carhartt double knee work pants (that i have been feening for since i myself manned a sales desk in the carhartt section of a sporting goods/workwear store in fairbanks, alaska, but never felt i could afford) for a fraction of what they would normally cost. but not, my wife was quick to point out, less than what i won't spend on a pair of new chucks since, as i say, "it's just too much to spend on a pair of all-stars!" followed by a tirade of when i could remember they were a fraction of what they cost now.

add to that the fact i own numerous pairs of chucks, and only one pair of carhartts.

i also have numerous pairs of dickies, so i didn't buy any more at the sale of the century at the jeans outlet that is near the therapy of kids who, without even meaning to, injure legs on outdated, and yet still cool pieces of uber cheap furniture where i tried in vain to enjoy a gibson.

the drink, not the guitar.

darth sardonic

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Tuesday, February 13, 2007

he jung

sometimes others just say it better:

Yeah, my girlfriend takes me home when I'm too drunk to drive/and she doesn't get all jealous when I hang out with the guys.../she laughs at my dumb jokes when no one does/she brings me mexican food from Sombrero's just because/And when I feel like giving up/like my world is falling down/I show up at 3 am/she's still up watching Vacation,/and I see her pretty face/it takes me away to a better place and/(I know that everything) everything's gonna be fine

blink 182, josie

when you think your chance is passing by/when you blow your moon away/I'll bleed like the reed/fall with your knife/it's here I'll be with you

peter murphy, fall with your knife

I won't stop following you/now help me pray for/the death of everything new/then we'll fly farther/cause you're my girl/and that's alright

deftones, rx queen

If only i had more time,/I'd take you where you wanted to go./Italy isn't the same without you here./If only I had one wish,/I'd want a million trillion lifetimes/that I could spend with you.../Fall in love with you again and again.

the ataris, looking back on today

there was nothing in the world that i ever wanted more/than to feel you deep in my heart/there was nothing in the world that i ever wanted more/than to never feel the breaking apart/all my pictures of you

the cure, pictures of you

a good friend is hard to find/but you'll have one if you open your eyes/a good friend is hard to find/i found you/will you be mine?

codiene, hard to find

and probably the most important of all time:

If you need a friend,/don't look to a stranger,/You know in the end,/I'll always be there.../I'm sorry, but I'm just thinking of the right words to say./I know they don't sound the way I planned them to be./And if I have to walk the world to make you fall for me,/I promise you, I promise you I will

when in rome, the promise

happy valentine's.

and yes, i am crying, but only cause i am a pansy.

and i know that i might've taken some songs out of context, chalk it up to creative license. also, it may appear like this was an easy way out, but if you knew how long it took to figure out which songs i wanted to use, then find the lyrics, etc etc, anyways, it's more about the feeling anyhow.

darth sardonic

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Monday, February 12, 2007

google will take over the world...

just a post to make sure i am technically savvy enough to still post. i ignored the "a new version of blogger is available" headline right up until they forced me to update.

turns out it is now run by google.

google, ebay, and disney.

viva la revolucion!

back soon with more cool shit now that i think i have figured out the new program.

darth sardonic

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Wednesday, February 07, 2007

you must be of age and sober

i parked a block away from 38th and locked the prelude up tight. not far away, signs declared "one hour parking only, violators will be towed." i was definitely going to be longer than an hour, and wasn't going to be able to just leap up and move my car.

the door was still locked. despite my earliness, another patron awaits the noon hour, hands deep in coat pockets, shoulders hunched.

"odd, it's not cold." i think to myself, and decide that he's probably hunched up against his own nerves.

the door opens, and i walk into the waiting area. one of the other artists asks me if i am scott's twelve o'clock, and i nod.

"i'll let him know you're here."

"thanks."

i gaze at pin-ups on the wall, a faint hint of patchoolie and other incense vague in the air. after a few moments, scott comes out with my original drawing, lays it out on the counter, and says, "ok, here's what i have on this so far--pretty much nothin'."

i laugh.

"--cause i've been through all our maxims and stuff and i can't find any pictures that are similar to what you have going on here. so here's what i think we'll do, we've got six hours, we'll sit down and see if we can find anything that will give us a good starting point for our drawing, ok?"

"sounds good to me."

we sit on comfortable 60's waiting-room furniture, and pull out a stack of magazines. as i begin leafing through, scott asks the dread-locked artist with the down-eastah accent if they have any playboys or hustler (my original drawing came from two hustler girls, but due to how they are standing, it throws their balance off for a full back piece.)

a large box is produced, and we weed through old issues of ink and tattoo to locate a small handful of playboys.

we spend about an hour leafing slowly through the magazines, and the other artists even breifly displays his prized collection of big black butts, but despite the occasional "mm mm mmmm, check her out." we are no closer to having a launching-pad for the drawing that will become the piece of art that is to be etched into my skin.

we drive to the other store, where scott is sure he has some penthouse and hustler. we take a momentary break so that he can show me the bass he made from scratch, and tear out an add for a gay phone-sex line to pin onto the youngest artist's bulletin board.

"how about this one?"

"well, it would be ok, except the lettering across their lower bodies."

"shit, the blonde has her hands down the brunette's panties anyhow. maybe a bit less erotic and a bit too x-rated for what i'm going for."

"oh, hey, here's this."

scott has found one of his boris vallejo books. vallejo's art was the inspiration initially for my angel girl/devil girl design in the first place, and scott had picked up on that right away, and had said he wanted a vallejo style picture and effect for the final product.

i flip through the book, and there it is: siren song. i tap the page, rattatat, with my index finger.

"that's the one."

"yeah," scott says, "yeah. we could make this one more normal and get rid of all that demonic shit."

"right. and throw angel's wings on the blonde and devil's wings on the dark one."

"let's go."

off to kinko's for color copies, and we both agree that reversed is how we want the pic to be (i've no idea why i have always pictured the angel girl on my right side and the devil girl on my left, but in every incarnation of the original tattoo sketches, that is how it has always been.)

back to the parlor to draw it up, adjust the scales, claws, and web-fingers of the siren, and place wings on the two, and then back to kinko's to print out the full-size final product: a collaborative effort betwixt mr. vallejo, myself, and scott.

then down on the table.

i have a few tattoos. i wasn't overly concerned about the pain.

i should have been.

"sorry about that."

"sarright."

"i'm trying not to tense up or move, but my muscles seem to have a mind of their own."

"it's hard."

no kidding. most spots were on the same level as any other tattoo i have ever had. even the spine, which i had heard was one of the worst, only made my skull vibrate. but the muscles along the spine? oh my ever-loving god! and there was nothing i could do about the tensing each time he touched them with the needle, except be tense already when he would start.

and the absolute worst was one of the girl's feet, which trails down my hip-bone to the top of the buttock. i crushed my face into my hands, grimaced, and tried to tell if anyone was laughing at me behind my back.

after two-and-a-half hours, the outline is done. it is incredible in it's beauty, even more incredible at the hint of how involved it will be when done.

when i arrive home, my wife, who has always seemed skeptical about my latest and greatest "project", says, "ok, let me see it."

"now, you should know," i say, while unbuttoning my shirt, "there aren't any real hardlines in it, it is going to be less like a drawing and more like a painting, so the lines are sorta faint."

"oh my god, honey!" she says. i crane my neck, sore from the odd position and tensing for upwards of two hours, over my shoulder to judge her reaction.

she is on the fence no more.

"look at the detail. oh my god, give me your phone, i want to send a pic of it to some people."

as she takes a photo on my cell phone and sends it out to friends, she continues to stare at the baseline for my tattoo, eyes wide, mouth open in awe.

i am pleased.

the rest of the evening i receive text replies ranging from "that is gonna be hot!" to "daaaaaaaaaaaaamn dude." i don't even know how many people my wife, in her new-found fervor, has sent pictures to. i laugh as the replies keep rolling in.

the image is far from finished. lord knows how many more appointments i will need to complete the coloring and shading, and there is no telling the amount of ache that each one will bring.

but it is going to be worth each and every bit.

darth sardonic

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Friday, February 02, 2007

Yeah he's gonna make a fortune

Panning gold out of a bottle of Goldschlager shot by shot by shot...

sounds good to me. i always liked goldschlager.

so, the kids continue to tear apart the tony hawk game we bought them (and no, i receive no royalties from tony hawk, nor the company that makes the game, or any others i mention here, for that matter. and considering that i am usually sitting on my ass in underwear and munching on an oversized peanut butter sandwich when i post, i'm not really going to press the issue.) (as a further aside from the aside, i always thought i had met the skater steve caballero whilst in buenos aires. i knew a mormon missionary by the same name who was reputed to have been a skater and photographer for thrasher magazine. used to be my one claim to fame. after quite a bit of online research, i can find no evidence that the famous skater is/was mormon, and/or served a mission in argentina. probably some other rather cool and funny character from california by the same name, and a case of mistaken identity. if anyone has any info on this one, i could sure use it, thanks. haha. gonna have to quit saying "hey, i knew that guy!" everytime i see him on tv.), and it has a level wherein you can build your own skatepark. and man, let me tell ya, no. 1 makes some collossally cool skateparks. and then skates them. performing tricks with names like stalefish and crooked cop and god knows what else. who comes up with these damn names for these things, anyhow?

after two trips through the tutorial, i can do a "sloppy" ollie (i.e., a not-very-good jump from a flat-travelling position) and a really piss-poor 50-50 grind where i nearly fall off the wall and wave my arms frantically. the little computer-generated characters stop whatever they are doing and laugh at me. yeah, and my five-year old kid does some kind of insanely convoluted button-pressing/joystick-manuevering thing while bouncing on one foot that combines a grind with a manual with an airwalk with a tailgrab and a backflip while balancing plates and spinning a little dog that garners him about a billion points and causes the game to fucking shut down for a cigarette and a little post-coital cuddle.

and yet, he still wants me to try and get the video tape that will open up other levels for him to play.

until next time, o my beloved non-existants. and i know you are battering your heads on this one: nerf herder, easy mark.

darth sardonic

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