Art School Confidential: Schmucks

 Here's a blast from the past. For my last two years of high school, I transferred to a vocational commercial art program in the school for rejects. It was the best school EVER! Situated in a quaint downtown(complete with gazebo and soda jerk shop), we students ran that joint. We left every day for lunch. The naughtier kids would go get pizza bagels at the bakery and then smoke their little hearts out behind the courthouse. We goofy kids(my friend Lee especially) would get into all kinds of nonsense capers before heading back to class. Sure, we weren't Spicoli or the Welcome Back Cotter crowd, but I think we had a more stimulating(if slightly less productive) high school experience than the dopes locked up in the traditional learning institutions around.

 Anyhow, for our senior project, Lee and I decided to make our own Weekly World News type tabloid. It was titled Schmucks. It was made cut and paste style with rudimentary word processing typed articles coupled with mangled images culled from the pages of National Geographic and People magazines. This was 1995, mind you, and our school didn't have Windows. This is crude stuff. but we got flying marks on it from our teacher(who even saw fit to show other teachers around the school how we wasted education dollars). She was so proud of us. This here on the right is the ad for a home glue making kit. It shows horses being mangled on a mutated torture device/ home appliance.

 To the left you can see another of our tasteful ads. Our headline stories included "Midget Runs Amok in Mall, Slaughters Zero", "Man Sells House for a Bottle Cap", "World's Tallest Man Chokes to Death on Anteater", and "98 Year Old Ninja Eludes Denver Cops". Along with the ones you see here. It was great fun to make, all the while goofing off, and still receiving A's.

 Other features included Top 10 Flix, with titles such as "Interview With The Bedpan", "Drop Your Pants and Run", and "lazing Puddles".
Top 10 Books, with such literary faire like "Journey to the Center of my Pants", "Assmaster's Greatest Poems", and "Horse Shaving and Home Repair Made Simple".

There was also a personals department. Here is one example:

Divorced White Homosexual Potato. Seeks Keebler Elf, height 3'7". Caramel complexion, body like heaven.

 Top ten music singles of the time included:
"Monkey Urine Blues" by MC Colon
"Shave the Wife, Shoot the Kids" by Bobby Joe Gerbil
"I Lost my Virginity in the Septic Tank" by Hans Auf


Top ten albums were:
"Frozen Assets" by Jerk n Squirt
"Corndog Orgy" by Unibrow
"Go On Your Lawn" by Fecal Beagle

I don't think our teachers really read this all the way through.

Regardless, it helped us further our art careers. Umm, not really. He joined the Coast Guard and I now work retail. But at the time it was the crowning achievement of a two year school stint spent drawing stupid cartoons, breaking shit, and planted the seed of my miscreant creativity of the future. I still laugh reading this thing.

The Shape of Things to Come

 Is there anything funnier looking or more appreciated than the main vein? It gets represented in every possible form. Sculpture, naturally occurring flora, cartoon characters, and of course(more than any other) bachelorette party accessories. Head bands, beer bongs, candy, aspirin for the day after....all wiener shaped. It might explain why sex declines in marriage. The lady gets an overdose of it the night before she takes the plunge and probably never wants to see it again. Unless it's attached to McDreamy.

 Is there any difference between someone who handcrafts dildos or someone who harvests cucumbers? Methinks not. It's all under the umbrella of the penis industry. The fleshy Frodo sells alot of products. Immersion blenders, shake weights and even the lowly zucchini owe all their success to being shaped like a sirloin tip. But do I or any other owner of a penis get a cut? Nope. Where's my rod royalties?

 In modern art, nothing shocks like penile imagery. Georgia O'Keefe got away with painting vagina flowers her whole carrer and no one raised an eyebrow. But Robert Mapplethorpe takes a few black and whites of a ding dong wrapped in electrical tape like a holiday roast and everyone freaked out. Obviously, one example is more graphic than the other. That being Georgia O'Keefe. I've learned, as an art student, that using nudity is a quick ticket to the top. traditionally, female nudity is accepted as natural, artistic and reverential. A naked schlong though? Probably commissioned by Satan himself to turn everyone queer.

 Like I said, I have one. It's pretty cool. Keeps me entertained when the cable's out. Keeps me entertained when the cable's on. Have I ever measured it? Sure. For census purposes only, mind you. That is on the census right? Would I ever appear nude for a stage production, art project, dare? Not on your motherfucking life. I'm not ashamed of it. Moreover, I think it's ashamed of me. It would be nude before I would.

Viagra commercials are pretty funny. Especially the one where the guy's truck breaks down and then he gets it started up again. Talk about an obvious metaphor. I think there should be one where a guy is trying to pogostick his way up the Empire State Building and gets tired halfway up. Then he goes back at it with renewed vigor before spilling a milkshake off of the top floor.

Rockets, monuments, obelisks, bad haircuts, hotdogs, rubber fists....all want to be that special appendage in the worst way. Hell, some people insist on acting like one.

One day, when this country is truly free and can think with an open mind(like Europe), I hope the wee wee can show himself without causing such an uprising(sorry, I meant arousing concern). From the presidents of Mount Rushmore having their lower halves carved into the rock to Playgirl centerfolds hanging in the Guggenheim. We need not fear the staff sergeant, but embrace him. It gives life to embryos, makes us all laugh, and is good for swatting pesky flies. And when it stops working, it makes old men go out and buy sports cars(thus supporting our auto industry). Win win.

The Funk of Forty Thousand Years

 Friday, May 27th is Vincent Price's 100th birthday. He of a million cheesy horror movies, creepy collaborations with musicians, and also art enthusiast and philanthropist. No one exemplifies bad scary movies more than Vinny(other than maybe Bela Lugosi or Jennifer Lopez). His voice is timeless. From Alice Cooper's Welcome to my Nightmare to Michael Jackson's Thriller(who knew the guy in the song who sounded like a kid toucher wasn't, but the other guy was?). He embraced his schlocky reputation with glee.

 He was an avid art collector and donated much of it to the East Los Angeles College. He also did a stint on Hollywood Squares, probably one of the worst best  shows ever. I think my first exposure to him was his Tilex commercials. Although, my neighbors and I would put on the Thriller record and reenact it at a young age. That was decades before all these asshole flashmobs and Korean work prisons started staging giant choreographed douche parades for Youtube.

None of his movies really made much of an impression on me. I guess House on Haunted Hill and House of Wax are the most famous. I prefer all of his oddball voice over work instead. Happy birthday, Mr. Price. I'm gonna go huff some Tilex and listen to Alice Cooper.

The Tent's So Big in Your Pants, Baby

 If there's anyone who can rival the mighty Blowfly in terms of  ribald, sexually explicit funk, it's Peaches. She is one of the leading lights of electroclash, feminist agit pop, and all around weirdness. Everyone pretty much rips off her sound these days(from Gaga to Britney to that other bitch, Chris Brown). She was edgy when it wasn't cool to be edgy(much like Bjork before her). She's bigger overseas I presume, as nobody really mentions her on these vanilla wafer, prepackaged shores. Her album, Impeach my Bush, is so far her masterstroke(no innuendo intended). I eagerly await the next installment from the artist who brought us such dancefloor classics as "Fuck the Pain Away", "Downtown" and "I Feel Cream".

If you don't dig her, you don't know from awesome bad taste.

The Landlord and Mr. Chicken

 Don Knotts. What can I say? He is a god among men. This here is a picture of me by his star on the walk of fame. He of course was Barney on that hillbilly cop show, but I don't even care about that. His true appeal lies in his film roles and in that of Mr. Furley from Three's Company. He is the embodiment of poor taste. From the Reluctant Astronaut(1967) to the Love God(1969, where he plays an accidental Hugh Hefner type) to being an object d' art in Ghost World to ultimately hanging in my garage( a picture, not the actual dude).

Hailing from Morgantown, West Virginia(the highlight of my visit there), this master Appalachian thespian defined the role of know it all "thinks he's cool guy" in comedy. From Andy Griffith to the above movies to playing a landlord, Don could steal a scene without looking like an asshole doing it. He was so likeable, so funny, and a true blue comedian.

The Reluctant Astronaut is a pretty decent 60's movie. That's not saying alot. Love God is pretty boring. I actually believe his role in Ghost World(as Enid's obsession) is his best work.

God bless your soul, Don. You inspire me every day.

Scrapple, Bleach and Pumpkin Pie

 More drawrings.

Phlourescent Phallic Phantasmagoria

 

These are my drawrings from 1996-1997. Concocted while flying high on espresso, yerba mate and rubber cement fumes. They are pretty graphic, rude, amateurish and very cryptic. I still don't get what they mean.

 I do appear in every collage much the way M Night Shamylanaynshamanyan has to put himself in every movie. Egocentric? Sure. Only I never cost a studio billions of dollars to make a steaming pile of caca about Ron Howard's daughter or Mel Gibson's paranoia.

They all have proper titles, but I don't think they're relevant enough to type out.

Enjoy. Someday when I jump into the cooling tower of a nuclear plant on a gin induced suicide bender, these might be worth something. Like five bucks or so.

I Have Tasted the Maggots in the Mind of the Universe. I was not Offended

 When I  outgrew rap in the late 90's, the first music I latched onto was Parliament and Funkadelic. The music was out there, fonky, and sexual. The costumes and aliases the band members gave themselves were equally out there and mysterious. The album art only added to this sweaty, brain melting stew. They were hand drawn by artist, Pedro Bell.

They were filled with intricate collages of alien nudity, robotic genitalia and spurting fluids of unknown origin.

 These are the kind of albums you need on vinyl. The cd sized art or tiny ITunes icon do these masterpieces no justice. I used to listen to these while drawing my own comic books in my room. Thus they inspired me to grow my hair out, drop out of society, and pretty much carve my own unique path through life despite advice from straight folks on how I should live my life. Most of them are dead or have kids now, so I win.
They also inspired me to draw similar psychedelic and scatological landscapes of my own which I will feature in the next post.

Hands Across Germany

 South Park recently lampooned the infamous gross out film, Human Centipede. I hadn't seen it, so the next day after seeing the cartoon(Mother's Day) I gave the movie a try. It is not quite the Two Girls, One Cup of foreign film people make it out to be. It was actually a boring character study of a deranged German doctor(that's original). In it, the good doctor abducts two girls and an Asian dude to sew their mouths to each others' anuses and make, wait for it...a human centipede! The food from the head person passes to the second and into the third to form the end product, Oscar Meyer hot dogs. It actually could have been called Two Girls, One Take Out Box. So while being bored, I began jotting down ideas for sequels.

Human Potato Bug- a girl is abducted and outfitted with flaps of shredded eighteen wheeler tires down the length of her body from head to heels. She can then roll into a ball and live under a rock in the garden.

 Centipede Human- a nerd hanging out at a convenience store is sewn to an arcade version of the video game Centipede. His mouth collects the change which is then passed into the slot where you pay to play the game, thus a neverending game of Centipede.                                 

Centipede centipede- several centipedes are sewn together to form a fashion forward belt. This can be worn with jeans or a nice pair of twill capris.

Human Aphid- a Mexican guy is abducted and sewn permanently to a tomato plant in the garden. He eats the plant like a common garden pest, but expels delicious salsa that is packaged for the equally disgusting Chipotle corporation.


Hunan centipede- people walk along and load their trays at a Chinese buffet. This is, believe it or not, more interesting than the original movie.

Cleveland Drinks! Cleveland Drives!!

Drunk driving has been a time honored tradition here in the Ohio valley for some ....however long cars have existed. If you gain any modicum of fame, a drunk driving conviction is a no-brainer. From politicians to athletes to politicians to...um, athletes, this is the scandal du jour.

 My father in law regails me with tales of his Lake county youth(having the cops follow him home to make sure he got there, ramping cars in the woods high on thc, towing other cars with a rope). It seemed like it wasn't such a big deal back then. Cars were built stronger, roads were less crowded and more people were drunk, hence going limp and surviving crashes. But as I grew up in the Reagan 80's, drunk driving became a huge no no. I guess too many honors students were getting killed then. Is it just me, or do they attract drunk drivers into hitting them? You  never hear of a degenerate gambler/deadbeat dad getting plowed by a drunk. Quit being honors students!

My prefered hour to drunk drive is around 9 am. I work third shift, so this is very doable. Most normal citizens are at work, so the cops aren't checking for the dude in a giant Chrysler swerving all over the shoreway. They figure it's some old person. And who really wants to stop and smell one of them that early in the morning? Admittedly, doing anything is better when drunk. Laundry, yardwork, flying, legislating, teaching... Here are some famous drunk drivers from Cleveland:

Shin Soo Choo. Cleveland Indian. Someone spiked his Gatorade, I swear!

 Hanford Dixon. Cleveland Browns legend. Busted while eating chicken wings while driving(is that a separate charge?). He is now coach of the Cleveland lingerie league team(a whole other WWBT post in itself).

Former Brook Park mayor Tom Coyne. He was once found on a treelawn with his pants around his ankles, completely incoherent. Sounds like congressional material to me.

Donte Stallworth. Browns wide receiver who actually killed a guy in Miami by running him over. He plead " my bad". At least he hit a target, unlike other drunk driving Browns' wideout Braylon Edwards(who was a New York Jet when he got busted).

Sportscaster Chuck Galeti. Good guy. I like him. He likes liquor.

 Don't judge.

Morning radio jock and former channel 43 prize movie host, John Lanigan.

Got busted driving home from Dave and Buster's. Most embarrassing? He was at Dave and Buster's.

Cleveland city councilman Zack Reed. Loved to party in the Warehouse District, then drive home wondering "where's my house? piss. drink." Caught stopped at a light with the car running and his foot on the brake. He later atoned by passing the nonsensical No texting while driving law. Which I break daily.

Lastly, who can forget LeBron James' teammate boffing mom, Gloria? The lady likes a cocktail. Recently busted in Miami for attacking a valet. Shit. It was either tip the guy two bucks, or use it to buy a King Cobra 40 ounce on the way home. I don't blame her.