Yeah, I Don't Expect You to Get It

The Dancing Chicken from Werner Herzog's Stroszek.

“Well they are very frightening for me because their stupidity is so flat. You look into the eyes of a chicken and you lose yourself in a completely flat, frightening stupidity. They are like a great metaphor for me… I kind of love chicken, but they frighten me more than any other animal.” -Werner Herzog

On my way to Long Beach today I came up with a great idea for a short film about Werner Herzog. I really wish my camera worked.

(Contents of post stolen from The Constant Siege)

Downright Kirbyesque!

I do realize that there's a ninety-five percent chance that if you're reading this blog, we go to school together and that we work at the Union together and that you've already seen it. Well, screw you, I don't need you to smart off to me like this. That's rude! So, if you haven't seen the cover this week already, here she is, in all her four-color glory.

If you haven't figured it out yet, I drew it (but I didn't color it, you can thank our esteemed graphic designer Clay Cooper for that). And I'm fairly jazzed about the whole situation, because that cover looks sharp.

The Quotable Douchebag

(More at Nerve)

Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe

And there you have it. Wisdom from the mouth of mad men.

Roman Polanski: Probably Not as Swell as He's Made Out to Be

I hope when I'm a child-rapist people will be this nice to me.

I guess I probably have to direct Chinatown first, though.

One Rad Dude

The King of All-Radness arrived. Everyone better stop acting like a lame, the standards have just been raised.

A Perfect Picture

This picture knows what is up. Happiness itself probably looks at this photo and tries to figure out what it's doing wrong.

I Hate Most Ads

But I love this one. Levis is a brand that I actually have a lot of affection for. They're basically the only jeans I've worn for most of my life. They've also always had fairly interesting ads, so it doesn't pain me that much to actually enjoy these ads. I'm fine with them trying to sell to me. Levis has earned that kind of leniency.

It also doesn't hurt that these ads in particular are pretty good.

Black Balloon

This is the first video and song I ever saw of The Kills and it left an impression on me.

One Tough Cookie

I don't know what you said to Pam Grier, but you should probably appologize to her.

Mountains of Afghanistan

It almost looks like it could be anywhere in the world, and yet, somehow, no matter where that anywhere is, you know that you wouldn't want to be there.

Not that I'd ever want to go to the place that has been described as a "howling desert," but this photo has made me realize that as much as I don't want to live on the plains, I'd still like to live somewhere with trees. But that's just me.

Maybe the property values over there are real low.

Do You Love Jim Jarmusch?

You must! Unless you're some sort of COMMUNIST!

Here's three, pretty funny videos of him speaking at some kind of a festival (one that I obviously can't be asked to figure out the nature of). Even if you don't know all that much about him, I figure he's worth listening to, if only for his anecdote about the Sons of Lee Marvin.

A Few of My Favorite Things

I love nothing more than to be fucked with by civil engineering. One of my favorite hobbies in the world is driving through the city of Compton at three in the morning in fog looking for detour signs hidden in shrubs.

For the record, this is a lie. I hate it.

To the human scrapings that shut down the 710 North: Every one of you aught to be strung up and shot publicaly. They should cart you around from city hall to city hall and repeat the ritual until there's nothing left of you but blood stained ropes and well fed dogs.

At any other time, I might see and understand the working in it, but at three in the morning I get the sense that they're just fucking with me.

Jack Kirby is Your New God

WORSHIP HIM

Don't Take Your Ones to Town

You heard the man in black, don't do it.

Gunsmoke and Rye at Waterloo

Oh they had designers back then!

Die Like a Dog

This is a book cover image by the (apparently) venerable Bernie Fuchs (heh) who you might remember from the Liquid Lunch image that I found*.

Now this book, this is what books should look like. And be titled like. It's something to aspire by.

*Stole from the internet.

Herzog on the Picture

When you are speaking about these images, there's something bigger about them, and I keep saying that we do have to develop an adequate language for our state of civilization, and we do have to create adequate pictures -- images for our civilization. If we do not do that, we die out like dinosaurs, so it's of a different magnitude, trying to do something against the wasteland of images that surround us, on television, magazines, post cards, posters in travel agencies…

(Found Via Roger Ebert)

This is Why All Movies Should be in the 40's

I swear to God if I ever make a horror movie I'm just going to set it in the past so we don't have to worry about this shit. Luckily, I probably won't ever have to worry about such a thing.

Sydney

I guess it probably beats smoke, but just barely.

(via The Denver Post)

About as Insane as it is Desirable

Apparently Werner Herzog is opening up a film school. Thesis is listed below:

The Rogue Film School is not for the faint-hearted; it is for those who have traveled on foot, who have worked as bouncers in sex clubs or as wardens in a lunatic asylum, for those who are willing to learn about lock-picking or forging shooting permits in countries not favoring their projects. In short: it is for those who have a sense for poetry. For those who are pilgrims. For those who can tell a story to four-year-old children and hold their attention. For those who have a fire burning within. For those who have a dream.

Who's got fourteen-hundred dollars they can loan me?

It should go without saying that even though I greatly admire the work and creative ethic of Werner Herzog, I am more than certain that if I ever attempted to make a film in the manner of the German great, I would be the first person killed on set. A boat would fall on me, while on fire, down a mountain, all the while I be getting bitten by snakes. Not poisonous ones, though, ones just angry enough to make my last fleeting moments that much more uncomfortable.

It'd be a bad idea is what I'm saying. I'm simply not built to make films like a mad Teuton.

Five Foreign Words for "Emo"

Here you go. Since they're not in English, they are therefore much more respectable.

Here's Something That Didn't Age Well

It's hard to believe at one time-- at any time-- that this was state of the art.

Oh well. At least Blue Monday is a fucking rockin' song.

The Evening Crapness in the West

I'm going to go ahead and call this crap.

Blood Meridian is likely, far and away, my favorite novel. I love it's style, it's contents, and the fact that it was exactly what I needed to read when I first discovered it. That kind of specificity and favor is rare at this point in my life and it only gains greater affection as I slowly assemble facts as to why it is such a great book. This is why it pains me to see five artists-- of six-- do harm to it.

Knock it off. Blood Meridian doesn't need any more gilding than it already has, you curs.

I would find it hard to believe that one could do any better than the current cover as it stands:


I guess that it is for the best that the movie hasn't been made yet. Just look what they did to the covers of The Road and No Country For Old Men. No Country is a fine movie, but the original cover is damn near perfect. The two didn't need to be combined in that case and they don't need to be combined in this case.

On personal level, I would dearly like to have a run at ruining Suttree.

AW SHIT

Hamster time.



There is a damn hamster running about.

The Electro-Plasmic Hydrocephalic Genre Fiction Generator 2000

And this is how your write a novel.

(via Wondermark)

Were You Not Aware?

Today is Toshiro Tuesdays.

Much catchier than Mifune Mondays.



I can honestly say that Toshiro Mifune is not only one of my favorite actors (a fact I probably rarely bring up in conversation, but have likely brought up here), but he's also a guy I consider worth emulating. He seems to know what he's doing and what's more is he's got the persona of a real man's man. That might just be the acting shrouding the truth, but over the years I've figured out that there's little difference between acting like something and being that something. If you want to be Sanjuro badly enough, you might just become Sanjuro.

What'd I Just Tell You?

Don't screw with the man or he'll lay your entire town to waste.

Holocaust Denial is the New Black

Keep digging that hole, Ahmadinejad, eventually you'll hit that oil.

Or more of it.

Hussard Francais, 1804

I've been going through a phase recently-- or it's been aggravated recently-- where I've been reading up on cavalry-- hussars, dragoons, cuirassiers, the whole deal. A lot of it has been ending up in my comic strips, though I've been drawing this kind of stuff for a long time. It interests me. The whole Victorian aesthetic-- ignoring the racism and sexual repression-- is a real inspiration for me.

The picture is of course of a soldier from before she was even born, but you know what I mean. I'm into old timey things. I am a man who can really appreciate a good picture of a guy with a gilded buttons and a matchlock rifle.

For some reason I kind of want his hat, too. It'll pass, though.

Welcome to Siberia #8

Hello. This is the town's mayor, doctor, and mortician. All comments and complaints may be directed towards him.

Anytime now.

PULP

Here's something that I've been wanting to post for a while. I like it because it reminds me of something I'd write. Or would like to write.

There's an "after" version of this photo, but this one is a lot more appealing to me. The threat of impending violence, the shotgun lying across the front seat, the fact that this good looking gal isn't covered in blood all contributes to this photo being my favorite in the Pulp collection.

(Rest of the gallery found here)

The Many Faces of Maurice Micklewhite

Here he is looking smug!



Here he is looking romantic!



Here he is looking absolutely Kiplingesque!



And here he is looking pretty pissed. Hopefully this movie isn't a vigilante tease like Gran Torino was.

And it shouldn't need to be pointed out, but Michael Caine is by far and away one of my favorite actors. He should be yours, too.

If A Sign Says It. . .

. . . Well then it must be true.

Comics on Poltroons

Here's this week's comic and the EXCLUSIVE INTERNET FIRST LOOK for my blog followers and my blog followers alone! WHAT LUCK YOU ARE ENJOYING! This special comic break-through is like a WARM COCOA served to you by ALL OF YOUR GRANDMAS on Christmas Day! NO THANKS NECESSARY. A GOOD DEED IS ITS OWN REWARD.

God bless and good luck.

Oh Hells Yes

It's like the internet thought to itself, "I wonder what James would like?" and then it summoned up this image, just for me.

Thank you, internet.

(Via WAY OUT!)

Taxi Driver

I have to watch this flick again. I really do.

Also, there's a whole book I found called "Bad Dates With Robert Dinero," which is just a series of really odd lists about movies. I pawed through it a bit at Vroman's. It seemed worth checking out. Or at least pawing through.

Well, It Can't Be Easy

Living on your own private island, it's gotta get tough sometimes.

Someday I'll have my own private castle on an island. How is another matter entirely. Maybe I'm an heir to a fortune I don't know about. Or maybe I'm a legacy villain and no one has bothered to tell me. Both are probably more likely than writing paying off enough to buy anything larger than a trailer, much less the, you know, private pleasure palace.

Of Being Scottish

This Penguin is Dope as Heck

You Kids Like The Coen Brothers, Right?

Of course you do. Everyone does.

BONUS: Here's an article of the Coens and Cormac McCarthy having a conversation (if you didn't see it the first eight times I posted it).

Eva Green

I don't hardly think it's fair that a human can look as good as Eva Green.

And that dog does not have a clue what is going on.

I Still Miss Someone

I was listening to John Doe and the Sadies' album Country Club and I realized how much I love "I Still Miss Someone." I fell in love with it when Johnny Cash sang it, so that's the version I'm going to post here (plus, the John Doe and the Sadies version is going to be a tad harder to hunt down at this juncture).



(What the fuck is with that photo choice?)

BONUS: CASH AND DYLAN SING DESPITE APPALLING AUDIO QUALITY



SO THAT'S FUN

I would have posted "Are the Good Times Really Over," but all I can find is the Merle Haggard version and that one just ain't no fun.

Actually I want to post two or three other songs, because that album is pretty damn good.

The Evening Redness in the West

(Stolen from God knows where)

In Which I Speak to My Audience

So, I've got to appologize here briefly. I've been somewhat spotty this past week as far as updates go. You probably haven't noticed, what with your vlogs and catamarans, but I have. And I make me sick. I promise you (me) that I'm going to step up my game here and get back to my regular schedule of 3 updates a day.

And, yes, this counts as one. I'm not getting collecting anything for this and you're not paying me, so who is anyone to complain here?

Speaking of not getting paid, tomorrow my internship with KLOS/KABC starts. Hopefully it won't be that awful. I'm not getting paid and I'm probably going to work my ass off, so I'm getting screwed on both ends here. On the plus side, I should be getting 3 desperately needed units out of the deal, which is all I expected anyways. Hopefully, at the end of journey I'll actually get to take a bite out of the carrot.

The carrot is a metaphor for lost innocence.

The Long Jump

(Forgot where exactly I stole this from, sorry)

The Most Perfect Blog Photo

So I went and found it, I found the most perfect image for someone to post in their blog. It's got trees (pine trees?), water, some classy photography, and a chick with a guitar. It's perfect. It completely encapsulates anything anyone would ever want to post on their goddamn blog and here it is, in all its glory.

I for one think this is a significant find.



Years ago this thing would have been a print above your cinder-block mounted bed. It would have gotten you laid. Now it's just some thing on the internet that is, in all likelihood, preventing you from getting laid. The cost of progress, I suppose.

By the way, no need to say thanks.

(Yanked from here. Not sure where they yanked it from, though.)

Here's a Good'un

"The most important things are the hardest things to say. They are the things you get ashamed of,..."
“The most important things are the hardest things to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them — words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they’re brought out. But it’s more than that, isn’t it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you’ve said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it. That’s the worst I think. When the secret stays locked within not for a want of a teller, but for an ear.”

- Stephen King (via Delta Foxtrot) (via dahliadoll) (via myluna) (via quote-book) (via five5five)

Bring Me the Head of John the Baptist!

(David with the Head of Goliath. Caravaggio, c.1607)

Decapitation is something awful, grotesque, and like a lot of things I read about it is something that simply doesn't happen quite enough. It's probably why, when I write a story, there's a good chance a decapitation will make its way into the narrative. That and skulls, lots of skulls.

(Before I get started, I think it needs pointing out that upon a brief inspection of Caravaggio's work, he's done not one, but three famous painting of people losing their heads. Go figure.)

This got me thinking about ways you would decapitate a person. Originally the guillotine (which, I've been told, was named after its inventor by a rival of his. As you can imagine Msr. Guillotin probably didn't take to well to the idea of the most efficient killing machine in Europe having his name stamped on it. Then again, maybe he was a narcissist.) and it was supposed to be the most human form of execution at the time, replacing the executioner's axe, the noose, as well as the slow, putrescent march to the grave that most Europeans enjoyed during this age.



Considering all of this, it shouldn't come as a surprise that Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia is my favorite film of Sam Peckinpah's. It's got everything I like, fatalistic anti-heroes, chain-smoking, bikers, doom, heavy drinking, anachronisms out the ass, western revisionism, and, of course, it revolves around a decapitation. There is also a perfect amount of machine gunning in that film. Not too much, not too little. Just right.

I think a lot of my opinion on terminal head loss probably has a lot to do with going to church and Christian schools for fourteen years of my life. The Bible, if anything, is a list of ways you probably don't want to die. My affection towards skulls is probably a more complicated one. There's the human skulls we used to have in the garden by the pool that have long since turned into dust and the one in our downstairs living room. Then there's the fact that my favorite film Terminator 2 probably has more skulls per minute than any other film before or sense. Wall to wall head bones, that film is.



(Thank you IGN for putting a water mark on an image you have no fucking claim to)

On a side note, even though I'm sure she was a massive cunt, how much would it fucking suck to be Salome? She might have done plenty of things in her life for all we know, but she's going to be forever known as the loose bitch that had the first Christian preacher's head cut off. For all we know she could have dozens of other people decapitated. People with jobs, even. I doubt most people ever expect that to be their legacy. Nero might have burnt down Rome, but at least we know he was an accomplished violinist, as well.



(Salome. Pierre Bonnaud, b. 1865)

I guess we know that she's a dancer, but that seems to be about it.

And if you think I'm a weirdo, just check out any Italian opera. Just pick one. Throw a stone. I guarantee you that there's at least four decapitations, two suicides, and at some point someone will drink poison. It's a genre trope, this is what they do.

Speaking of art history, I was looking up the history behind the phrase "Sic transic gloria mundi." You (and I) probably know this phrase from Rushmore, but like a lot of fancy Latin phrases, this one has something of a history of being bandied about by scholars and dead people. While reading up about it, I stumbled upon the Vanitas, which is a type of painting troubled painters used to make before they killed themselves with gin or syphilis.



(Vanitas. Peter Claesc, 1630)

At this point, I'd like to proudly point out that I've been accidentally quoting these paintings for years, inserting skulls of all species into my drawings and writing. What I am saying is that I have the finely tuned skills of a 17th century Flemish painter? Surprised? I'm not.

They're interesting paintings, but once you get down to it, if you've seen one Vanitas, you've seen them all.

Anyways, despite all this talk of art and psychology, I think I've over looked a major point which is that Decapitations are metal as fuck.

When I Become a 19th Centurty Crime-Baron

Day One, Eight O'Clock: Zeppelin with torpedoes.



Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Kaiser.

(From X-Planes)

Wait a Damn Minute

Is that Billy Bob Thorton?

Well, whoever it is that we decide that is, I think we can all agree that there's a serious lack of silhouettes in cinema nowadays. I could also complain about the severe lack of black and white floating around, but that whinge is older than Methuselah's hat.

(Stolen via This Isn't Happiness)

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward of Robert Ford

I hate it when people disable embedding to things they have no ownership of. I mean, they had to have basically ripped the movie with sketchy software, uploaded it and thereby probably violating more than a few copyright laws, and then have the gall to not have people post the image later. That's pretty stupid. Then again, here I am posting the scene and bitching about the ownership of art. On my blog. I'm off topic already and I never even got on topic.

Anyways, watch this scene from the phenomenal film (that I really have to watch again sometime) The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward of Robert Ford. It's got a cameo from Nick Cave who also wrote the soundtrack for the movie with his collaborator and fellow Bad Seed, Warren Ellis (but not that Warren Ellis).

(Spoiler: Robert Ford assassinates Jesse James)

Look at this guy

This is a picture of a cool guy.

Damn this guy is cool.

Much cooler than you. Because reading blogs isn't cool and this guy doesn't even know what the fuck that is. In his day blogging was getting shot at by natives and dying of tuberculosis. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, hipsters.

Nuts on the Haters

. . . The Four Feathers was a good movie.



Look at this and tell me that you don't want to see this film. You can't. Because that makes you a liar.

New York, New York

Ryan Adams is awesome. International terrorism is not.

The Douchiest 9/11 Photo

I thought about going tasteful, but fuck it.

(Stolen via The Constant Siege)

Boondoggle

I found this to be pretty funny. I think I now get Chuck Klosterman. And The Beatles.

The Ascent of Man

I think I want to see this movie

Because I am fairly certain it is funny. I think.

He's on a Mission From God

Now why didn't the Blues Brothers think of this. It might have been a much easier trip for them.

I GOT SOME TATERS

HEY COME ON DOWN I GOT TATERS FOR YOU! TATERS IN ALL SIZES! WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DON'T EAT TATERS? THEY'RE DELICIOUS AND NUTRITIOUS. THEY'RE CHOCK FULL OF TATERY GOODNESS! I CAN'T PICK 'EM FOREVER COME ON DOWN ALREADY!

Fuck That

I'm staying home and watching more Fringe. There's a chance I've said this before, but I would point out that it's still true that I don't want to get stranded on Guadalcanal. That sounds like a terrible weekend.

Nerdimals

(Prints found here)

Hamsta' wha?

This hamster cannot believe you just used that word. It's 2009. That is racist.

A Marine on Afghanistan

“I call it the eye gouge,” Meador says. “To keep the good areas here relatively calm, you have to go to the enemy and punch him in the chest, punch him in the face.”

And here's Vice magazine article called "Mortar Voters" that's about the corrupted elections in the country.

You heard the man

The 80's Are Stupid

Yup.

Shit My Dad Says

"The worst thing you can be is a liar....Okay fine, yes, the worst thing you can be is a Nazi, but THEN, number two is liar. Nazi 1, Liar 2"

If you haven't checked out this website already, you really should.

Oliphants

The niece and nephew are over at my folks' house having a ball. I thought it'd be topical to post this image.

Elephants are great, aren't they?

COMIC BOOKS ARE GREEEEEEEEEAT

Cheers to Vick for working his photoshop magicks.

Something in Incredibly Good Taste

Some dude tried to sell Indian scalps on Craigslist. A class act, I'm sure.

Daaaaaw

Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaw.