A New Addition To The Collection

My wife got this as a gift from one of her students. This definitely beats an apple!

One Of L.A.'s Finest!

I Have The Power Art Show

Before I got sick yesterday I was planning on attending this awesome art show at the 1988 Gallery in Melrose, based on the 1980s He Man cartoon (which I loved as a kid). Unfortunately I wasn't able to make it, but lucky for me I was able to view all of the artwork online. Here are some of my favorites...
Jude Buffum "Battle Bones"
Jon Vermilyea "Prince Adam Falls Prey To Super Skeleton In The Halloween Forest"
Alex Pardee "Faker"
Alex Pardee "Clawful"
Alex Pardee "Skeletor"
Alex Pardee "Trapjaw"
Alex Pardee "Triclops"
Alex Pardee "Beastman"
Meggs "Skeletor Was OG"
Jason Hernandez "I Am The Master Of The Universe"
Mark Garro "Rip Van He Man"

Jazz The Glass Premiere Party

Tonight I saw the most awesome surf movie of all time... JAZZ THE GLASS. It's the story of some Surf Pirates and their quest to mine the Stoke, rid the world of Kooks, keep their surf spots secret, make as many ridiculous booze and grogan references as possible, all while shredding the waves and Jazzing The Glass. A buddy of mine, Mike "Kobok" Black was one of the geniuses behind the film, and lucky for me I got invited to the premiere party.
PICS POSTED SOON

The LSD No No

For all you lovers of weird moments in sports, here is a pretty cool cartoon about Doc Ellis and his infamous no hitter on acid.

R. Crumb x Philip K. Dick

Two of my favorites combined into one!
Robert Crumb - The Religious Experience of Philip K Dick

R. Crumb @ UCLA

I just got back from an awesome evening over at UCLA's Royce Hall after listening to a lecture from the one and only R. Crumb. He just released an illustrated version of the Bible's Book of Genesis, so he came out of seclusion in France to do a handful of lectures over here in the good ol' US of A. Being a big R. Crumb fan, you know I wasn't about to miss out on that! I didn't take any photos since no cameras were allowed, but I did manage to pick up a copy of his new book, which I plan on reading ASAP. It is kind of ridiculous though that it took a comic book version of it to get me to actually read the Bible...
Look At The Detail!

Traditions In Transitions

The Documentary Screening
Q&A w/ Quantic, B+ & Coleman
The After Party Was Packed
The Bar
Columbian Band Rockin The Party
My Lady & Will "Quantic" Holland... Can You Tell She Was Stoked?

R. Crumb @ UCLA

Tonight my Fiancee told me that she heard about R. Crumb giving a lecture at UCLA in the near future. The second I heard that we went online and purchased our tickets. Since he is getting up there in age, not to mention a notorious recluse who lives in France, I figure this will be the one and only chance to ever see him live. Oh yeah, the show description is in Italics below...

In the late ’60s, R. Crumb’s psychedelic comics—including the characters Fritz the Cat, Mr. Natural, Devil Girl and the popular Keep on Truckin’ cartoon— propelled him overnight to celebrity status in San Francisco’s burgeoning underground scene. His charming “bigfoot” style fused with overt sexual images were very well received in the free-love capital—but also led to obscenity arrests, copyright ownership lawsuits and years of trouble with the IRS. It wasn’t until the mid-’80s that Crumb began to receive widespread recognition for the importance of his work, which unapologetically unveiled the disturbing side of the American psyche. Now living in France, Robert Crumb makes a very rare public appearance, joining longtime friend and art editor for The New Yorker, Françoise Mouly, for a candid discussion about the controversial artist’s life and his highly anticipated new project, an illustrated version of Genesis.
This Will Be The First And Last Time I Ever See Crumb Live

Transformers Billboard

I saw this on the way to work a few days ago, but my cell phone camera is way too crappy to take a decent picture from long range. Anyways, after doing a quick search on the internet I found a great photo, compliments of Graffhead.com.
I Wonder If This Is The Work Of The Decepticons

Santa Muerte

I've been hearing more and more about Santa Muerte, the Patron Saint of Death lately. Pretty freaky stuff if you ask me...
For Only $9.95 You Can Take Santa Muerte Home With You
One Eyed Willie's Sister Perhaps?
Special Thanks To The People On FLICKR for these cool shots!

Black Cat Squadron

I've recently re-discovered the fun of scanning things into the computer. I'm not sure why I haven't done this sooner for the blog, but expect more "Blast's From The Past" posts that contain scans of "found" items that I have lying around the house in the near future. First up is a patch my Grandfather gave me a long time ago. This is the patch from his flight jacket from World War 2, and he was a member of the Black Cat Squadron. For those of you who have played Call of Duty 5: World At War, you basically get to play a level as a member of his squad on the PBY Plane mission. Yeah thats the mission where its super hectic and you are fighting Kamikaze Pilots and rescuing fools from the water. Crazy to even think that my Gramps was involved in all that... If Only I Could Get This Logo On Some New Era Caps!

Reflect Art Show - Photo Booth Photos

I have to give it up to Lawrence Cassel, the man running the Photo Booth at the Reflect Art Show Saturday night. Not only did he take a ton of awesome photos FOR FREE, he also had them up for everyone to look at in less than 4 days! To see the entire collection go to his site, or else you can just look at the ones of us and our friends below...
Lawrence Cassel aka The Photographer
Marianne aka Ginger aka Reflect
Sunny
Gina
Me (I Take Bad Photos) And My Girl
I'm About To Make A Dollar's Worth Of Rain
Group Shot
Lots And Lots Of Paint
An Artistic Rendition Of A Painter's Palate
Mear One Deep In Thought
We're Watching Live Painting
Mear One In Action
Mear One Over The Shoulder Painting View
Gather Round And Watch
The Crowd's Getting Bigger
Done Deal
Time To Call It A Night

Reflect Art Show

This weekend my fiancee and I went down to the warehouse/ industrial district just east of Downtown LA and on the edge of Boyle Heights to catch an art show opening that a friend of ours REFLECT put on. While I generally make it a point to never go to this area if at all possible, sometimes you just wind up there... The art show was held in a warehouse turned loft, and despite being in a super vacant industrial area, parking was a royal pain in the arse. We eventually found the parking lot that the show had set up, but only after driving in circles for about 10 minutes. Oh yeah, this parking lot was about 5 blocks away, and in one corner of it there was a homeless tent city... NICE! We waited another 10 minutes or so until the rest of our friends had arrived, paid the 5 dollar fee, and walked over to the show. The art show was pretty cool, and only cost $10 to get in. Unfortunately, between the two of us we only had about $60 in cash to start with. and one of our other friends forgot to bring cash, so by the time we paid for parking and entry we were down to only $20! Knowing that people usually charge an arm and a leg for drinks we figured at least we had enough for one beer each...LAME! Anyway, as soon as you walked into the front room of the place you were in the art gallery section. There was maybe about 10 or so people who had art in there so it was a pretty cool and diverse range of things to look at. Once we checked out the art, we followed our ears to the sounds of the bass thumping away, and walked into the back room/ warehouse area of the building. In one corner stood the DJs and bar, and in the other corner a mini ramp! Unfortunately I quit skating several years ago like a complete retard, and would have probably gotten worked had i attempted it, but seeing that empty mini ramp sure made me want to skate. Turns out that the mini ramp was there for a reason, because the building we were in happend to be the loft of Clint Peterson, a pro skater who rides for Stereo. I also took notice that there were a ton of Skate All Cities stickers and tags slapped up in this place so I figured it had to be someone cool who owned it. After looking at some graffiti pieces in there on the walls, I noticed that a crowd had started to gather around someone painting live art to the music. That someone happened to be Mear One! It took an hour or so before he finished his painting, but it came out great, and it was super cool to see one of my favorite graffiti artists do some work live and in person. I wound up talking to him for a little bit and he was way cool! The rest of the night consisted of walking around looking at art, taking photos at the complimentary photo booth, and reminiscing with old friends. Next thing we knew it was a little after 2am and we decided to call it a night. And a very fun night it was. Thanks for hosting such a neat shin-dig REFLECT, and we look forward to many more in the near future. Keep up the good work!
Front Of The Flyer
Back Of The Flyer
The Building's Run Down Exterior... Inviting Eh?
A Cool Sticker Collage Right As You Enter
Reflect
The Main Room With The DJ & MIni Ramp
Mear's Bag Of Tricks
Phase 1 - Bug Out And Create The Backdrop
Phase 2 - Flesh Out The Ideas
Phase 3 - Hang It On A Wall And Make Bank
Saw This On The Way Back To The Car