Sorry to break it to you, Jesus doesn't Rock.

Dec 2, 2005

Okay I saw this guy wearing a shirt that read “Jesus rocks" in big yellow and red letters in the font that will forever be known as the AC-DC font. I had to shake my head in disbelief. Silly Christians rock is for Satan. Now for the record Ozzy Ozborne can't walk on water, Alice Cooper can't heal lepers and Jesus can't write a good rock song. Cases in point, Highway to hell, Hells Bells, Sympathy for the Devil, Running with the Devil, ect, ect. All songs for the Devil. Everybody knows the best rock music is associated with Satan, or things Satan would endorse. After all its sex, drugs and rock n' roll not abstinence, sacrificial wine and rock n' roll. Robert Johnson infamous blues legend whose music is widely heralded as the starting point for rock n' roll supposedly sold his soul to the devil to get his guitar and songwriting skills. When Ray Charles added R&B to gospel tunes the church threw a shit fit. They called it the devils music and five decades later we still like it that way. Now don't get me wrong I'm not doggin' Jesus, if you're into Jesus more power to you. He was a groovy dude but he simply does not Rock. For one thing, Jesus is all into peace and love while rock is about anarchy and sex. Peace and love is all fine and good but “Anarchy in the U.K." is rock n' roll. In fact the first line of said song is “I am an anti-Christ." so there you have it. Yes there have been songs written about peace and love but it's safe to say none of them Rock, at least not in the way “Sympathy for the Devil" rocks. Rock is hard and raw, peace and love is squishy and soft like puppies and bunnies, and everyone knows puppies and bunnies are what people who Rock eat for breakfast (raw and bloody of course washed down with a fifth of J.D. and a cigarette). Now I use the devil as a metaphor to prove a point, not all music that rocks has to be about Satan or evil, but in the least rock is about the struggle between the good and evil sides of our nature. In Jesus there is no struggle, Jesus is peace and love absolute, Rock n' Roll cannot be about absolutes it's about the complexities of the human soul and psyche. Rock n' roll is about breaking down old boundaries to define new ones, about taking things to the edge, pushing them over the edge and then lighting them on fire. In a sense "to rock" does not have to mean "to be evil" it's simply challenging the old ideals that promote: no sex, no drugs, stand up straight, cut your hair, and be good at all costs, and all else is not good so it's by default evil. Rock n' roll does not classify itself as evil the people who don't approve of rock classify it as evil and the people who rock never said otherwise. I think the people who do rock generally believe that if you call me evil than that's what I'll be, and I'll take it to such an extreme that even I won't believe it. So in a way the people who think rock n' roll is evil are probably the ones that caused the whole satanic shift by getting their panties all bunched up. It seems to me Kiss, Alice Cooper, Marilyn Manson, Danzig, are all evil in the horror movie- drive in triple feature kind of way more so than the Ted Bundy- Hitler kind of way. Silly, Campy, Theatrical, tongue in cheek kind of evil, I mean who past the age of 17 can take Manson seriously. This is the in joke that people who rock play on squares and rubes. So what if people who rock generally partake in things the religious mainstream would consider evil, drinking, drugging and sex of all kinds, things that if the religious mainstream hadn't deemed deviant anyone would even care. If you draw a line in the sand people will flock to it, cross it and then light it on fire. More on this later until then keep rockin' in the free world and I'll catch you on the flipside

Night of the Tiki

Cocktail hour at Don the Beachcombers.

On the fondness and abhorrence of geekdom.

Oct 8, 2005

     Oh how big of a geek I am let me count the ways. Okay I'm a geek. I know this. My friends know this. My wife is slowly finding this out and someday my kids will know this. This however is not the worst thing that can happen; my wife could cut off my penis and throw it out the window of a moving vehicle. See I am a geek and those of you film geeks out there will understand that last line. I am a geek, let me count the ways, film geek, music geek, poetry, literature, comic books, cartoons, pop culture, Star Wars, Sci-fi, I can talk about aliens at length it goes on and on. I am a geek and it has been good to me; however I'm what you a scatter shot geek, fired from a twelve gauge and who knows what the shot will hit. I'm also a chameleon; I can be a geek without most people ever knowing it, though other geeks can smell it a mile away. I can blend with in and watch football with a bunch of drunken Steelers fans, I'm a football geek. I'm not much in the way of math, computer or science geek, at least not in the practical science I like reading theoretical physics and I understand it, it’s about girl’s right? (I am such a geek). I pride myself at being a geek of all trades, a kind of renaissance geek. People have called me "cool" and seem to truly believe that I am cool but I know in the depths of my heart I am a geek and despite what others might think am not cool. I love being a geek, take pride in it but I also hate the faction of geeks who for lack of a better term ' take it to the limit'. The geeks I am talking about are the ones who hone in on one area and try to become the ultimate geek in that genre, be it Star Wars or comic books or what not there is always that population of geek land who will take it to such an extreme it makes other geeks sigh and say under their breath " looser.". These geeks bother me; I can't handle attempting a casual conversation with one of them. Nothing and I mean nothing ruins my day like getting locked into an ubergeek death match conversation with someone whose life so thoroughly revolves around one thing and one thing only. I'm talking about those one sided conversations I have with fellow geeks once they realize I'm a geek also and must rush to out geek me. Ten minute dissertations on Dr. Who, something that I'm casually geeked into or at least I was when I was twelve, Conversations from which one can't escape no matter how hard one ducks and weaves, about a subject no one should ever know so much about. It's fun to have long geek conversations but I need a wider variety of geek subject matter than just Star Wars, or video games. I'm not saying don't be a geek, be a geek, let your geek flag fly, but if you're a geek and you only have one thing to focus on I say expand your horizons. There are plenty of areas of study in the college of geek; no one says you have to be a one geek pony. Anyway until next time ' live long and prosper' and I catch ya' on the flipside.

True Tales of The Twin Cities color version

This was a piece I did for the Minneapolis Citipages, comics issue. It was on the web page of the paper, this was the color version my brother did.

NIGHT OF THE CARTOON SPOKES ICONS

Oct 2, 2005

What's so enticing about a Blueberry flavored cereal with marshmallows hawked by a cartoon ghost? My wife and I were in the super market the other day and I came across the holy trinity of breakfast cereals, Count Chocula, Frankenberry and Boo-Berry, the father, the son and the blueberry ghost, amen. I had a religious experience, I hadn't seen a box of Boo-berry in a long time. I was at once reminded of childhood memories of breakfasts with my favorite fruity specter, and the horror after it was taken off the market as sales dropped. My wife not being a pop culture addicted moron such as myself thinks I'm insane, and she's probably right. I'm a twenty-eight year old man who eats Children's cereal, is this wrong. Look I've never gotten to that turning point in a persons life where all the cereals in the cupboard turn from Fruity Pebbles and Lucky Charms to Grape Nuts and Special K, does this mean I have some Peter Pan " I don't want to grow up" syndrome or is it simply basic pop culture obsession. Okay I admit it I'm a pop culture addict, If I added up all the time I've wasted watching some Vh1 show about the 80's or the one-hundred most self indulgent moments in Bulgarian prog rock, I'd probably have had enough time to have done something worth while like finished reading War and Peace like I've resolved to do every new years since I turned twenty-one. When it boils down to it how many conversations am I ever going to get into about War and Peace, and how many conversations have actually (and depressingly) had about some meaningless pop culture nonsense? The ratio would be like three to a hundred-zillion, and the three conversations I had about War and Peace were all about how I and the person I was having the conversation with hadn't actually finished reading War and Peace. The fact of the matter is that cereal is comforting, no let me rephrase that, children's cereal is comforting. No matter how f@..!ed up the world gets Boo-berry stays the same, no matter what messed up sh..t is happening on the evening news Lucky Charms still has enough Marshmallows to choke Ethan Hawke. It's kind of a Gen X right of passage to sit in your boxer shorts in front of the evening news or Conan O'brien munching on a bowl of brightly colored sugary corn/rice/wheat flakes/puffs/balls as it bleeds into the milk turning it the color that Timothy Leary saw every time closed his eyes. I don't think I know one person who hasn't done this every night for at least one year of their lives. Besides Grape nuts tastes like dirt and dirt reminds me of holes and holes make me think about graves and graves make me think about death and do I really want to be obsessing about death at the breakfast table, I think not. Long Live Boo-berry!!!!!!! Until next time catch ya' on the flip-side.

A day in the life of and Easter Island Moai

This is a peice I did a few years ago.

The first of the Va Voom Blogs.

    Welcome to the first of the Va Voom blogs.  Va Voom started as a self published comic book and spilled over onto a blog on Myspace for a brief time. Now that Myspace is a veritable ghost town and Facebook doesn't really facilitate blogging I've brought the blog here. The blog will consist of cartoons, comics, art photos, and general ramblings. I will probably re post some of the Myspace blog entries along the way. It will basically be a dumping ground for all the random voices running rampant through my head, whatever they may be.
   Catch ya on the flip-side...