Pudlo Pudlat — Inuit Artist

Found these at stoppingoffplace. These paintings were done by a Native Inuit artist named Pudlo Pudlat. Some of it is folk-like and tribal as you would expect, but a lot of his work shows the mingling of his culture with an increasingly technological one. Pictures of elaborate, trippy-looking planes and helicopters everywhere. And I love the one with the giant walrus surfacing near a row of houses strung to power lines. He's an Eskimo — cool!

Day of the Jackal

First a novel I haven't read, then a really great flick, "The Day of the Jackal" focuses on an assassin who's totally freelance and absolutely indifferent to the moral significance of his actions or his mission. He's hired by an underground French group to kill President Charles de Gaulle. Professional, and very cool about everything from work to style -- the Jackal is a man of action. You never get his real name, or hear much come out of his mouth. But he's completely coooool. His fee is so high, the underground group has to start knocking over banks just to pay it. He's no Frenchman, this guy's British. A lot like James Bond in terms of swagger, cunning and skill; except he's kind of a son of a bitch.

Anyone, ANYONE who gets in his way or finds out his mission is instantly iced. He meets a beautiful woman and sleeps with her while he's hiding out at some inn. But then he strangles the chick because she finds out who he is! Basically, at any point he senses someone on his trail, he kills them in the next room, off camera. No anger, no emotion, it's just something that needs to be done. With all that said, he's still got slick outfits and killer cars throughout. Not many cats can rock a dandy little European ascot under a button down, while icing somebody.

Going through a checkpoint.

Another checkpoint.

Love this little car.

Here's he's painting his whip a new color to dodge the pigs.

Bruce!

"It is like a finger pointing to the moon. Don't concentrate on the finger, or you will miss all of that heavenly glory."

He could kick your ass, my ass, your tough older brother's ass. He could beat up your dad, your uncle who knows special forces shit, Hulk Hogan, a ninja, all the Nazis and probably even a bear. He also came up with the premise for the show "Kung Fu," starring the late David Carradine. Originally he was set to play Caine, but the studio essentially stole the project so they could use a white actor to play the Chinese monk.


In a speed demonstration, Lee could snatch a dime off a person's open palm before they could close it, and leave a penny behind. He could do fifty one-armed chin-ups and even thrust his fingers into cans of soda — the kind they used in the 70's which were steel, and thicker than aluminum cans. He could throw grains of rice up into the air and then catch them in mid-flight using chopsticks. I'm not making this shit up.

He surrounded himself with books, mostly pertaining to martial arts, combat and sports from around the world, but he was still much more than that. He was sensitive, spiritual, eerily intelligent and he had style.

Take Ivy

Ok, thought I'd throw this up here. If you haven't already heard of this photo book "Take Ivy," check it out. It's a lot cooler than it sounds. A Japanese guy made it, and the book features candid pictures of Ivy League college guys in the 60's in an effort to capture their style.


Now, don't get me wrong. It's no doubt that 90% of these guys were absolute jerks at the time, and probably still are. They probably behaved similarly to what we now refer to as "bro-dudes," "dude-bros," or "bras." They were "proto-bros." They were probably homophobic and homoerotic at the same time — rich, stupid and spoiled WASPS. Their fathers owned car dealerships and threatened boarding school every time Junior fell out of line.


Say what you want about these characters, they had style. Or rather, they HAVE style. The American prep has been in an out of fashion over the years, and now seems to designate a young man as simultaneously hip and (in some ways) conservative. Think of what was happening around the men in these pictures during the heat of the sixties. THE SIXTIES were happening. Culture was exploding, and the youth were behaving more freely than ever before. But, probably not these fellas. They would had to have been squares. Non-hippies. Opponents of free love and flower power.


This is a tough contradiction for me. On one hand, I have come to appreciate everything the "hippie" movement did in terms of things like consciousness expansion, free love, freedom, civil rights, peace, art and especially music. These people changed the world, even if it didn't (at least on the surface) last long enough to benefit their children, they still stood up for change and united themselves against Universal evils like the Vietnam War and unflinching riot police. Fashion and style, are two things hippies were unable to give me. But these Ivy League cats had swag, even while wearing white socks with shorts!

Cake Eater

If you think it's weird that I was captured by this photo enough to post it here for reasons that are probably perverse, and only vaguely mammalian; some unhealthy interest in mid-20th century, American housewives, birthday parties and cake which could be called anything but nostalgic, well...you're just gonna have to figure that shit out on your own.

I love old photos.
I like cake.
Maybe it's the hair.

The High Life

Now, I wore myself out on Miller High Life only months after turning 21. In this period, it was one of the few beers I could afford in large quantities, and I was already sick to death of PBR. The bottles were beautiful, and just the fact that I wasn't drinking out of a can was great too. So, I bought it a lot, and drank it a lot. Still like it, but I can no longer justify the purchase. I'm more of a Budweiser guy these days. Anyways, this old Miller ad caught my eye.

"The Atomic Ghost" Collage Series

Normally, I give collage artists about as much respect as any goofy, little nitwit with sticky fingers and a pair of scissors he should be running around with. But this guy Rafael Castilho Monteiro is definitely an exception.

The Olivetti Lettera 32

If you're a writer, or like to write, or just like old, mechanical gadgets, try to find yourself an Olivetti Lettera. I have the Lettera 32 — a solid, cold but loving chunk of steel designed by Marcello Nizzoli. It's a sleek, fashionable little typewriter which you can tote around pretty easily. The design and charm surrounding this device was probably something akin to the MacBook of its day; an aesthetic that is both functional and beautiful.

I find the typewriter useful because it keeps my writing process from stuttering or stalling. Nothing like a word processor where you might get stuck dicking around with a particular word choice for half an hour. With the typewriter, things just keep moving, even though I can really only type using my two index fingers. And it's hard. All mechanical. You have to really mean every character you type, and if not, you have to be prepared to deal with wherever it takes you. It's a much more concrete experience for me.

Cormac McCarthy used the Lettera 32 his whole life, then auctioned it off at Christie's to benefit the Santa Fe Institute for $254,500! He bought another Lettera 32 shortly after for $20, and in better condition. My mother gave me my Lettera as a gift, and I think she found it at some antique market, so keep your eyes open.

Ties from the Windmill Club

These ties from The Windmill Club are killer. Simple, but still fly. Check them out. Also, let's continue wearing ties when it's not called for, or inappropriate. Our current economy is demanding more from us — a certain element of reservedness and subtle charm.

And check this out:

Charlie Allen, a tailor based in North London, said: "The impact of economic turmoil on tie design can be traced back through the previous recessions of the 20th century. While post-war Britain and the swinging sixties embraced exaggerated prints and widths of up to 5 inches, the downturns of the 1930s and 1980s saw sizes reduced to as little as an inch."

The Devil Went Down to Haiti

Some of us must admit that when we read "the news," we skim. I sometimes make brief scans of world-changing, culture-defining and history-making stories. Do I care about what's going on in Iran, Saudi Arabia, North Korea, Sudan, the Congo, Pakistan, China on a bad day, Somalia, Utah, Iraq or any other place where things just seem screwed up civil rights-wise? Yes. But, apparently not enough to really do anything about it, or to even make it a focal point of my day.

What has caught my attention for the past couple of weeks are these ten Baptist missionaries stuck in a Haitian jail for child trafficking. I wish there was some charming way to tell you that I am laughing as I write this, but there isn't, and I am. It's been bringing a smile to my face for two weeks to think of these cretins locked up in not just any jail, but a Haitian jail. From what I understand, it's not the most comfortable place to do time.

The fact that these jackals are behind bars with nothing to do but read the Bible and pray, has given me renewed belief in whatever we're referring to as God these days. And for once, he's sticking it to these mindless white simpletons who roam our country like lumbering cattle — fat, cud-chewing cows who think there's nothin' better than some token charity work, a little prayin' then maybe a little shoppin'.

At least this seems to be the demographic of the group's leader, Laura Silsby. This vapid, @%$-for-brains, entrepreneur-turned-missionary ran an internet shopping website before her most recent escapades. She's been sued several times for employees back wages, issued several citations for not having her car registered, and she's only been a Baptist for a couple years. Foresight and planning are not in her repertoire. And her excuse for getting caught with 33 orphans trying to cross the border into the Dominican Republic with no papers was this: she didn't know how the process worked.

Okay... but like 20 of these kids WERE NOT ORPHANS! Apparently, there was a cultural misunderstanding. These kids' parents were duped into thinking their children would be temporarily taken to a boarding school where they'd get an education and regular visits from Mom and Dad.

These Haitians were lied to, by "messengers of God." Do I think these missionaries deserve leniency since their hearts were in the right place? Or forgiveness? Or even pity? Hell no. Let 'em rot in that Haitian jail. It's the least God can do for us after that earthquake.

Clark Gable

Check out the King of Hollywood. You gotta be fly to have cats like that and still look like a man. And see that little glass case of cigarettes in the bottom left corner. Fully prepared.

I did it my way...

No one ever sings Frank Sinatra's "My Way" at karaoke bars in the Philippines. It's just unheard of. They really love their karaoke over there, and they take it personally if someone hits a bad note or goes flat singing a classic. There's a lot of machismo hanging heavy in the air, and some of the clubs that feature both female prostitutes and karaoke, also hire a gay man or two — because they're not seen as rivals for the womens' attention, and they are able to use humor to diffuse fights between customers. Seriously, it's true. These bars seem to be everywhere, and can get pretty "hood" in rougher parts of town. Fights happen, sure. But stabbings are the thing to worry about.

I was reading about all this in the NYTimes and I thought I'd share it — if only to show that the old days ain't gone. The days of mowing your lawn while wearing your tie, shaving with one of those huge razor-blades, sipping a whiskey on the rocks while 'the Misses' laughs girlishly over a cocktail. Back when everyone played football, or at least baseball, when no one went outside without a hat, and every body smoked all the god-damned time. Where men went ice-fishing, quail-hunting, body-surfing and inner-tubing on vacation. When your dad let you fire the .22 at cans out back, there were no vegetarians at the Thanksgiving table, and everyone knew not to sing "My Way" unless they were really, really good.

Just love Love.

Arthur Lee is without question, the most under-appreciated frontman of the late 60's and early 70's. I love Love. When I play a song by Love, nine out of ten people ask me, "Who's this?" and I say "Love."

No one really knows about Love. Even a lot of garage rock nerds and psychedelia fans I've met are totally oblivious to one of the most fascinating bands of the past half-century. What is happening? Okay, I know we have all cultured our collective interest in this netherworld we tentatively refer to as the sixties (a trend I am neither opposed to, nor frightened by), but we can do a little better than half-hearted attempts at pretending we have better tastes in Rolling Stones songs than one another. I like "Sweet Virginia" myself. Not just because it's my girlfriend's name but because it's a nice name, and I enjoy Gram Parson's influence on the songs in Exile on Main Street.

Regardless, Love is my (personal) favorite band of the past half-century. Jimi Hendrix claimed that Arthur Lee (singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist of Love) was his favorite musician to work with...ever. And though it's been said before, I adore Hendrix. I take his word the way I would take the advice of Bruce Lee, or Jesus. The worship is just assumed, nothing I have to talk about. There will be many posts about Bruce Lee to come. But for now, check out Love. Please.

FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT!

A fight broke out in the Taiwanese Parliament today. Why can't our governing bodies behave so honestly? With all the lies and deceit surrounding any given political issue, how refreshing it is to see an argument reach such heights. It may seem barbaric, even reptilian, to throw a fist during a debate. It is often a sign that the aggressor is probably wrong, and has simply reached such a apex of rage, that only good ol' fashioned fisticuffs seem to be in order. Now, I don't prescribe to "might makes right," but who among us hasn't at least once thought of administering a savage beating to a politician? Who hasn't thought of leaving some of these characters broken and bleeding under the harsh, spotlight of a lone, flickering streetlamp, whimpering as his shoes are tied together and hurled onto some phone lines above?

I think it would give a little incentive to our lawmakers. "Do as we say, make this system work, or we may be liable to mess you up..." Maybe I'm being naive here, maybe it's just impractical. While I thought Congressman Preston Brook's 1856 bludgeoning of Senator Charles Sumner with a cane was hilarious when I first read about it in US History, I now realize it was simply the unbridled and race-fueled rage of a disgruntled slave-owner. So I retract my laughter, even though beating a senator sounds like a rousing good time, I cannot advocate an attack against an abolitionist at the hands of some simple bigot. God save the Union.

Outer Space...

What could be the harm in watching several hours per day of the History Channel? Well, I don't know. It seems largely educational, and though educational programming often drifts into the realm of magical laymanism, it can not be worse than anything else on the tube. Sleeping medications, absurdly annoying and eyescratchingly tedious mini-plots and situations where even the dumbest American viewer is left either scratching their head or throwing garbage at the screen, car insurance commercials adopted into network sitcoms, beached and spoiled teenagers under the spotlight and interest of people I cannot imagine knowing, three free brushes included and one extra sonic scrubbling bubbler if you order within the next ten minutes.

I would like to be a scientist that studies black holes, quasars and subspace. To be able to hypothesize and flat-out guess whatever one can sufficiently explain before one's peers, achieving high-level degrees in quantum physics, black matter and things that most people cannot even imagine. I can imagine the rest of the universe, what a black hole might be like if I fell into the event horizon, stars that are hundreds of times larger than our own, and even contemplate with a subdued anticipation and anxiety that which will never be discovered in my lifetime. I can perceive the infinite void with pocketed matter spiraling, clumping and collecting all around, slowly being drained into the garbage disposals of the Universe until there will be nothing left but the greatest nothing you cannot imagine because it just seems so big over your head.

But, I was not around when these things were discovered, nor would I have had the brainpower to have been a part of the moment. I can only take for fact, what the scientists and doctors of the farthest reaches of space have told me. If I had been born a few centuries earlier, most likely I would have been shocked to learn that the Earth was round, that the Earth was not the center of anything, and that there were such things as other planets, floating around the blackness just as we were, only devoid of anything but dust in the wind and ammonia ice in the fault lines of empty pointless distant worlds. You could stand on the surface of Mars, Titan or Europa--some earth-like orb, with your space suit, and hear only the sounds of inorganic activity. No smell but whatever acrid poisonous gas fills the particular atmosphere and causes your sinuses and eventually your head to explode. No smell but the chemical interactions occuring around you completely lifeless but still moving, swirling and eroding whether you stayed there and watched or not. Gamma rays are bursting off in the far reaches of the Universe, thousands of light-years away emitting more energy than anything our galaxy as ever seen in the past few million years. Beautiful explosions of light and some things that might be even faster and even less tangible than light, with no one, I presume to witness the whole spectacle.

Our generation can't cut the mustard

I can hear the brutes closing in. All around us and nowhere. And I'm not really sure who they are — not all of them anyway. But they seem to be speaking for our generation, our struggle (if there is one), our culture, our ideas and art. I'm reminded of Poltergeist; that Spielberg flick with the creepy little girl who says, "They're here." She refers to them as the "TV people," and maybe that's what we should call them. Or rather, the "internet people."

Everyday, I'm finding it harder and harder to identify with any group, cause, belief or even (and especially) my own generation. I don't know if we've simply drowned each other out in this primordial sea of voices we've created, or if everyone has reached such obsession with independent thought, we can no longer identify with anyone but ourselves as individuals. I think we are all becoming sociopaths, slowly.