MALERIE LYMAN

2011-12-02T07:30:00.000-08:00

crispy glover.

2011-11-09T18:49:00.000-08:00

I AM A TERRIBLE BLOGGER.

2011-06-15T12:59:00.000-07:00

no.2

2011-05-29T08:38:00.000-07:00

inventory of the ever-changing contents of my bag, day one.

2011-05-20T08:24:00.000-07:00

eyefood.

2011-01-16T05:12:00.000-08:00

aweeeesome.

2010-12-30T14:39:00.001-08:00

about three days ago i woke up with the stomach flu. after deliriously "watching" about nine episodes of american pickers i decided to dive into my somewhat out of control frequently neglected netflix instant queue (mortal kombat: the movie seemed like a really good idea at the time! (who am i kidding i've watched it twice.) double parentheses!) which contains 222 movies. aaaanyway i found my way past the first season of 21 jump street, six after mallrats and one before jury duty (i have a truly refined cinematic palette) to the gem that is charade. it is well writen, funny and shot in beautiful locations. has a henry mancini score, all of audrey hepburn's costumes are givenchy and cary grant somehow maintains being perhaps the most dapper man alive at almost sixty-years old.

all those things aside it also has a totally awesome title sequence designed by maurice binder. one of my favorites of all time! it is a winner all around. two very enthusiastic thumbs up. seriously go watch it now!

seriously how can he be such a babe?

2010-12-21T07:34:00.000-08:00

i NEED one of these.

2010-12-18T08:23:00.000-08:00

when i was in my pre-teen years i started this notebook with one of my best friends at the time. just a spiral bound notebook that we wrote our inner most feelings in (i.e. "i hated lunch today", "do you think he looked at me? circle yes or no", "my hair is horrible today", etc.) clearly the most important stuff life had to offer which we then passed back and forth to one another. like one giant year-long super note!

i found it not too long ago when i was going through my things. it was really dumb. but! in the very front of the notebook i saw that we put the top five boys we were "in love with". you know, people we'd never meet. anyway! it was one of those things that when i saw it immediately transported me back to the moment we made it. i can remember what the room smelled like. and what i was wearing. and how we were sitting. and i remember that she was in love with nick from the backstreet boys. she LITERALLY believed she was going to marry him which i thought even at age eleven was pretty absurd. she cried hysteric tears upon hearing the sound of his voice. but she had this massive list of boys she "loved". and they were boys. aged 16-19. and i remember what a hard time she gave me for all of my choices. which were very hard for me to come up with in the first place as i found loving strangers to be a pretty fruitless effort. but she mostly thought they were ugly, or lame or old. which they were definitely the latter. the youngest person on my top five was twenty-eight years old and one was our old man teacher. it was at that moment i was forever branded the old man lover and she never let me live it down.

so in thinking about this very subject i have created a semi-comprehensive visualization of all the young and grown men i'd never meet but still thought about almost constantly!

jonathan taylor thomas - age eight
jonathan brandis - age ten
brandon and dylan! - age ten
devon sawa - age nine
joseph gordon levitt - age eleven
paul mccartney - age eleven through fourteen
fox mulder - age eleven through infinity
john cusack - age sixteen through forever
adam franklin - age nineteen through the rest of my life

so basically i started out liking boys who very closely resemble girls and then transitioned into loving grown men at around age eleven. who knows what happened.

2010-12-14T10:16:00.000-08:00

tuesday!!

2010-11-30T07:37:00.000-08:00

miki berenyi makes me want to dye my hair super red and always wear a dress.

2010-11-23T08:54:00.001-08:00

2010-11-21T05:27:00.000-08:00

2010-11-18T18:56:00.000-08:00

2010-11-05T07:02:00.000-07:00

more and more these days i find myself asking, "what happened to the cool kid code?" this might make me seem like a snob or a jerk, or an old person! but the question needs to be asked, by everyone!!

what is the cool kid code, you ask? well it's a number of spoken and unspoken, things that let you know that someone is the type of person that you would wish to associate yourself with on a deeper level than normal. growing up in the 90's and early 00's there were certain habits and personal effects that one adopted that to those "in the know" were like tiny awesome smoke signals to people who might become your very best friend! for instance, at age thirteen i knew that most any boy who had a skateboard was a boy that that was pretty interested in hanging out with. not because i was some kind of badass future z-boy but because i knew that if that person had that interest our musical tastes, humor and general outlook on life were bound to be pretty similar. now was that an absolute? certainly not. but i knew i had much more in common with that person than say, someone who was super into paintballing and lacrosse.

the same was pretty much true for music and musically themed garb. if someone was wearing, say, a dinosaur jr. shirt they had to search FAR AND WIDE to find that shirt if they couldn't go to a show. sure, if you were lucky there were small amounts of reproductions at your local harmony house but nothing like now. at that point not only did you have to search for that thing, but you had to KNOW about it first. which was a feat back then.

i knew that girls who read sassy magazine, had pink hair, wore chuck taylors, painted their nails black, and had an iggy pop button were girls i wanted to have sleepovers and eat nachos with. THEY were the fun ones. the ones whose closets i wanted to borrow clothes from and start all-girl bands with! and all those other girls who were into n'sync could totally suck it.

you see the secret then was that the mere fact of knowing ABOUT something was the astonishing part. wikipedia did not exist to quench your every inquiry about how to make your hair more "emo". there was no one stop shop to become goth. you had to make yourself goth. you were forced to compile your "identity" over time and from bits and pieces of things you thought were awesome. and the more you did that the more you learned about other things that were awesome.

i know everyone likes to wax nostalgic about their youth and how it was so much better and different than how things are now but in all honesty things, not even ten years ago were so much different than they are now. no more when you see a boy wearing a pair of vans does it mean he actually owns a skateboard. it only means he probably went to the mall or shopped on some internet store. ten year old kids wear shirts with kurt cobain's face on them. everyone has 10 holes in their face a shaved head. the widespread availability of information via the internet, social media, and the ability of the internet to more effectively mass market identities and lifestyles to people has blurred the lines of the cool kid code forever!

so with this overwhelming amount of data ready for a young person's consumption you end up with a poorly chosen mishmash of things that would have maybe once been cool if honed properly and the information wielded correctly. instead we have world full of pseudo sid + nancy alterna-teens with arm warmers, pierced lips, swoopy hair and the misfits entire discography. where once you had to REALLY try to look this stupid (there were about five people in my school who went out of their way to do this out of the entire school population) now it is commonplace.

"It's not just that the data is in unrestricted places-- it's that one no longer needs to know quite how to find it. The acquisition of knowledge used to mean pursuing a prescribed path and then getting to the knowledge desired when the path reached there. The seeker had to jump through the hoops left and right by his predecessors. Now, the seeker can just get the answer." - Program or be Programmed - Douglas Rushkoff

at this point i have no real solution to this problem aside from exploding the internet and moving in with prince. all i know is that my kids won't be texting or crumping and will only be allowed to read immanuel kant and listen to the who until they're 11.

in the spirit of the code here's some photos:

THE INTERNET HAS STRIPPED THE MEANING OUT OF EVERYTHING! this message has been delivered to you from my blog ;)

2010-10-29T08:58:00.000-07:00

some things i have found to be particularly visually interesting this week:
bobby brown video chronology, lauren bacall, slowdive, bob from twin peaks (this is the most spooky halloween shit i have seen all year!)

also, i have been listening to mezcal head non stop. in doing this i have arrived at the conclusion that adam franklin and i are soulmates circa 1993. much like all of the loves of my life (bobby brown 1989-1991, when i was 10 it was paul mccartney 1963-1965, kyle maclachlan 1990-1991, david duchovny 1993-1997) my feelings have always really been dependent on me being able to travel through time to that specific love era. perhaps i am fickle. but i've heard that's my prerogative.

2010-10-26T11:41:00.001-07:00

to be perfectly honest there is not much in this world that's more appealing to me than christian slater circa 1989.

2010-10-20T11:28:00.000-07:00

bingo.

2010-09-23T17:07:00.000-07:00

i haven't been feeling very well for the last couple of weeks. in the spirit of that i thought i would take this photothursday opportunity to share the things that, without fail, always make me feel better. even if it's only a little bit at a time:

the venture bros, my dog (and just dogs in general), my mom and dad, my boyfriend (this is my OTHER favorite photo of him of all time), the beastie boys, sheep. i just love them! and magnum p.i.

2010-09-13T13:00:00.000-07:00

some recent acquisitions.

i find it consistently miraculous when i find shoes in my size. plus that color? sold.
and i have pretty much been after one of those early-mid 90s long sheer button up numbers since having seen cher's awesome sheer choices in clueless 1, 2, 3. although admittedly this one is sort of like cher meets the craft which is a bit more preferable to me.

metro detroit thrifting gems!

2010-09-09T09:36:00.000-07:00

i just finished adding a few new items on my shop:

H O N E Y P O W E R

also, imagery for thursday:

one of my favorite photos of all time - my boyfriend, aged 16, cut class meet baberham lincoln claudia schiffer at the mall, the beautiful nina persson and the cardigans, some chicks who studied at the bauhaus, my dog charles bronson and i bonding.

2010-09-08T09:51:00.001-07:00

hauntingly beautiful voice.

2010-09-01T18:11:00.000-07:00

for the roughly six people who read this (an exaggeration i know) i am here to inform you that i have started an etsy shop!

H O N E Y P O W E R
my closet is OBESE with clothing that i love but last laundry day i literally ran out of hangers. it was a sign from god that it is time to share my closet with the world. so come buy some of it. please!

2010-08-29T16:45:00.000-07:00

everything has been figured out except how to live. - jean-paul sartre

2010-08-25T11:22:00.000-07:00

middleweek visuals.

nasa image of sputnik, beeyooteeful bilinda butcher, industrial area in detroit in the 70's, john cusack quad, my back yard adventures as a lamb.

2010-08-13T13:08:00.001-07:00

i am a little bit over half way through being a quarter of a century old. i never thought i would be this old. at eighteen it genuinely seemed like an impossibility. but here i am. while to some i am still a wee lass, i am the oldest i have ever been! and i would like to share with you, blogosphere, the twenty-five things i have learned to be absolutely true in my twenty-five years of this crazy game called life:

1. If you don’t immediately rinse out a bowl in which you’ve eaten oatmeal you’re
going to spend more time scrubbing it than you did eating it.
2. Getting the mail isn’t as exciting as it used to be.
3. Aside from the people you meet and the experience of the commitment of putting
all your energy toward something for four years at that age, college is some kind
of elaborate ponzi scheme that could be skipped in favor of practical experience.
4. Everyone thinks they are a good driver and no one is…except me.
5. Stuff can always get worse.
6. Most everything my mother ever told me has in some form come true. Either
she’s a psychic or the same things happen to everyone.
7. The only things that are worth anything take a lot of hard work.
8. Laughter is priceless and one of the only things that keeps you from going
completely insane. Music is the other.
9. Some things actually are worth spending extra money on.
10. I prefer the company of dogs over 99% of people.
11. Cheap beer isn’t worth the hangover.
12. As an adult a lot of time is devoted to A. trying to stop people from taking your
money (whether it be bills or other nickel and diming trickery!) B. convincing
them to take less.
13. It’s best to try things you “know” you hate every so often.
14. No one wants to hear excuses.
15. Throw away your coffee maker! Make manual drip coffee and grind the beans right
before you make it. It takes a little longer but it is more worth the effort than
a lot of other things in life.
16. Figuring out what it is that you “want to do” is much more about doing things,
figuring out that you don’t want to be doing them and moving on to the next thing.
17. Learn from mistakes, it’s the only defense we have against stupid decisions.
18. Know when you ask for help and when to just shut up and figure it out.
19. You have to learn to truly accept the people you love for who they are (not who
you want them to be) or you will be miserable. Possibly forever.
20. Do good work. Even if no one is going to see it.
21. Not much is fair.
22. Take your vitamins. Seriously!
23. Be discerning, not judgmental.
24. It’s okay to cry.
25. Trust your gut.

2010-08-10T08:34:00.000-07:00

tuesdayspiration.

ford galaxie 500, jamc, spiritualized live, winona ryder, and a glitchy vhs screencap of an acid house rave.

2010-08-08T15:49:00.000-07:00

rearranged the bedroom.

2010-08-04T09:07:00.000-07:00

greetings world wide web!

i always let too much time go by in between. what a heel i am. to be fair lots of things have happened:

after walking my bike to the nearest gas station to fill my bike tires up with air for the first time. yes, i realize it's august and i have no excuse other than possible laziness and knowing full well they'd be flat. i rode myself over to the bank to deposit a check into the atm (because i don't like talking to tellers. they are always trying to sell you something and you can't press a button on their face to make it stop.) AAAANYWAY after depositing my check into said atm the receipt spit out and for some serendipitous reason i decided to look at it, which i never do, to find it telling me my available balance was $152.84. one hundred and fifty-two dollars and eighty four cents. ONE FIVE TWO! so after all those feelings you get upon discovering something truly horrific; heart dropping into ass, stomach dropping into ass, esophagus tightening, etc. i decided this had to be some mistake. some huuuuge mistake. i mean i am pretty poor, but not THAT poor. so i march in the bank, hands shaking, fighting the upchuck, and talk to a person. who shuffles me off to an automated telephone system. that shuffles me off to a series of other people ending in the discovery that someone from bangalore india had stolen all but $152.84 of my dollars. i talked to a woman i could barely understand who told me there wasn't much that could be done about it right now as the transaction wasn't complete. and only once they had actually stolen my money could i lodge a complaint. and after that it could take up to 90 days to get my money back once they "investigated" the charges. but they could close my debit card so there were no further charges! so we did. too tired to argue, i went outside and unlocked my bike and got on it to ride home. i started to pedal but not much was happening so i look down to discover that the tires i had just filled, for a dollar!, were once again already flat.

as i walked my flat-tired bike home i thought to myself, well, at least it can't get any worse, right?! i held back panicked crying until i saw my boyfriend standing in our door. it only lasted about 45 seconds and then he took me out for two giant beers followed by bed. in the morning i thought i would check my account not because i felt there was anything to be worried about, my money was gone! my card was closed!! but just out of sheer curiosity. upon doing this i discovered that not only was my $152.84 gone, but so was another $1,834.68 that was never there in the first place. -$1,834.68 is what i had in this world. including $35 overdraft fee from bank of america for the fradulent charges i never made. the charges were made prior to closing my card. i had to wait for those to process in order file a SECOND fraud claim.

the whole point of this is not to complain. it is merely to say that it taught me one of the most truey truisms in life that i already knew but never wanted to admit to myself. it can always ALWAYS get worse. no matter how bad things are, they can always be worse. and the only way to truly combat being shat on by life is to laugh at the complete absurdity of it all. so thank you day from hell for teaching me this irritating and upsetting lesson that i won't soon forget.

in other more uplifting, less shaking-fist-at-sky news my jaunts to the thrift store have been producing some serious gems as of late:

i have no idea where i would ever wear that cat shirt or if i'll even keep it but i felt a strange kinship with its complete insanity and beaded accessories. my boyfriend hates it and sometimes when he is being a butthole (which is admittedly infrequently) i threaten to put it on and he usually heeds the warning! the leggings are some kind of magical pucci dream. and that jacket, which i have not yet been able to wear due to the 600% humidity of this pleasant peninsula, is like a weird klaus nomi meets the lords of hell extravaganza gone completely right. it makes me yearn for fall!

on a couple more summery notes:

- go see inception. duh.
- i am in the midst of working on a retooling of the web presence of house of raw. the baby of artist/designer cristin richard. she is talented and collaborates with a bunch of other talented people so put a bookmark on that badboy!
- watch/listen to this over and over. it makes me feel like summer. and is probably the only chemical bros. song i like. it has tim burgess singing. it is good.

- if you know a way to make mosquitos stop eating me alive that doesn't involve coating my body in deet, please share.
- make sun tea and walk around barefoot while you can!

that's it and that's all.

2010-07-13T07:02:00.000-07:00

visual foodstuffs.

2010-07-06T08:34:00.000-07:00

apparently chloe sevigny is all i can think about these days. here are some of my favorites from her spring/summer 2011 collection for opening ceremony.

2010-06-30T09:40:00.001-07:00

oh also! hump day addendum.

3W.THEWORKMAG.COM

issue two of work magazine has hit the world wide web. it is the brainchild of one of my true loves in life, gloria noto with web design by meee and featuring work by eliot lee hazel, kathryn garcia, zackary drucker, kristina wilson and many more! so check it out, man!

2010-06-30T06:50:00.000-07:00

hump day.

chloe sevigny for x-girl circa 1994.

2010-06-22T08:32:00.000-07:00

last week i went to some film website and came to find, to my absolute horror, that the karate kid remake was the top grossing film at the box office. i spent a lot of time trying to fathom who would go see this film and why. i would rather die by stoning and be reborn out of the edge’s ass with pink floyd’s “the wall” as the soundtrack than ever be subjected to such mindless, awfully painful dreck. the premise is asinine, why is the karate kid being taught kung-fu? of all the places in the world why would a single mother from detroit relocate to communist china to start a new life? why is justin bieber singing the theme song? all of these questions and more boggle BOGGLE!! my mind. this is the perfect example of a film that should have never been remade. its original inception was perfectly acceptable and timeless and has cruel summer in the soundtrack, so what the hell?

continuing on i saw the next highest grossing film was a-team (former television show made into a crappy showboat movie with bradley cooper who needs to immediately get gtfo of my liiiife!) and then get him to the greek (a retooling of the character aldous snow from forgetting sarah marshall) followed. so all of this got me thinking that

1. the film industry has run out of ideas, duh.
2. people are dumb, duh.

but more importantly it launched me into trying to think of ANY remakes or franchise films that don’t suck. which is nearly impossible. after lots of mulling i came to the conclusion that the only exemption from this rule are horror films and more often than not, sci-fi. is it because we have a realistically low expectation for the quality of these films? is it because we don’t expect them to teach us anything or to identify parts of ourselves within them? i am not sure. but what i can tell you is that i love i STILL know what you did last summer. it touched my soul.

moving on: after perusing a list of all the films that have been remade across time (excluding horror films) i found five. FIVE! that i have been able to watch and enjoy genuinely and they are as follows.

father of the bride - original/remake - steve martin in for spencer tracy, brilliant. this film was actually somewhat of a dual remake as father of the bride II was loosely based on the original father of the bride sequel father's little dividend.
lolita - original/remake - adrianne lynne has the ability to tell the saddest stories in the most beautiful way. add jeremy irons and a morricone soundtrack and zing! winner.
the birdcage - original/remake - mike nichols (the graduate, WORKING GIRL!, closer) directing and robin williams as the owner of a south beach drag club. no brainer.
cape FREAKIN fear - original/remake - the only thing that ever need be shown or said about this film is captured in this single image:

TERROR STRIKES DEEEEEP!!
and last but not least,
dirty rotten scoundrels - original/remake - i realize this is only a sort of, maybe, SOMEWHAT remake but in my mind it still counts. plus frank oz, HELLO!

on the subject of sequels, there is only ONE sequel in my opinion that is all around better than its predecessor which is terminator 2. it is a flawless piece of film making. my parents took me to see it at the theater (i was nearly seven years old) and it was pure magic. to this very day robert patrick scares the living shit out of me. no matter what the hell he’s in i still think those crowbar arms are going to bust out of his ass and claw his way up a car somewhere. this enduring fear has made it impossible for me to fully watch the last two seasons of x-files. none of this is to say that i dislike the original. it is an impressive and entertaining film. i just think T2's (yes, i call it T2) MINDBENDING TECHNOLOGICAL CAPABILITY that allows someone melt into a puddle of liquid metal! sets it apart from most everything else in the world. yes, the world. and let's not forget the scene where sarah conner gets her ass handed to her by skynet's nuclear winter:
topped off by her totally ripped computer generated abs? and edward furlong being a stone fox. this is a piece of art.

as far as other franchises are concerned the only ones that really stand out are the requsite 80s sometimes stretching into 90s strongholds:

WEEKEND AT BERNIES!!(i am legitimately in love with andrew mccarthy), indiana jones, back to the future, lethal weapon, die hard, beverly hills cop, and of course, star wars. i am also one of like six people who really enjoyed all of the campy pre-dark knight batman movies. again, arnold schwarzenegger moved me with his riveting performance.

otherwise, sequels and threequels and so on are a pretty enormous waste of time and energy see: rush hour 2, son of the mask(seriously?), disappointingly the home alone sequels, dumb and dumberer, jurassic park two AND! three :( so on and so forth.

so then by all this logic, all things that are initially created by one person and then RECREATED by another person suck? which would make the world seem, if only briefly, a little less cruel and insane. unfortunately for our collective mental health, this is simply not the case. cover songs and even entire cover albums for that matter can, in frequent cases, breathe new life into something. cover songs often tastefully and gently pay homage to a song an artist loves while perhaps giving it an entirely new identity. an example that comes to mind immediately is neil young's song "only love can break your heart" which was then covered by saint etienne

both are beautiful and completely reflective of two totally different times in music. the cover is not at all heavy handed or showy, but it made this song accessible to a new generation of young people.

so what does this all mean? for me i think it means i need to move into a hole in the side of a mountain and watch bill and ted's bogus journey on VHS while drinking rock and rye, eating peanut butter sandwiches and listening to every cover song ever made trying to figure out the golden equation that makes them less prone to embarassing failure. as far as everyone else is concerned i think it's time that people stop making movies of things that don't require remakes (see: barbarella, the birds...). come up with your own damn ideas and stop shoving the fourth installment of whatever lack-lustre franchise film you've squeaked out down our conjoint throats, thank you very much.

end rant.

2010-06-06T11:36:00.000-07:00

so, i've been kinda crazy busy doing life and i have neglected this for a while. for instance last weekend was DEMF weekend so we did a lot of electronic music centered things like see matthew dear, seth troxler and ryan elliott spin at the shelter followed by seeing plastikman (who has, procured himself a painfully lame "fashion forward" haircut) play at actual DEMF. all of which was exciting and entertaining. whoever does richie hawtin's visual show deserves a hearty pat on the back. it was seriously incredible.

mooooving on!

i saw iron man 2 and i liked it. so all the freaking people on this earth who think they are some kinda roger ebert, david o. selznick and ridley scott all rolled into one (which is everyone now for some reason) who is capable of creating a far superior film with their mass amount of financial and interpersonal resources, along with their clearly overwhelming talent for telling a visual story can feel free to uhhh you know and kindly shut their mouths. is it going to win an oscar for best film? no. was it entertaining, yes. was robert downey jr. in it? yes, please pass go and collect two-hundred dollars. everyone's a critic, man!

over the past few weeks i've seen two very fashionally? inspirational films. one i had seen and have always held dear to my heart and one that was thankfully introduced into my life.

1! don't tell mom the babysitter's dead the first time i saw this i was probably seven years old. and sue ellen crandell literally made it my life's aspiration to become a secretary so that i could look like her and be right on top of that, rose! everything about her is a yes.
let me just go ahead and say what a huge fan i am of the "half-way down the finger" ring. it is the less offensively lame brother of the thumb ring.
holy eyebrows! i was always particularly fond of that barely visible black and white eyeball shirt on the right and those earrings?! come the eff on! awesome.
and don't even get me started on her elegant uniform designs for GAW!
lest we not forget that this feature film contains not only some of the greatest acting ever captured on film but some of the greatest dialog ever written! with gems like:

"park it yourself, metallica breath!"
"the dishes are done, man!"
"she um, she went to the yarn store. yeah, she's crocheting this massive doily for the couch!"

the list just goes on and on. and in addition to all of that sparkling dialog and beautiful fashion you get to see "brad! your acne!" brad from adventures in babysitting (can one make a career solely based on appearing in babysitter movies?) as well as a young david duchovny hot off the heels of his cross-dressing FBI character on twin peaks. zing-a-ling! it doesn't get much better than this.

2! making mr. right young john malkovich and adorable ann magnuson star in this slightly odd tale of complicated android love! the sets are great, the characters are great and it is funny! all that PLUS some awesome clothes. can't go wrong.

great little details in just about everything and please note in the first photo the KEITH FREAKING HARING SHOOOOEEES! i nearly fell off the bed when i saw them. i am in deeep love. i find heels to be unnecessarily uncomfortable and generally not worth it, but i would get those bad boys sewn onto my feet. for real.

while i am on the subject of clothes - it has always been my personal goal to never (well maybe not NEVER never, but mostly never) wear the same complete outfit twice, and especially!! to work. in that spirit i have decided that i am going to try to document what i wear much more freqnetly. not sure what i am going to do with the product of this experiment, but maybe i will think of something along the way. if not i will just have a crapload of photos of myself at age twenty-five. winwin? so anyway, here's number one:

LCD soundsystem update - after repeated listening i think this might just be, aside from "drunk girls" which i still don't care for, one of the greatest "summer" albums of all time. but only for places who have four distinct seasons. NOT! for endless summers. it is the perfect sound for that insane bliss-out that happens when you have just spent december to march locked up in your house and now you are finally free to once again drive with the windows down late night and debauch- shorts clad, sock-free, beer in hand in the the most endearing dive bars with the best back patios. two enthusiastic thumbs up.

2010-05-24T07:14:00.000-07:00

jamc.

2010-05-23T15:33:00.000-07:00

2010-05-05T06:53:00.000-07:00

nothing too much of note has happened since the last time i poured my little heart out onto the internet but here are my scraps of life:

last weekend i visited greenfield village in the "henry ford complex" in dearborn. i hadn't been there since i was probably about 12 and i am stupid for anything american history related so this was the greatest reunion of all time. i checked out some 19th century farming equipment, hung out in noah webster's house and saw a sheep being sheared with scissors! it was way more exciting than it sounds, i promise.

i have also been making time to comb salvation armys on my lunch break and came to realize that i am pretty sure i have the greatest wardrobe i have ever had at age twenty-five thanks to michigan thrift stores. the sheer fact that i have possession of some seriously amazing articles of clothing at this age really makes me kinda glad to be "old" and would make me never ever want to go back in time to a younger age. unless maybe i could bring the clothes with me into the "circuits of history". los angeles thrift stores severely paled in comparison (with the exception of my much beloved beavis and butthead shirt and PERHAPS the fairfax flea) but the prices here absolutely can't be beat so i have gone a little nutso and become somewhat of a ridiculous clothes hoarder, but whatever. i think this week's gem has to be this fantastic sweatshirt:

i don't know who made it but i wish we could be the best friends. forever. i'm talking SOUL MATES! here.

moving on, i have been slacking on the movie tip as work takes up a great deal of my day and then food. and then sleep. so i have been watching more TV than movies but i did manage to squeeze in a couple

hype! - is an incredibly informative and actually interesting documentary about the rise and fall of the "seattle sound" and the effects it had on the region as a whole. it wasn't your typical "grunge" documentary in that it didn't focus super heavily on nirvana. it had a lot of interviews with the bands surrounding nirvana and was a well rounded synopsis of how the time changed the face of music altogether. it came out in 1996 (2 years after the death of kurt cobain) so there was enough distance from it all to be able to talk about it with some kind of introspection but not so much time that it was heavy-handed nostalgia all around. it contains the very first performance of smells like teen spirit (which i had never seen!) as well as a lot of early mudhoney performances, supersucker, green river, etc. the only neg side is having to put up with eddie vedder being the pontificating dickweed that he is but if you can fight through that without pulling a lisa turtle on your tv you should definitely check it out.

class act - this magnificent gem of a film really makes you question your true identity. nerd? totally badass ex-con-on-probation high school student who sends shivers up the spines of america at the mere mention of his name? and what makes these two so different from one another? this movie answers that question unequivocally by showing us that the only thing that separates nerds from non-nerds is a gold tooth, some dreads and a weapon for a name. duncan pinderhughes has a 4.0 but won't go to harvard unless he can pass gym class while michael "blade" brown is only released from lock-up under the condition that he satisfactorily pass high school. what happens when these two unite? cinematic magic my friends and beautiful pieces of dialog like:

"i just gotta find an angle so i can jam on it in my head!"

i have not even yet mentioned the most impressive hi-top fade ever recorded is ALSO a part of this film. as well as hilary banks. what i am trying to say is watch it, your life will be better.

i also had a chance to hear the new lcd soundsystem album this is happening this last week. i am not sure how much i like it yet. there are some really neat things going on in it and it seems like he managed to properly pay homage to the things he loves to listen to but perhaps to a fault? i had a hard time with it because i was hearing so many things within it. some french kicks, some teenage fanclub among other things. at one point it was so strong i actually turned it off and listened to bandwagonesque in it's entirety before putting lcd soundsystem back on to finish my first complete listen. not sure yet. i have listened to it twice all the way through and i will continue to probe and report back! one thing i know i REALLY don't like is the first single "drunk girls" and i think it is a totally weak leadoff. but you can listen to the whole album here and i think that you should! zing!

2010-04-26T18:39:00.000-07:00

well, hello.

i have been on a bit of a blog sabbatical as i have started a little freelance job. while having a job is a frown turned upside down for my bank account it is kind of just a regular frown for my movie watching/blogging/clothes shopping/art making life. however i am glad to be back (even just briefly) to the land o' the living, working and consuming. with that said here is what has occurred in my absence:

- god answered my prayers and put x-files AND buffy the vampire slayer seasons on netflix streaming. so for about one solid week i preeeetty much became a permanent fixture on my couch and drew pictures while watching two of man's greatest creations.

- i have become completely addicted to traditional medicinals organic peppermint tea. in fact i am drinking a cup right now. perhaps i will have another in a bit. it has seriously changed my digestive life and overall happiness. i am making the impossible possible by having deep love for a tea bag. feel free to follow my lead.

- after seriously MONTHS! of attempting to find a pair that didn't seriously make me gag at the sight of them i purchased a FINE! pair of running shoes. i test drove my nike free 5.0's for the first time this very evening and it was like running all over a pile of fat angels.

- i saw three very different movies this weekend.

the night before. - this was the most ridiculous movie i have ever seen hands down. it made no sense. zero. it was entertaining but every situation was so outlandish i just found myself looking over at my boyfriend over and over again to see if he was as vexed as i was. one really positive thing that came out of this movie besides that fact that it was totally cray cray is that i finally realized something after twenty plus years of enjoying keanu reeves. his only acting "move"? "skill"? call it what you want, is the shrug. it is the way he expresses all emotions. surprised? give it a shrug! excited? shrug it out! lose your dad's car in the slums of LA and being followed by a small angry pimp? well then by all means just shrug your shoulders and let people know how the hell you're feeling, keanu! seriously the man is a genius. he has been ted theodore logan, johnny utah, jonathan harker, officer jack traven, kevin lomax, neo and even johnny! for god's sake! and he has done it all in style only harnessing the power of the shrug. think about, man!

next we watched gamer which i don't suggest watching unless you love seeing the worst after effects you have ever seen. EVER. and they first occurred in the opening sequence which just set the tone for suck. not even the dude from 300 could save this one. also there is a scene where an obese naked dude shoves syrupy microwave waffles in his mouth with his bare hands while he uses a human proxy to perform sexual favors for a stranger via brain-controlled virtual reality. sound interesting? it's not.

last but certainly not least was freeway which was equally ridiculous as both the previous films but with a lot more going on. it was wry and honest in an embarrassing overshare kind of way. it was violent and mean and funny somehow in this really light manner i can't quite explain. it made me remember that i like reese witherspoon and that i am creeped out by kiefer sutherland. it has a lot of well-played cameo appearances like tori from saved by the bell and tara subkoff, co-founder of the now-defunct fashion label imitation of christ. at times it's uncomfortable but it is consistently funny and ultimately an awesome adventure. if you have not seen this movie drop what you're doing immediately and go to the video store. unless of course you haven't seen repo men which obviously takes precedence over every plan - past, present or future you've ever had. plus:

hello, great.

2010-03-30T06:19:00.000-07:00

i have come to this blog to express to the roughly four people who read it something spectacular. something SO GREAT! i couldn't contain myself any longer. this magnificent thing is the feature length motion picture repo men.

there are exactly zero (0) reasons not to love this movie. it may seem as though i am being sarcastic because, well usually i am, but in this particular situation it is not the case. i sincerely cannot remember the last time i enjoyed myself this much at the movie theater. there are a number of reasons that i suggest everyone drop what they're doing and run to their local movie house and watch it right now.

1. this film looks great! it really does. the sets were well designed and convincing lacking the over the top cheese usually found in dystopian sci-fi films. two thumbs up.

2. forest whitaker's sometimes more noticeable than others mesmerizing eye. also known as ptosis. as someone who also has a freak eye my heart and interest goes out to his. i also like it when actors have a physical attribute that people consider to be a flaw (kirsten dunst's teeth, joaquin pheonix's upper lip, shannen doherty's sloth eye, etc.) because if i get bored at any point during the film i can stare at it. i didn't really have to in this situation.

3. violence. period. this movie had the most ludicrously unnecessary amount of stylized violence i have seen in a REALLY long time. there was also a lot of cutting with scalpels and junk to "repossess" people's organs or to repair a bleeding robotic knee, you know, the regular stuff. that part i don't like generally. however the guy sitting directly next to us screaming "OHHH DAAAAMN! DAAAAHHHMMN! OHHHH! OH HAAAIIL NO! NO! NO NO!" any time there was anything gross, made it all waaaaay more entertaining. aside from the discovery health channel visuals there was a lot of shooting and dudes getting bashed in the face with ball-peen hammers, getting typewriters dropped on their heads from a hole in the floor above them and getting slashed up with a coping saw. seriously. it was pretty amazing. usually that kind of violence isn't so entertaining to me but this was like a cartoon.

4. jude law is a babe even with a significantly receding hairline. at this point he should probably just shave his head and be done with it. in truth he could probably wear a baby on his head and still look totally fresh. he is beautiful and probably a huge asshole which in woman-world only makes him more beautiful? either way if it is possible to be in love with someone you have never met based solely on the way they look then i am in love with jude law.

5. the hot beverage photoshop masterpiece jude law is holding on the movie poster. if that isn't enough to get you off your ass to go see this i don't know what else could.

6. the movie is over and we walk out the door into the little hall leading out.
me: "is that? is. i. i- is that liiike? is tha-"
my boyfriend: "yeah, someone puked. don't step in it."
this movie was SO INTENSE! that someone stepped out and BARFED and then came back in to finish watching. i am like 90% sure i saw the guy who did it. he seemed really awkward and guilty but at the time i was so busy being riveted by this film i didn't think much of it but in hindsight it all makes sense.

overall i was expecting it to be REALLY bad. but coming in with such low expectations actually really served me in the end because it ended up being great in comparison to what i anticipated. i would say this film is about a 5/10 but the absurdity of my experience along with the ultraviolence in conjunction with a somewhat misplaced inappropriate and possibly disgusting and stupid sex scene that one can only SEE to believe i am going to go ahead and give this movie an 8/10. i am serious. it was glorious. in addition i was almost run down by an old woman in a buick lesabre on the way out which has the comedic potential to increase this film's rating by another point but i will leave it be. everyone genuinely needs to cancel their plans for this evening and devote themselves fully to repo men because i believe in the potentiality of this movie to give you an awesome and captivating adventure similar to my own.

in other pressing news i am now the proud owner of perhaps the most awesome spandex shorts in history and certainly the palest skin (it's all natural, baby) melanoma is for squares
sometimes it's like god reading my mind when i go to salvation army. i need to light a candle for these things.

2010-03-26T06:52:00.000-07:00

i have, since about half-way through monday, been bundled up like a big sick burrito on the couch watching terrible (with a few exceptions) movies and television. at first i thought it was allergies and then the fever started, then the congestion followed closely by the sneezing. ohhhh the sneezing. i have to date used: half a roll of toilet paper, 3/4 of a roll of paper towels and am currently about to polish off an entire box of kleenex...purchased yesterday. the human body never ceases to amaze me with its mucus production. i am fairly certain that i have produced at least like 24 cubic meters. i am not sure if that is the proper way to measure mucus but i think if i could figure out the mathematical conversion it would be pretty close. graphic but true. so anyway, i have just been laying around with the dog sipping soup and tea watching tv. my conclusions from this illness are as follows.

1. not being able to breathe through your nose for several days without relief is really frustrating and after just one entire day of labored mouth breathing, it's even pretty exhausting.

2. a sneeze with no culmination is another one of the worst feelings. ever.

3. i don't want to be sick any more this year, i have had it.

4. murder she wrote is the greatest television show ever conceived.

today i am finally feeling less terrible than previously so i am going to try and disinfect everything so my partner does not become tainted with this devil cold. and i am going to cross my fingers that this badboy goes away without venturing into my chest.

now on to more important things

i watched twilight saga: new moon which i realize is really lame but whatever. at the end of the day i am still a chick and the guy with the crazy hair is pretty easy on the eyes. however, it was pathetically bad all around. it seemed like it didn't even tell a story. how is that even possible? AND it was WORSE! than the first twilight movie, how is that even possible? in this installment the previous director, catherine hardwicke was replaced by some dude which is probably why its lacking as he is not formerly a production desgner AND director and woman. maybe it's sexist but a guy telling a lame tween-targeted star-crossed vampire/human love story seems less convincing to me. with that said if you like to look at young, dark, musclebound shirtless men in cutoffs they abound in this film so you should probably check it out.

the men who stare at goats - it was good. really good, but not great. there were funny moments and the absurdity of the whole thing was entertaining but i wouldn't go around recommending that people HAVE to see it or anything. one factoid that i found interesting is that it was filmed primarily in new mexico but was set in kuwait and iraq and it totally fooled me! they did a great job. george clooney is entertaining as always. ewan mcgregor seems like he always plays the same guy to me, with the exception of like trainspotting, but he is decent. overall i give it a 7 on the 1-10 scale.

street fighter - HOLY CRAP! this was the worst thing i have ever seen! that may not actually be true, but it's like in the top five. imagine the video game street fighter had this really terrible plot injected into it about world domination/destruction that really has nothing to do with any of the characters at all. imagine for a moment that dhalsim, (who scared the shit out of me as a child, crazy arms!) instead of going yoga inferno on your ass is a scientist locked up under the command of m. bison forced to perform genetic experiments ultimately creating blanka. the whole thing was a serious tear inducing criss angel mind freak. my jaw was seriously dropped through like 95% of this movie (the 5% that my jaw wasn't dropped for were the credits). that is some kind of record. and i am not even going to go into the JCVD portion of this because my brain would probably explode. this film is not for the weak. one must be seriously committed to viewing movies that are so terrible they probably cause sterility and pieces of your brain literally become dead after watching them. think baby geniuses bad. BAD!

i leave you with thisssss

2010-03-18T15:15:00.001-07:00

as of late i have been wishing that instead of being myself that i could be lady miss kier. she is a magnificent female specimen. i want to call her up and ask her if i can job shadow. also she's totally tempting me to flip my blonde hair the bird and come back to the ginger side.

2010-03-09T07:56:00.001-08:00

recently i have been more seriously adult obsessing on owning a piece of clothing i have always dreamed of owning. at age seven i saw the buffy the vampire slayer movie (which i have literally seen at least 50 times, 45 of which when i was seven) and this is where i first saw one of my only true article of clothing loves in life, kimberly's yellow leather jacket. i saw it and i knew it was for me. i knew that when i grew up i could wear that yellow jacket and make all of my fashion dreams come true. all i had to do was wait and so i did. i waited and spent every dime saved from not eating lunch at school at contempo casuals. i wore tons of ridiculous hats with giant flowers on them, spaghetti-strapped maxi dresses with white short sleeved t-shirts underneath and psychedelic polyester half-zip tops from 5-7-9. i was patient. the only thing i didn't take into consideration in this cruel hand of cards dealt to me is that i was born about ten years too late for just about everything i've ever loved. by the time i had enough money to go to wilson's leather to get my buttery dream jacket everyone was bathed in oversized tommy hilfiger, jnco jeans, sketchers and full body "performance" fleece rendering my long anticipated article of clothing obsolete! crushed! i have been on the hunt ever since. fast forward to 2010 where at twenty-five i find myself wandering around aimlessly in this jacketless life trying to find meaning. here i am with the freedom to eat chocolate for breakfast, rollerblade in the house, watch rated R movies, wear that shirt that i found at age fourteen that says "dirty harry's raw bar" that my mother forbid me to wear "under her roof" (you know, the important stuff!) and finally spend my money however i please and this vital addition to my wardrobe and my life is nowhere to be found. not on ebay. not at vintage stores. not on the entire world wide web! nowhere. CRUEL WORLD. and to add insult to injury i watched excess baggage yesterday which featured ANOTHER!! amazing yellow leather jacket i drooled over as a pre-teen worn by alicia silverstone and i almost began to cry. every time i enter a salvation army i consider that this could be the day that my prayers for this magic coat are answered but time after time i am rebuffed! so all i can do for now, as ever, is stare at pictures of it and dream that it's me in there until one day we can be together. heavy sigh.

on another more pleasant note i DID find one of my dream t-shirts at a vintage shop last week. i almost fell over as i have been looking for an original run of this shirt for years. YEARS! reprints stink!!

it's tuesday rather than monday so my movie monday extravaganza will be abridged for lack of alliteration and i will glide over what i watched:

ladybugs - rodney dangerfield, jonathan brandis, and jackée! hello, comedy goldmine. this was one of my favorite movies as a kid due mostly i'm sure to the fact that jonathan brandis was a perfectly beautiful dream come true for me at age eight and that even as a small child i really got no respect. it was still just as entertaining as when i saw it the first five thousand times. it might be due to the nostalgia factor but none the less i stand behind it.

the house on sorority row - DO NOT! under any circumstances watch this movie if you'd actually like to be scared. we rented this movie because it is the basis for the remake that just came out called simply, sorority row. we assumed that the original would undoubtedly be better. we were wrong apparently because if the remake is worse than this we should all just drink the kool aid now. the acting is soooooo bad that you can't even get scared because they're not convincing in any way. not too much gore and some of the special effects are okay but for the most part it was kind of a steaming pile. major disappointment. save the trip to the video store.

2012 - since it has been scientifically proven that i will watch ANYTHING that john cusack is in unashamedly (yeah, i've seen america's sweethearts and bring on the hot tub time machine!!) i was preeeetty stoked when this showed up at the video store. ON BLUE RAY! no less. uhhh i love john cusack but this sucked. there is nothing noteworthy to say about it other than i want to marry john cusack and woody harrelson was, well, woody harrelson and was good at that. it's certainly worth a $3 rent for the visual effects but count on that empty feeling you get inside after watching something you know has in fact made you more dull than before and taken time from your life you will never get back "everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. i award you no points, and may god have mercy on your soul."

also this week we got the asobi seksu album, hush (circa feb '09) and it is really great. beautiful and dreamy. i recommend. and while at the record store i found out they reissued a couple of spacemen 3 albums on vinyl (sound of confusion and performance) which as a jerk kind of upsets me but as a person who wants kids of today to grow up into good people with good taste it makes me smile.

2010-03-01T08:12:00.000-08:00

this last week was filled with home repairs, dog grooming, bowling, curtain hemming, and trying to break my habit of using the dishwasher.

- is taking up the entire left side of your living room for JUST listening to JUST your records too much? apparently we don't think so.

- in the spirit of continuing movie madness monday!! i will pluck out the "highlights" of my week in movies:

new jack city - this film was a LOT better than i expected it to be considering the wesley snipes factor. i was pleasantly surprised that not only did he not ruin it, he actually improved the overall quality of this movie. i think the key is that he wasn't really acting. he was just being wesley snipes kind of like how keanu reeves is always just keanu reeves but he's really good at being keanu reeves (i mean did you SEE something's gotta give? come on!) so people keep sending him keanu reeves scripts. aaaanyway this film in a nutshell is about the big crack cocaine boom of the late 80s/early 90s and how it changed the face of drugs, crime and the rise of gangs etc. wesley snipes is the head of "cash money brothers" (which is based loosely on local detroiters the chambers brothers and young boys inc.!) who essentially take over and destroy an entire neighborhood with crack. its got lots of shooting, hoes, and a young chris rock in a semi-serious role in which he does an excellent job in my opinion. i would be remiss not to mention that ice-t is in this film and does a decent job but i found myself fixated on figuring out whether or not he was wearing eyeliner the whole time. much like in the music realm i can't really take him seriously as a "tough guy" but he didn't do a terrible job. another odd addition to the cast is judd nelson (he wasn't still wearing that stupid diamond earring.). i am not truly sure why he is there as it would literally make no difference if he were or not. he plays a "crazy" white cop with street knowledge. you know he's a badass white dude because he rides a motorcycle and wears sunglasses ALL the time. this movie also has a decently bitchin' new jack swing soundtrack including but not limited to: keith sweat, 2 live crew, color me badd and guy! so in short i would give this film a 7/10 within its genre. i mean it's no dead presidents but what is really?

couples retreat - well. what can i say. a troubled couple (kristen bell and jason bateman) resolve to go on a couples retreat on an exotic island but the only way they can afford to go is if they get a group rate! what will they do?! queue the couple's three other friend couplings (kristin davis, john favreau, vince vaughn, malin akerman, faizon love) getting conned into going to a new age relationship building retreat for a week. hilarity ensues? this movie had all the makings of being good. it has vince vaughn which was formerly a really good sign. it was co-written by vince vaughn and jon favreau. it has jean reno (léon: the professional) and JASON BATEMAN FOR GOD'S SAAAAKE! but in the end it was a steamer. what happened to the guy who wrote swingers? what happened to vince vaughn being a total babe? where have all the cowboys goooone!?! don't get me wrong, there were funny moments (the kids who played vince vaughn's kids were HILARIOUS!) but overall it was pretty crummy. bottom line is if you want to watch a really predictable, marginally funny, painfully obvious and unoriginal romantic "comedy" starring a hot guy you used to love who is now hiding under fifty pounds of excess weight then this is the movie for you. 3/10 I'M SORRY!

don't be a menace to south central while drinking your juice in the hood - this movie doesn't really have a plot. i mean maybe it does but i can't tell you what it is and it's pretty much unimportant in the process of being entertained by this film. by no means is it brain food, but if one happens to be in the proper state of mind it is hilarious. you can definitely see how this movie is the precursor for the dozens of not-so-great spoof movies the wayans bros. have cranked out over the last 20 years but it isn't played out yet and it doesn't try too hard. i mean it's not subtle by any stretch of the imagination but it's just not forced or annoying like its more recent crappy cousins. 8/10!

- superjail! season one came out on dvd last week. if you didn't buy it you should because it is wonderful and only $15. this show somehow manages to be disturbing, disgusting, hilarious and beautiful all at once. i give it two enthusiastic, bloody and magnificently violent thumbs up.

- and finally! this is the beginning of what i am working on right now:

2010-02-22T11:11:00.001-08:00

recent happenings:

- i have been, for a while now, working on this website for my friend gloria who has started her very own magazine. after a lot of designing and redesigning and resizing and crying (not really) the site is finally done and can be viewed at theworkmag.com so go there and look at it because she did a really great job putting it together and one day she is probably going to rule the world and it's better to know who your future master will be.

- as always i have been watching a disturbing number of movies. i went and saw "the wolfman" with benecio del toro who did a great job but overall i found myself bored. i was however pleased with the visuals and the conclusion was kind of a breath of fresh air. i give the whole thing 6/10. it wasn't unentertaining and god knows i'll always give benecio del toro a chance to knock my socks off (excess baggage. hello?!) it was kinda just...eh. i probably would have liked it more had i rented it and watched it at home. speaking of renting it and watching it at home last night we watched eden log and i suggest that you don't. that is of course unless you want to be pretty entirely confused for 98 minutes and then be forced to read the wikipedia summary to try to make sense of something, anything! only to realize what you thought had happened hadn't happened at all and what you thought hadn't happened had. there was also an impossible implied? sexual assault on a woman who was wearing so many layers of clothing no one in their right or wrong mind would waste their time on trying. on the upside it looked pretty awesome. i have ALSO been watching lewis and clark: the journey of the corps of discovery on and off as it is 3+ hours long and it has reignited my desire to backpack the lewis and clark trail. while this is not entirely possible due to modern additions to the trail like, you know, dams and stuff it is my wish to follow it as closely as possible. i assume it would take 6 months to a year. so i better start saving. but none the less the documentary is a ken burns joint and as always when he is involved it is an excellent adventure of a historical nature and should be enjoyed by all! thank you. MOVIE REVIEW MONDAY!!

- i am snowed in the house today thanks to blizzard number 8 swillion. that's pretty much it for that. while i am really enjoying the snow, this spring is going to be like mother nature's greatest gift to me personally.

- and last but certainly not least i am k9mother to the most adorable/laziest creature on this planet:

2010-01-25T09:52:00.000-08:00

logo concept comp sheet for work magazine launching in february.

bauhaus (the original kind)

2010-01-22T10:48:00.000-08:00

say yes! to walter gropius. sometimes i think that beside the fact that i am quite abominable at MOST things mathematical (or maybe because of that fact) that i missed my calling in the architectural world. it totally excites me. the process from conception to creation fascinates me in a way that is different from most anything else. it's really detail oriented and methodical and in the end you produce this grand thing which, if you're lucky, will be around for years and years to be enjoyed across generations in innumerably different ways like a really genius album or totally stellar design.

2010-01-21T06:52:00.001-08:00

something i production designed/did graphics for for fox atomic digital:

2010-01-19T13:24:00.000-08:00

we're in paaartiiiies.

2010-01-12T14:26:00.000-08:00

this is how i feel right now and how i want everything that i create to feel.

2010-01-05T11:43:00.000-08:00

recent goings on:

christmas was freaky awesome. those who surround me know me so well that the gifts i received almost all involved coffee, records and art. i got this amazing book published by moma on the history of the bauhaus which i suggest to everyone. it was an incredible and inspiring read. it made me feel like an artistic schlub due to all of the technology i have at my disposal to make things that aren't even half as great as they made. which then, after i was done crying, made me want to make more and better things!

i am also still working on finishing my site which i am actually quite stoked about along with helping the fashion wonderwoman and my bffffy gloria noto start a fashion web publication (weblication?) that she has been working on for a while. AND! i started a new painting and some drawings i feel pretty good about. the drawings i have been doing just take so much time because i have to walk away from them constantly so as not to do too much and ruin them.

beyond that things are good. i really wish i could go to the ocean for my birthday. the other day i had that immediate fear stomach drop that happens during an earthquake the moment you realize the floor is in fact moving. except i was in chicago and it was just a train passing by. but none the less it left me breathless in a bad way. i miss my very best friend in a way i can't quite describe without sounding like i have been locked in my room listening to the cure with the lights out for like a week straight. i kinda feel like i am floating in space right now in my life in general. michigan winters really get me but i am trying to make a little bit of progress on something each day and before i know it it will be springtime!

2009-12-10T09:40:00.001-08:00

i am in the process of updating and changing the layout of my website because it is about a year and a half behind my life. the part i always forget about but love the most about building a new site (especially one's own) is the research process. one thing always leads to another thing you never intended on looking at or has nothing to do with what you actually wish to find but in the process you end up seeing all kinds of hilarious, magical and wonderful stuff that always makes me remember how much i like to look at stuff and to make stuff to be looked at!

so while none of this has anything to do with my site, it actually has everything to do with my site. think about it, man.

in the yeeeaaar twoooo thoooouuusaaaaand!

2009-12-03T13:25:00.000-08:00

soooo, this decade is swiftly coming to a close and it kind of has me, like most reasonable human beings, thinking back on the last ten years. when we entered the 21st century it was 11 days before my 15th birthday. i was a freshman in high school, gwen stefani had fashion braces and had not yet made me cry tears of agony and shame with love.angel.music.baby, technology was doomed and for reasons i can no longer truly remember i wholeheartedly believed the apocalypse was upon us. so at the stroke of midnight i was (literally) under my bed bending over and kissing my ass goodbye (figuratively) thinking about how i'd never get to have sex (literally). but then it didn't happen. y2k didn't kill 'em all and thanks to that we had about 600 years worth of bottled water in the basement, i had to continue going to high school and eventually i got to make whoopie. more importantly however! i got to continue on and experience a new decade of totally bitchin' music. while none of the music of this decade makes it into my all time top five or anything it is certainly great and makes it into my second top five? moving on! because this list could no doubt go on for about 40 scrolling minutes i have limited myself to ten choices. in no particular order here are my top albums of the 2000's!!

1. xtrmntr- primal scream - creation, 2000
primal scream is good, duh. but primal scream + kevin shields + bernard sumner is just madness!! and while some of us (me) do not generally wish to mix their music with their politics i can let it slide with this particular aural gem. parts of mbv arkestra (if they move kill 'em) frequently make me think my ears are about to bleed. sooooo what i'm saying is i love it.
2. tender buttons- broadcast - warp records, 2005
a decidedly awesome strangely more electronic departure from their usual (albiet loved!) minimalist, drawn out, psychedelic aesthetic. i looooove it.
3. geogaddi- boards of canada - warp records, 2002
3 records! just great. needs no explanation.
4. the sophtware slump- grandaddy - V2, 2000
i think this album really captured a moment in time. it's mostly classic grandaddy nonsensical, even vaguely humorous at times but with a huge underpinning of sadness while conveying a true sense of loneliness like not much else i have ever heard. it has perfectly characterized a time when no one really has to communicate face to face if they don't want to and we are more acquainted with the objects that fill our lives than our own neighbors. it's simply honest and heartbreaking and magically beautiful.
5. fishscale- ghostface killah - def jam, 2006
seamless mix of hip-hip and soul, past with present and wu-tang-like skits with real content in a multiple listenings way that i would have never expected.
6. rock action- mogwai - matador, 2001
this album makes me feel like i am alone on top of some mountain somewhere but i am not sad about it at all. it is the perfect mixture of completely beautiful and total brutal wall of sound. a+++
7. rather ripped- sonic youth - geffen, 2006
they just keep on doing it. this certainly stands up to the best of their own and can be listened to endlessly without tire!
8. standards- tortoise - thrill jockey, 2001
nothing by tortoise is ever bad. this album is beautiful and intricate and clearly crafted with love and attention. it's more outwardly electronic in parts than something off of millions now living will never die, but by no means inferior. they manage to take the parts of their work that are great and simply add more layers of greatness. how is that even possible?
9. lcd soundsystem- lcd soundsystem - the dfa, 2005
dance party in a box.
10. sex change- trans am - thrill jockey, 2007
i always think of trans am as a better, more interesting version of daft punk which is why daft punk didn't make my top list. this album is great through and through. it is akin to futureworld but without the bits of sadness even in its downtempo moments. and the uptempo times are totally bloodthirsty and awesome. zing!
10.5 swimming- french kicks - vagrant, 2008
i realize i've cheated and added and extra but i got to the end of this and realized i hadn't yet listed french kicks!! AND all of their full length albums have been released in the 00's! so basically take your pick of any of their albums, they are all great not to mention that they put on a fantastic live show. they never cease to offer up dreamy mystical heartbreaking songs that are honest and real and make you remember that you're a human being. kinda like neil young but with a somewhat more dulcet tone and possibly less bitterness toward corporate entities.

honorable mentions:
now here is nowhere- secret machines
howdy!- teenage fanclub
desperate youth, bloodthirsty babes- tv on the radio
one/three- dabrye
discovery- daft punk

although this list could certainly be populated with dozens of other choices spanning all genres! i stand by it!! ladies and gentlemen, the sounds of what has defined this decade for me for one reason or another. and no, there is no spiritualized ;)

on a p.s. note y2k was really funny and i wish that y210k was happening. no i don't know what that means.

2009-12-03T07:29:00.001-08:00

i suck at having a web presence :(

2009-09-14T13:43:00.000-07:00

i just started reading the x-files comics and i am wondering where they have been all my life.

i am working on a painting right now that should be pretty funny when i am done.

anecdote

2009-08-17T07:12:00.000-07:00

at a gas station in western michigan i get out of my car and begin pumping the gas. i planned on filling the tank and i have a 20 gallon tank (insanity i know) so i chose to wash the windshield as it was covered in bug guts. they are settled in there pretty well so i am really working at it. as i am getting into the thick of gutsville a man at the next pump says something to the effect of "looks like you're working really hard there." while kind of half laughing. i respond simply with, "yeah." there is a few beats of silence and then he starts again. "so do you like doing that more than the dishes?" to which i reply, "i wouldn't know. i don't do dishes, that's what men are for."

it's 2009.

2009-08-04T05:54:00.000-07:00

well i made it. my magical beauty machine of a 15 year old car performed like a champ and dragged me from sea to (nearly!) shining sea! it was a long and sweaty journey, but i learned many things:

- the middle part of the united states DOES in fact have people there. seriously. i talked to some of them!
- towns that are serviced by only three roads and allow you to ride your bike on the freeway are a LITTLE creepy.
- this wasn't so much a newly learned thing as a reaffirmation, casinos suck. las vegas sucks and gambling is really sad and weirdly pathetic. but buffets are good. duh.
- nebraska has basically nothing in it sans the occasional arby's or fast food establishment attached to a gas station where the people who live in the "city" (you know, where the arby's is!) make you feel fairly unwelcome if you are not wearing pleated front khaki shorts that go down to your knee and a shirt that advertises something. also it's not too much to look at either, in my humble opinion.
- iowa on the other hand! what a gem! the people were great, it was beautiful, and we got to stay in the creepiest motel i have ever had the pleasure of LOOKING at let alone stepping foot it. the whole thing was just an addition to the home of the woman who owned it! and the bar next door closed at 10pm. amazing.
- the visual beauty of utah and colorado caused me for the only time in my life to truly describe something as "majestic". i finally get all that purple mountains majesty junk they always made us sing. maybe they should show kids that so they know what it's about.
- bugs are hard to clean off your car.
- the grand slam breakfast burrito is the greatest thing ever created by the hands of man. i DREAM about this thing. just thinking about it makes my mouth water even when i am not hungry. the breakfast dagwood can walk off a cliff. grand slam burrito i would die 4 U.

anyway. all in all it was an incredible journey. america rules.

art coming soon.

2009-07-22T22:49:00.000-07:00

tomorrow will begin my slow but steady crawl across the united states. i will leave my oceanside oasis for the humble but homey home that is detroit. my emotions are mixed. i am very excited to return to all of my favorite michigan things. my family, my dog, my friends and love, pbr and even white castle a little. but i will certainly miss this place that has been my home for the last nine months. i will miss being able to get up and go to the beach before anyone gets there and watch the waves while the marine layer burns off and the sun starts to peek through. the traffic, i can take or leave. preferably leave. but i will miss all of the amazing people that i love here, definitely the in-n-out burger. not to mention this:

i am camping across america! i have never seen the middle before so i am pretty excited for that. all in all i am excited to see how this next chapter in my life unfolds and where i am off to next. i hope the cosmos wishes me luck and cowabunga dude. totally rad. later southern california.

2009-07-15T12:20:00.000-07:00

i have some super crummy photos of what i have been working on!:

i really need a scanner.

2009-07-12T13:39:00.000-07:00

in the spirit of more frequent blogging here i am!

i have been drinking fantastic cups of coffee and listening to fantastic bits of music. the most recent mogwai is so great. i also had a haircutting mishap and managed to sort of irreparably cut the left side of my head a liiiittle too short which resulted in having to shave a lot of it so it will grow back normally. so now i kind of look like a native american/an extra in a mad max film:

it's sort of growing on me i think. all i wanted was jesus and mary chain hair! instead i am like squanto who kills for gas but alas it's just hair. that is literally the most exciting/horrifying thing that has happened to me in a while for certain. other than that i just missed the tortoise show last night because it was sold out and i am batting around the idea of attempting to put together some kind of dj thing to revive dead music that i love and perhaps start a new era of totally badass psychedelic raves! i am also reading a jesse stone novel that i probably love too much and i began painting again. i am rehashing some artdeas (art ideas?) that i didn't have time to do when i was painting before.

life.

2009-07-08T11:45:00.000-07:00

come one, come all!

2009-07-03T16:17:00.000-07:00

i don't know why i have such a hard time keeping up with this! it's kind of a bummer. i used to blog my face off when i was a kid, now i can't seem to fit it in. but alas i will try again.

yesterday i returned from a much needed visit to detroit that started out as a week and a halfish visit and ended up as a 3 week visit. my grandma fell ill while i was there and i stayed to help out my mom which i am glad i was able to do! it was weird and awesome being back after not having been there for eight months. i tried to jam as much "detroit" stuff in as possible and i got to most of it. with the exception of white castle unfortunately. it made me really miss living there honestly. sure it's smaller and there's less stuff to do but when you do get to do something it seems more real for some reason. or maybe it just feels like home. either way i had a freaky good time and i got to hug my mother for extended periods of time which is fantastic in my book.

detroit is also a treasure trove of amazingly good used records priced VERY reasonably which means that i must buy things i may never have the chance to buy again! sooo i returned with roughly eighteen 12" records and twelve 7" records. give or take. and i traveled with them in my carry on luggage because i didn't want any unforeseen thing to happen to them so needless to say i was stopped at the security checkpoint both times i passed through but the second time it was because the guy working the x-ray thought i was trying to smuggle a bunch of plates. and even when i finally explained they were records he still gave me a weirdo look. parents just don't understand. or in this case twenty-something guy with excessively gelled hair just doesn't understand. anyway. i got a bunch of faboo records that i am totally stoked about. speaking of which::

netflix and records barf.

i think this concludes this blog.

2009-04-02T12:33:00.000-07:00

some ridiculous quick photoshop hilarity i have been doing.

2009-03-27T19:00:00.000-07:00

work in progress.

2009-03-27T18:58:00.000-07:00

this is a month old. :(

2009-03-23T15:52:00.000-07:00

oh yeah and a prop i made!

2009-03-23T15:11:00.000-07:00

three images from a project i just finished art directing!

2009-01-27T18:04:00.000-08:00

i am trying to get back in the habit of doodling again because a. i like to do it and b. it is good practice and leads you to lots of fun art places! so here are some doodles i did within the last couple of days of me and my roommates as floating heads with eyepatches!

fox atomic!

2009-01-18T11:28:00.000-08:00

sooo a couple of weeks ago i worked on this project for fox atomic digital for which i was the entire art department (set dec., on set dresser, propmaster, graphic designer and generalized 'making this look the way it does' extraordinaire!) for five different short-form webisodes, four different directors, three of which had three episodes each. they were all shot over the course of eight days. eleven episodes, eight days, total insanity! despite this insanity however, i got a chance to work with some very talented people. here are some images of some sets i made:

2009-01-04T17:35:00.000-08:00

some graphics i made for a project i just finished:

#1 logo created for a fictional computer hacker who calls himself jolly roger!

#2 11x17 poster created for the world's greatest one man led zeppelin cover band, jed leppelin. concept came from an actual led zeppelin poster.

2008-12-02T10:07:00.000-08:00

"Genius might be the ability to say a profound thing in a simple way." (Hot Water Music)

and so he does.

2008-11-14T12:43:00.000-08:00

i totally bought a car last week and it's awesome! it's a volvo. photos forthcoming.

also, yesterday i found both george michael-faith, and doobie brothers-minute by minute on vinyl at goodwill in beautiful condition.

how to tie a tie.

2008-10-13T20:46:00.000-07:00

that's how you do it. i made it. tomorrow i am moving to los angeles.

2008-08-30T15:24:00.000-07:00

i'm doing a bunch of stuff right now, but i'll write about it tomorrow. at tara.

2008-07-30T08:53:00.000-07:00

It is my feeling that the midwest and particularly Michigan gets a seriously bum rap. It's pretty awesome here. The people are normal (except for juggalos, but do they even count?), you are almost certain to never meet a man who refers to himself as "Diamond Dave", there's Vernors, you can usually see any band you want live without having to purchase tickets in advance and we are pretty light on horrible natural disasters. And on TOP of all of those magnificent things you can also drive an hour or two north and be in the middle of nowhere, sleep on the ground, pee next to a tree and cook meat on a fire. What more could you possibly ask for!? In the spirit of all of that Michigan fun I went camping last weekend in Harbor Beach which is about 3/4 of the way up the right side of the thumb. The photo above is my favorite of the bunch i took. The whole point of this is basically viva la Michigan! And if you don't like it we will pay ICP and Twizted to spray two liters of red pop all over you nay-sayers!

2008-07-23T10:25:00.000-07:00

So two weeks ago I visited Los Angeles to see my bestie across the country. I did a pretty horrible job with photo documentation and ended up taking like seven pictures the whole time, but here are some of the highlights:

Here I am standing at the top of one of about seven million hills I had to ride a bicycle over. This hill however had fish tacos and a beer waiting at the top of it so it's hard to complain.

Gloria bikes.

Manhattan beach.

This is a face we made using hair that was cut off of my head yielding my new haircut as hair. The thumbsup is there as a size comparison. since cutting ties with all of that hair my head feels significantly lighter and I am about ten degrees cooler at any given time.

Also in my travels I visited amoeba records and spent far too much money on records, but I am now the proud owner of a MINTY MINT! original pressing of ride's album nowhere that is out of print. It is in such impeccable condition that even with headphones you cannot hear the needle on the record. It brings a tear to my eye.

Other than being an across the united states rolling stone, I have been working like crazy on some new projects and on updating my website as well as reading mystery novels which I am convinced are actually written for women over the age of fifty, which is fine by me.

2008-07-22T12:02:00.000-07:00

I am workin' like a busy bee to tie up some loose portfolio ends. Some wips:

higgy

2008-07-10T17:58:00.000-07:00

this is the finished product for project higgins. this is just the beginning! next up, the ROBOZ!

practice

2008-06-16T19:01:00.000-07:00

here's something i started and finished today.

higgins and the lads.

post post.

2008-06-11T18:16:00.000-07:00

well, over the past few weeks i have been enjoying the leisure of my newly acquired alumni status which in my case means watching a ton of movies (rambo is awesome), going to the comic book store to collect the things they set aside for when i come in (everyone should read this.), making sun tea, and actually sleeping in for a change on my new bed that i received as a graduation present. i cannot explain how amazing this bed is and how it has changed my life. it feels like i am sleeping on like four hundred rabbits on a cloud as opposed to my old bed which felt like i was sleeping on a piece of cracked cement board on top of six hundred bricks.

on a work note i updated my website with all of my current work and debugged it a bit today and it can be found here.

all resting aside, i am ready to get back to business, get a job, and start my non-school life.

2008-05-16T06:58:00.000-07:00

I am finished. I hung my senior show and last night I graduated and today is my first day of total freedom in five years. Here are some images of my show:

I am insanely happy to be done and now I have time to paint a portrait of my dog like I have been wanting to for many months.

Oh also I finished my website as well malerielyman.com so check me out!

2008-04-26T16:27:00.000-07:00

all i am doing right now is painting a ton and writing my FINAL final paper on Hegel's theory of de-materialization and trying to get my website up and running. i have two days on the paper, and four days to do everything else. i cannot wait until this is over because then i can finally go to the comic book store again. batman #675 looks totally promising and i am way behind on all star batman and robin the boy wonder:

helloooo nurse.

oh and also once i am done i will have graduated from college as well. but mostly i am looking forward to tons of bike rides, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, ice cream cones and batman morning noon and night. possibly thor as well.

once i get it all done i will take photos of my senior show and post them here.

2008-02-25T16:52:00.001-08:00

i am really bad at this frequent blogging thing.

school is back in so i am a busy bee. i am making myself a website in flash. here is the main background image, a 'digital collage' if you will:

i will attempt to keep stuff up to date on here with the site process.

meeerrry christmastime!

2007-12-30T12:42:00.000-08:00

that's pretty much all that has happened to me since school let out. that, crocheting, lots of episodes of x-files watched consecutively, seasons one and two of moonlighting, and eating looooots of stuff that i shouldn't be eating including, but not limited to tato skins. god bless jesus?

2007-11-16T06:49:00.000-08:00

kay. sooo i am in the midst of doing many many, some might even say TOO! many things. but i live my life with such a devil may care attitude that i scoff at these ridiculous claims. some things art related. some work related but mostly gilmore girls related because i found season two at target for $14.88. that is no lie. i almost whizzed my pants. and i am slowly but surely working on my undergrad thesis. which is actually kind of a bummer.

also high on the bummer list is that the venture bros. season three premiere has been pushed back once again! but i have been seeing some of the sets around the intarweb and they look phenomenal, like this one!:

definitely worth waiting for. so spring 2008 it is! one of the creators of the venture brothers has a blog that gives updates here if interested.

recent major thumbsdown to:
- gas being eight hundred million dollars a gallon. seriously shut up already.
- everyone losing their jobs all the time.
- my inability to find easy access to spumoni.
- the weather not being able to make up its mind whether it is going to suck, or REALLY suck.
- me not being able to take my dog with me to work and school and pretty much everywhere. i wish someone would invent a little baby bjorn thing for dogs or something.

michigan is slowly but surely becoming the most depressing place to live according to recent polls. but i really only polled me so i don't know if that actually counts.

barbarella

2007-10-26T14:29:00.000-07:00

this is the very first vector illustration that i have ever done. i think that is pretty apparent, but i am pretty happy with it dispite that. i just finished it today!!

masstransit.

2007-10-25T17:48:00.000-07:00

in progress right now...

marker, acrylic and enamel on vellum.

rituals are scary.

2007-10-25T15:01:00.000-07:00

this is just a snippet from a video i made a bit ago. the actual thing is a little over five minutes long and meant to be displayed a little larger...like projected on a wall for example.

numbah one.

2007-10-21T07:38:00.000-07:00

all right. this is my blog. i don't know what i'm going to do with it yet.