Project Woodshed

For the last several months, I have been kicking around the idea of taking some time off work--not just a week or two, but something on the order of six months or so. For years, I've often lamented the fact that work, or school, or whatever, keeps me from focusing on artistic and intellectual pursuits. I'm hoping that this experiment will help determine whether this is just a pretty story that I tell myself or an actual truth about my nature. In either case, I'll know something that will help me figure out where to go from here.

So here's the plan:

1. Work my butt off in order to reach a target savings of $7500 -10,000, which, by my calculations, should be sufficient to support myself for six months without serious financial strain.

2. Non-op and store my car so that I can cancel my insurance and save money on gas.

3. Put 70-80% of my belongings in storage in the interest of minimizing clutter and distractions, with a related goal of temporarily narrowing the books that I have ready access to to what can fit in one bookshelf.

4. Find a cheap apartment or other living arrangement and put up six months of rent in advance.

5. Make arrangements for a hiatus from my three part-time teaching jobs, with an eye toward returning to work when the experiment concludes in the event that I don't decide to do something else.

6. See what happens.

My hope is to put all this into effect at the beginning of 2008--I will try to keep this blog updated regularly with my progress.

Wish me luck.

Why I Like Working Documentaries...

I guess this would be a really good reason to finally make a new blog entry. Today I worked on a documentary where we filmed Peterme.com, the man who coined the term 'blog.'(If you scan down on the left you can see the actual post that started it all there.) Well, it should be a good reason, but really it just made me want to apologize for what I do with the thing he named. Or don't do.

We also met Paul Niquette, who apparently in 1953 first coined the term 'software.' He had to do a little defending and searching, but just found out from the Oxford English Dictionary that he was going to be given credit for the word.

We did this in the Computer History Museum, which doesn't sound like it would be all that much, but was pretty cool. It was interesting to see the Compaq lugable computer I used to have or the Commodore 64 as museum pieces. And of course the game system display. But the coolest was the stuff that I had no idea about. A hard drive about half as big as me, a machine that had the coolest name, Johnniac. Why don't computers have cool names like that? Then there was Kitchen Computer, which no one cold tell me what it was supposed to do or how it was supposed to work. And the original Google server. Oh you hand built finder of porn, trivia, and how many times my name is mentioned on the internet.

Anyway, that is why I like doing documentaries, it's like watching them, but it takes longer and occasionally I get to ask my own question. Peter Merholz even told me what the Sandwich Machine was-something like lazyweb, where people just state the things they want but are too lazy to make it so they put it on the web and hope someone else does it. I like my name.

It implies that I get sandwiches.

It was nice talking to you

The title above was the last thing the automated operator at T-Mobile said to me as I finished paying my account for the month. There's a sense where I understand the urge on the part of a company to create the feeling of human contact, but it comes off as a bit patronizing as well. There is little doubt in my mind that I was talking to a machine, especially considering that very few people misunderstand the difference between "eighty" and "eighteen" to the point that I have to say "eighty-one" just to move forward in the conversation.

The whole situation poses a dilemma. I really, really like the fact that I can hop on the phone and pay a bill or conduct any number of simple business transactions without actually having to bother a human being, but the fact is that such convenience carries with it a certain alienation. I generally try to be polite to machines (I always tell the gas pump, for instance, that I do not want a receipt), perhaps hoping on some level that when the machines rise up, I will be on the protected rolls.

What I guess I'm getting at is that I would prefer that a machine not be set up to represent anything else--the voice on T-Mobile is a nicely euphonious woman's voice with inflections and pacing that varies from vaguely seductive to comically robotic. I am certainly always aware that I am talking to an interactive menu that may seem friendly, but it is never a friend, and really cannot be mistaken as such.

As we move forward into an age where it is increasingly possible to simulate real social interactions in a kind of stripped-down commercially oriented Turing Test, I think that my actual human interactions become more, not less, important. Many of us interact with living people through interfaces that resemble the ones that we use to talk to computers, so it's really easy to blur the line between them. Ultimately, some kind of infrastructural designation seems called for--a way to require a machine to report "I am, in fact, a machine, and this interaction is, at best, a lifelike simulation of human contact."

In the meantime, I have to wonder if the T-Mobile voice has any admirers out there...

"You Suck."

Maybe this is catharsis. I'm surely not proud to admit this to the well of the internet, to the handful of people who have probably stopped checking this because it's been so long since an update, or to the people who pop by here for a brief second before realizing that there is no real sandwich machine, but like picking a scab or standing on a sore leg to hope the pain dulls, away I go.

I got fired. They didn't actually use the words, "You suck." Hell, they didn't even use the words, "Your fired." They phrase it like a favor, "We're letting you go." Really? I get to go? Where am I going, is it cool? No, it's a one way ticket to Shametown, population, me.

It's not as drastic as it would have been in my pre-freelance world. It was only a job I would have had for 10 days, and I already had worked two of the days. But I really could have used the money from the remaining eight, and even if it was temporary it's still a blow to the mighty pride.

I've done all the usual things. Rationalized-it was a disorganized shoot anyway, and now I'm saved the bother. I'm not worthless, I turned down three other jobs to take this one (that stings a bit, since I would really be working right now...), I have another job coming up on the 3rd, I'll be fine. They'll be worse off now than if they kept me, it was my first time as an official grip and I was bound to be out of my element, etc.

I've blamed it on them-of course I don't know where all your equipment is, you didn't give me a call time, contact info, or location. I had to hunt you down on the first day. We didn't have time to move the equipment to my van much less do an inventory. So yeah, on the first couple of days it's going to take me a while to find shit. You have bigger problems than me, I'm not the reason you're behind schedule.

But the reality is, a more experienced grip would still have been faster. On some level they where right. And there the nerve ending attached to pride starts to twinge. And it hits even harder when it's my 'real job,' not some Joe Job I could give a shit about while working my way through college.

But these things happen. I keep telling myself I can't live and die by one job. Maybe if I say it enough times I'll believe it again.

I Dare You Not To Listen

I double dog dare you to see this and not listen to a sample or two. At least own up to the one you did. For me it was Alligator ass.

EDIT: Ah, you all missed out. Apparently the site that I linked to has been torn down in favor of a new one, but on this one you can't listen to the songs. It's really too bad.

Home Depot in Emeryville Sucks

I wanted to let Sous' post sit on top for a bit before I did this, but the Home Depot in Emeryville on Emry Ave. sucks. It may be the worst hardware store on Earth. Now this isn't just, "I went in for some screws and a sander and someone was rude." No, sir. I've worked retail for far too many years and understand that sometimes it's just a bad time. But for a week and a half I went to the Home Depot in Emeryville at least once if not twice a day. Every journey was a symphony of frustration.

First, finding someone to help you is like playing wack-a-mole. Except when you actually wack that mole it doesn't tell you that it's not his or her department and then shine you on about how he'll call someone to help you. Only two out of five times (I had to go there enough for this to be a reduced ratio-and I actually kept track) would they actually make any announcement and absolutely zero times would that help come. Place on top of this the complete and total disengagement of the employees. Though to be fair, there was one doddering old man who seemed to care but was too far off the rails to really be able to help-but by depth of comparison he was a fountain of information.

The shelves are a complete shambles, marked poorly and inaccurately, and they are completely understocked. If you have a project larger than fixing a cabinet door, forget it. For a store of its size it has shockingly little. By the end of my job despite the additional distance I would go to OSH on Ashby in Berkeley first, just to avoid frustration.

Do not go to the Home Depot in Emeryville. It is nearly the worst retail place on Earth. And I used to work at a record store.

Why am I bothering, since only one reader I know about is in the Bay Area? Because thanks to sitemeter I know that we can be a bit of a Google trap, and hopefully I can warn off an innocent Googler looking for a hardware store in Emeryville and save him the hard ship of going to the worst one ever-the horrible Home Depot in Emeryville.

I am Sous Rature's Class Rage

People who know me might not be surprised that I saw The Devil Wears Prada the other day, as I had a gap in my schedule of about three hours, and none of the films that I was actually anticipating this summer had been released yet. I was prepared for a fair-to-middling “chick flick”; what I was not prepared for, however, was for a barely containable class rage to rear up in my consciousness even as I sat in the movie theater.

A little background is necessary here. First off, my family is basically lower middle class as far back as I can trace. I often joke with friends that my forebears probably carried the luggage off the Mayflower. At the same time, I come from a long line of educators, artists, and lovers of reading. It was no surprise to anyone in my family that I studied literature when I went to college; I had said as much when I was in the seventh grade, and I have an aunt who went the same way. Most of the men in my family, though, are tradesmen of one kind or another—printers, mechanics, truck drivers, technicians. All through my childhood, I witnessed adults struggling to support their families; my stepfather mowed lawns in the day and worked as the night janitor at a high school while he went to welding school. What this meant for me was that whatever I was going to do, it had to be, foremost, a trade that could support me.

Teaching English seemed like a reasonable way to go, and there are ways in which my time as a literature student (twelve years) was incredibly important, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything; however, there were a few difficulties. First, literature is not typically a discipline for the masses, and I continuously felt out of place among my peers. I was surrounded by people who immediately clarified the meaning of the word dilettante. These were people who had opinions about wine and could use the word lover in a conversation without it seeming entirely ridiculous. My tastes are a bit different, and if my love for popular culture generally and television specifically made me a little bit the odd John, my scientific leaning were tantamount to declaring myself the enemy. For many of them, I was the Morlock in the garden of the Eloi.

What made this worse is that I love art and literature and much of what is put in the “high culture” box. This stuff meant a lot to me, and I was often the wide-eyed innocent; to me, they often felt like the couple in Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants” or extras in The Great Gatsby. It often felt to me that all of what we were doing mattered more to me than it did to them, even as they were “to the manor born.” It took me a long time to figure out why Jude the Obscure got me so angry, but years later, I realized that it hit a little too close to home. I was smart enough to get into the party, but once I was there, there was no reward other than the discomfort of literally and figuratively not knowing what fork to eat with.

Going to England for a year served to further define things. England is an openly class-driven society, and I could clearly see where my allegiances lay. Further, I am not particularly an Anglophile, but my enthusiasm often overshadowed that of other exchange students (particularly those from New York), who seemed more interested in not appearing interested. What it really seemed like was that these people were (1) practicing not being impressed, and (2) setting up contacts for future shopping expeditions later in their lives. I had a great time in England, and I think my experience was probably richer and more personally meaningful than it was for many of these people; at the same time, it was my first (and so far only) trip out of the country, and it proved nearly ruinous financially. I loved Europe, and I always grind my teeth a bit when I hear people talk so casually about popping over the Atlantic when it is just a couple steps shy of a lunar landing for me.

My moviegoing experience of a few weeks back shouldn’t have been a shock for me, but it was. I have some dimensions of my personality that I wish I could change, but, barring that, at least I can be honest about them. Seeing this film about the transformation of a basically down-to-earth character into a fashionista brought up my bile in a way that I hadn’t seen in myself since that time I accidentally watched Paris Hilton abuse Burger King employees on The Simple Life. I can only call it class rage, and it is one of the only instances where my thoughts actually take a violent turn. I can understand the spirit of the French Revolution when Barbara Bush talks so callously about the displaced poor, when well-heeled people don’t get what’s going on at intermission of Ibsen’s A Doll House. Whether I like it or not, I feel like I have more right to the great things of our culture because they actually mean something to me, because they were not my birthright, because I pursued them, because they weren’t a given for me.

This is a self-esteem issue too, though. Every now and again, I get the sensation that I am a barely restrained Liza Doolittle at the garden party, and my discourse on art, philosophy, and culture is only shades different from KoKo’s attachment to a kitten. I’d like to get over it, but I’m not sure I ever will.

The Artistic Process

This sums up nicely a feeling I have about the process of artistic acceptance, among other things. There doesn't seem to be anything on deck for writer/director Jeff Hopkins, but I hope there will be soon. It's a good little film even without the personal relevance.

Why Teach Critical Reading?

Here's a good reason. This is an anti-abortion blogger who apparently wasn't able to figure out that The Onion was a satirical newspaper. Now, I'm like the millionth blogger I think to make fun of this, he even had to post a response to all the other chattering horde on the internet that still fails to realize the schtick of The Onion.

But since an English teacher (theoretical) co-authors this blog and another occasionally visits it I thought it a relevant justification for the work they do. She must think Swift is the father of the pro-choice movement...

Side note: Blogspot spell check doesn't recognize "Blogger" and "blog"??? What the...

Update: This isn't the first time this has happened.

That's One Way to Deal With Criticism

Challenge them to a boxing match.

That's right. Uwe Boll, director of such universally panned video game to movie adaptations as House of the Dead and Alone in the Dark, the former of which (being the only Boll I've seen) achieves connection to the game by actually splicing in screen shots of the game during a climactic(?) last fight, has decided to challenge his five harshest critics to a boxing match:

"I'm fed up with people slamming my films on the Internet without see them. Many journalists make value judgments on my films based on the opinions of one or two thousand Internet voices. Half of those opinions come from people who've never watched my films. I have been told that BloodRayne has a very bad IMDb rating but how many of those votes of zero were made before the movie appeared in theatres."

I can certainly understand that level of frustration. I mean when your a filmmaker that has a website dedicated to petitioning you to stop making films or calling you the antichrist, it can get to you. I'm reminded of the ending of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back where they spend their royalty money giving internet forum haters a beat down. But as Banky says in that film:

That's what the internet is for. Slandering others anonymously. Stopping the flick isn't gonna stop that.

And really, if the rest of his movies are anything like House of the Dead, he does have a lot to answer for. But then, I guess he is. Though he's no fool, there are parameters-

To be eligible only critics who have posted on the internet or who have written in magazines / newspapers at least two extremely negative articles in the year 2005 will be considered. Critics of 2006 will not be considered. Please submit proof of your negative reviews & comments via e-mail to: info@boll-kg.de.

All challengers must be healthy males, weighing between 140 lbs. and 190 lbs. You will require to be physically examined by a doctor and sign the necessary release forms for liability, etc. You will not be paid nor entitle to any residuals or fees. Your transportation & hotel costs will be paid.

The following posters to the IMDb have earned the right to be placed on the list of the most extreme anti-Boll critics and therefore eligible to enter the contest for being picked to be an extra/stand-in in Postal and physically box Dr. Uwe Boll.

Headhunter004
Adultswimlover2
Evolution_500_2
Greatnates
thedoomsdaybegins
GunnerySergeantNumbnuts
Murdoc995
AimeeBrookes
ChineseOldMarketMan
GabeLogan9060
Veedragon40
BigSexy77
TylerDurden52
Dan223-1
howdy4641430-1


You will surely not want to miss this, so keep checking back on IGN for more!

I looked up a Headhuner004 quote, here, where he lists a bunch of anti-Boll movies.

He could just make better movies, but everyone deals with things their own way...

This Guy Really Hates Walls...

Roger Waters has graffiti the Israeli Wall. It's part of a larger campaign, and probably more news worthy is the concert and organization. But it's Waters, and a Wall.

Imagine in ten years time when he'll be in America with a whole new wall to graffiti...

No Pictures, Please

Having been the Easter Bunny, I totally understand this.

Now That's What I'm Talking About

As a geeky little kid H. P. Lovecraft was one of those things that was 'in my orbit,' so to speak. I was into role-playing games, and there was a role-playing game that I think I remember trying, or at least creating a character in. I had a complete volume of short stories that I read a few of. People who where into some of the things that I was into where into Lovecraft and Cthulhu. I would be a poser, though, to say that I was that into it.

But the movie that's been made I'm all about. Why? Because the filmmakers have decided to not only set it in the time period of the original story, but they have filmed it as if it was filmed in 1925-including being silent and only 47 minutes long. Looks like it's not going to be on a screen anywhere near me, the DVD is definatly on the list.

This is something that really intrigues me about modern filmmaking that really can only come about as a medium matures. Here the method of the filming is part of the narrative. The mise en scene has always been important in film, but this degree, not only what's on the film but how it was filmed, creates a new level of the narrative for the audience to interact with because the audience has an awareness of the medium. We're seeing this become more prominent, as with another film that uses this very technique, The Saddest Music in the World, the in the blending of documentary, narrative, and surrealist styles in the adaptation of American Splendor, or in the recent biopic of The Notorious Bettie Page that depicted the period of Page's life by emulating the film-stock of the photographs that she was taking at the time (grainy black and white in New York at the film clubs, over saturated color in Miami with Bunny Yeager). There are more examples, such as the super-genre love notes of Tarantino's Kill Bill and Conran's Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. It inspires me as an aspiring film maker and engages me as an active audience member.

I can only hope that Cthulhu and it's ilk are harbringers of things to come. Bravo.

I Told You...

Unicorns would be dicks.

It's Good to be Remembered

I grew up competing against, if for only a few years, a top level athlete. I don't want to mention his name so as not to end up trapping someone in a Google search because for some reason that would make me feel silly. Most the people who actually read this and aren't just passing through looking for an actual sandwich machine (I'm stunned at how often that's searched for, not to mention how many of those people actually click here ever so briefly...) already know who I'm talking about.

By complete randomness, I ended up working a Food Network show where I met him again as an adult. Now I remember him because of who he is, but there was no reason for him to remember me. And he didn't. What did surprise me was that his dad remembered me. I mean really remembered me. He described my dad, my grandpa (I couldn't even do that...), my number, a lot. Apparently I'm in a video they have of that time as well. He even said I was good, which I think was polite but gave me a warm fuzzy anyway.

All in all it was pretty cool. Meaningless in the grand scheme of things, but cool anyway. He was a pretty nice guy, too. Though in the situation that was to be expected, people always say that as if they expect 'celebrities' to be kicking puppies...

My Tenuous Connection to a Disney Film

As should surprise no one, I saw the movie Cars. If you're a fan of the automobile (even if you know it's ultimately a destructive relationship) than there is a well of references, as well as a faithful extension of the "Little Cabbie" cartoons that I like so much. All in all it's better than any movie with, no kidding, ten writing credits should be. The opening short, One Man Band is worth the price of admission.

But even cooler, I have a degrees of separation connection that I will stretch to make.

On of the back drops of for the film is a place called "Cadillac Ridge," which is a reference to Cadillac Ranch in Texas where an artists group called Ant Farm buried a series of Cadillacs nose first in the ground in a row. A key member of Ant Farm is Chip Lord, head of the UCSC Film and Digital Media department. (I had to change the link because I realized the one I used was for his personal info for UCSC students...on this one be sure to check out his movie map project using Bullitt. Badass...)

It's almost like seeing someone you know in a movie. Almost...

Because Maybe I Secretly Wish My Name Started with a B...

...but probably not. Anyway, following Incertus' lead I installed a sitemeter on this site so I could obsessively look at who glances at this page for less than a second in their search for something else or to see if for some reason we actually made an entry.

For those readers who were looking for sous rature, but not the Sous Rature who so rarely posts, and anyone else who is maybe strolling through the "next blog" button tour, I invite you to check out their adventures. The only thing I can add is how creepy it is to know so much about those people who where looking for an actual sandwich machine...

Fight Back and the Era of Infomercials.

I miss Fight Back. You all remember that show, it was like a proto-type Mythbusters that challenged the claims made in advertising. The show ran for 18 seasons and was amazingly popular. Somethings I didn't know, but found out at Fight Back.com. For instance, the number of claims that where true was pretty amazing, according to the history page:

One of its most popular features was the commercial challenges, which were entertaining as well as informative. The challenges included products being dropped from a helicopter, or being smashed with wrecking balls, to test claims of strength ... the popular "Timex Watch" challenges (which were all successful, by the way) ... durability tests featuring "Geeta the Elephant," a series regular from the Los Angeles Zoo, who tested the strength of products ranging from roof tiles to water beds. David recalls that 95% of all challenges proved the companies' claims, but the 5% failure rate sent worried manufacturers into a panic.

Originally I was going to lament the passing of such a show, but .86 seconds on the internet and it turns out that David Horowitz is going strong and giving consumer news on the internet. But as with most things it's not done to fulfill my lazy direct needs. Also, to parallel the eventual disappearance of that show and the change in advertising regulation that created the beast we know as the infomercial.

I don't have a remote for my TV and sometimes I just let the thing drift into infomercial because I get involved with something else or I'm just outside the door having a cigar and don't want to come in just to click through all the channels to see if there is anything on. There are a lot of vague, result and testimonial oriented programming on that promises that I'll be rich and beautiful as long as I call before the infomercial is over.

Thing is, I'm a naturally curious cat. I want to know how these systems are supposed to work. Now, I am the son of a real estate developer-you can't convince me that it's a good way to make money in your spare time. I don't buy the 'get rich quick' idea, I just want to know how they think it works and why it doesn't, explained simply by people who tried it and then buttressed by an expert.

Now I think that there is some sort of copyright deal that disallows such a thorough review of the product, after all if someone explained to me how it was supposed to work and the kinks in its system I wouldn't need to buy the systems. But I don't want to buy the systems, I want someone else to do it and satisfy my curiosity.

I want my own personal Horowitz that I can send off to tell me why I can't really get a house for $455 or earn $15,000 in my underwear, or is it a tape worm that causes people to lose 45 pounds in one month?

The Altman Effect

I had to make a decision today that kind of amused me, between seeing the new Pixar movie Cars, which actually is something I had intrigued me, a take on the anthropomorphic taxi and airplane cartoons (Like where the bomber gives birth to a jet, and you're thinkin' "She got a little on the side. She's got a little 'Space Fever,' if you know what I mean...goin' for those hot new NASA boys...I digress...), or An Inconvenient Truth, about how, among other things, cars are going to kill us all. So to speak.

I ultimately decided that a lone man in his 30s, smelling of cigar, who drove up in a van...with tinted windows on a Sunday afternoon to a kids movie was inviting trouble. So I saw An Inconvinient Truth.

But Incertus said all that needed to be said about that.

So I'm going to talk about why I'm never sure if I've seen a good movie or not when I watch an Altman film. I'm going to work this out with all of you, well by the time you read this I'll have already done it, you would have just followed how I did it. But anyway...

I saw A Prairie Home Companion. I should say that I am a long time fan of Garrison Keillor, from back when entirely by accident I came across a broadcast of A Prairie Home Companion. I was delighted the day he asked me to get out of the way during a book signing.

But this A Prairie Home Companion is much more of an Altman movie than it is anything else. It made me think a bit about Altman's style of story telling. In theory he is a 'proof of concept' for me and Sous Rature in that we tend to write character based ensemble pieces. But Altman, as is easily imagined, has a style all his own that I honestly don't know how I feel about.

There isn't a real sense of ending, or completion to an Altman film. He is perhaps the only filmmaker of the 70s auteur crowd that has retained that aspect of his filmmaking. Jarmusch does a bit of that, too. Though the movie has a kind of definitive ending it undermines that both in how it is set up and in the denouement.

I think that the thing that is the hardest to get around, and probably a barrier for other audience members is that his characters have very little internal life. This might seem like a natural thing for film, but it really isn't. When a character is alone, or doing something that they don't think at least others are seeing that is films way of providing an internal life for the character. While Altman doesn't abandon that all together it is far more spartan. You are an observer with no particular special privilege. You are flipping channels through the evening in these peoples lives and are left to piece it together yourself. Peoples reactions and emotions, their outbursts, can seem unmotivated and a little confusing. But it is because we are accustom to the special privilege that audiences have. Altman robs you of that.

While it would seem that this would separate the audience from his films, and no doubt it does for some, I think it has the opposite effect in that your reactions to the characters, their unmotivated outbursts or behaviors holds the same curiosity as would if it happened literally right in front of you. You are reacting as the undressed member of the crowd, the guy no one remembers inviting going from room to room nursing that one beer. The quality, the elusive reason that you think you've seen a good movie but aren't sure with Altman, is in this needle he threads with things that aren't supposed to work.

He has too many characters, no internal life, and conventional wisdom is that you can't make a film of someone's party interesting unless you are there. By giving us only the privilege that we would have as audience at that party, that's exactly what Altman films-a party that you are at. It's a different kind of filmmaking and takes a bit of getting used to.

There are weaknesses, and they don't neccisarily come from Linzie Lohan. Some of the actors, particularly and most noticably Virginia Madson, have a hard time. I don't know if it was being starstruck with author and director or what, but there are lines that you can almost tell the actor feels is corny or doesn't work but trudges through them anyway. Madson in particular gives the movie the feel of a community theater rendition of Our Town. But the interplay between Streep and Tomlin. For that matter, most of the pairings. And while it's frustrating when that style of storytelling steamrolls over a favorite bit (messing with the sound effect guy, for instance) it's about the only way this story could have been told.

One last note is the way Kiellor depicts himself, through the various stories about how he got into radio and his reactions (or lack there of) to what goes on around him. He is always at the tail end of a story that he gives you no reason to believe but want to hear anyway. He has the narrative of an observer with the characteristic of someone that does not notice those around him accept as audience. He doesn't care that the show will end because for him the show never ends. It's an interesting way for an artist to portray himself. And again, fits well into the style.

The Pet Image Principle

I do a lot of Google image searches-not that kind (well...), just for various reasons I've had to look up images for a lot of things. One of the things that I noticed in doing this is that there a threshold: If a search has enough pages there is an almost certainty that one or more of those images will be a picture of someone's pet.

This image of someone's pet birds came up for 'motherfucker.'