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you know i don't like spiders
Wow, it got hot again in Davis. That Central Valley summertime has begun, and we've hit a hundred for the past couple of days alrready (and it really felt like it too). Seriously, you wouldn't believe the summers here. I'm going to make sure I get down to the naturally air-conditioned Bay Area (come to San Francisco! Warm sunny inters, cold gloomy summers!) as much as I can, or just go to the shops, or the cinema. there's some films coming out I'd like to see; Michael Moore's new film 'Sicko' sounds good. I realise that I never mentioned Spiderman 3. I went to see it just before we went to London, having kinda liked the first one, and really enoyed the second. Here is a spoiler for those who haven't seen it - it sucked bum. Ok, look I know you shouldn't expect too much from these things, but the state-of-the-art CG made me so dizzy I wanted to throw up (cue 'state-of-the-floor' jokes). How many times can someone get whacked by flying concrete and girders, or splatted into the side of buildings so hard that the bricks crumble away, before they get seriously or even mildly hurt? And by the way, super-villains, why has nobody ever put spidey down the plug-hole, or caught him in a gigantic glass, or attacked him with a really large rolled-up Daily Planet (or whatever it is, the Bugle)? But I digress. (I hate it when people say "but i digress", but I suppose this makes my point) Too many thinly-plotted storylines, too much of the Oh Sam - Oh Frodo thing going on, too little sympathy for any of the characters, too bloody long, too many cameos from Stan Lee (one, that's too many, get over yourself Stan), and as for that whole Saturday Night Fever bit, and the whole dancing about in the jazz bar, well I was glued to my seat (otherwise I would have got up and left) (sorry, the 'glued-to-seat' gag has reared its ugly head). I loved the whole black-suit Spidey when I was a kid, it looked so cool. This film, oh man, grrrr, and even the way the 'symbiote' arrives, on a small meteor that lands in the park where Parker is parked (on a web) with MJ - a meteor, it justs lands in the park, bit of a fireball, nobody notices - certainly not Spidey with his spidey-senses. I must look and check if the writers from Desperate Housewives (aka Desperate Scriptwriters) were on the job for this movie. But for me, most unbelievable of all: Peter Parker is still piss-poor and living in the slum, while every kid in town has a spiderman costume, a spiderman lunchbox, a spiderman baseball cap, balloons, badges, buttons... I'm sorry, do we not live in the age of image rights and merchandising? Are you telling me the Amazing Spiderman doesn't get a single cent from any of that? He just lets big companies get away with exploiting his image like that, more than likely making millions of dollars (and who knows even funding terrorists, hey there's a better plot for Spiderman 4), and in the meantime he lives off of beans on toast and super-noodles? (not that there's anything wrong with that) You're having a laugh, ain't ya? Who is his agent, Steve McLaren? Let me tell you, if Spiderman is that much of a mug, he deserves to get washed down the plug-hole. |
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15.6.07 06:52 |
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100 degrees in davis
ok now i realise i sounds like i'm punning extraordinarily, and unfortunately those who know me expect it of me by now, but i'm really not, by saying davis is full of degrees right now, and it aint 'cos it's graduation time. We've hit a hundred degrees fotr the past threee days, (meaning the davis/central valley HOT season has started - see last year's entries for the previous anguish) including one yesterday in which power went down at the UC, meaning a longer lunch for pete, meaning he got the chance to paint a bit more in extreme weather, and this is the result. I hope you like. |
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16.6.07 08:43 |
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Lewis and the News
I got up today and watched the end of the Formula 1 US Grand Prix; blimey, this Lewis Hamilton kid's a bit good, isn't he! An incredible start to his career, and his team-mate Alonso - the world champion - looked pissed about it. What I liked, when I was back, I'd heard Lewis Hamilton say that he got the latest Formula 1 game on the X-Box, and it was last yea's drivers - he wasn't even in it yet, and he would have to wait a whole 'nother year before he could play as himself. But, but, Lewis, you do it for real! I bet the papers are going ballistic about him, along with all the opinions on the street that it engenders. It's nice, you know, watching from another country, and not having the crazy tabloid headlines and harrowings that are such a feature of British life and celebrity.
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18.6.07 08:07 |
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exile on k street
another sunny day, another sunday sketching in midtown sacramento, the one above is another one of them, you know, like all my others, this time on k street, a diner i never went into. Quite happy with the car though. The one below is just a detail of a picture i did of the Crest Theatre, downtown but also on k street, in my new moleskine watercolour book. Not the whole thing; I wasn't massively happy with it, it looked ok enough, until I scanned it and it turned hideous (all the blue mysteriously vanished for one thing). My wife said she liked it though, pastel-like (but not fruit-pastille-like). I quite like the paper in the watercolour moleskine though, for doing things the wh smith one cannot. Is there nothing that she cannae do? as the scunner campbell might say (supergran, not sol). what I want to know is how many moles were skinned to make this paper? I am a bit concerned.
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18.6.07 08:31 |
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i didn't come here to be insulted
There will always be hysterical bigots in the world, and those who revel in whipping up anger and making things worse. "Rushide diplomatic row escalates," the BBC headline reads, accompanied by a picture of a British flag being burnt by a crowd. Of course it does. How could it not? We aren't being fed images of those people in Pakistan and Iran who think that calling for someone to be killed for a supposed insult in abook you've probably not read, and then calling for suicide bombs in order to avenge the 'insult' that this author - who's written more than one infamous book, you know - should be given a knighthood, is a bloody stupid and irresponsible thing to do. Those people aren't newsworthy. No, we're being shown those crowds of people, whipped into a fury by their own media giving them news that the Queen and all her little Britons are slapping them in the face on purpose, doing the obligatory flag-burning (there has to be a new word for this, pyrovexillology or something). I wouldn't mind but that's a terribly innaccurate Union flag, the St. Patrick's saltire isn't supposed to connect with the cross of St. George, dear oh dear. As a vexillologist, I'm deeply insulted. (incidentally, thinking back to another recent mass-hysteria, did you know it is illegal in Denmark to burn flags of other countries, but it is perfectly legal to burn the Danish flag, the Dannebrog? Funny old world, as Greavsie would say) It's all insults these days, isn't it? It seems there are a lot of people in other countries - and in our own - that are insulted very easily, to the point where they would wish death and murder upon those they are told are doing the insulting. That's what we're told anyway, which of course does little to help the situation. It does little to help improve our view of them, to dispel any fears of the foreigner. Whereas in Iran and Pakistan things aren't helped by guys like the Pakistani religious affairs minister, Mohammed Ejaz ul-Haq, the one who says that suicide bombing to avenge insults against the prophet is justified (mind you, certain capitalist governments will go to war to protect their profits). These are the types of people, like the ones who fanned the whole anti-Denmark thing, who remind me of those kids at school, the snotty, greasy little ones who seem to lurk around with no friends, and then if someone says anything against one of the bigger more thug-like kids, goes straight to them and blows it out of proportuion, so that they will go and beat up the guy who apparently insulted the thug-boy, while they snicker on the sidelines, enjoying the schoolyard discord they have created (and let's face it, 'the fight' was always a popular event in the playground, at least in my school). They remind me of them. What do people like this get from inciting anger, hatred, hysteria, bigotry and a lust for mass-murder? (apart from deflecting a domestic public away from their own lousy policies, of course, something faux-news and the bushistas have never shied away from) |
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20.6.07 04:29 |
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barn baby barn
aaaargh! i can't stop drawing at lunchtime, every chance i get. always trees, buildings, bikes, especially this one, the uc davis bike barn, i've done it a few times now. Well this is the second page of the new moleskine; you know, the watercolour one has nice paper, but why is it that funny awkward design? Why does it fold out long like that? It wouldn't be so bad if it flapped over, like my old canson spiral bound ones. Can't the spine be down the side, like on other moleskines? Oh no it has to be different. Just to make it awkward for pete who's sitting on a bench trying to draw. I managed though. speaking of bikes, i really should start riding mine again, i've gotten so lazy. I just had a thought (looking at the big world map above me), if you were to burn, publicly, all of the flags in the world, is it an insult to everyone, or is it the same as not insulting anyone? And, right, if you forgot one country, say, Tuvalu or someone, would they then be insulted because you didn't burn their flag? This question is vexing pyrovexillologists everywhere. |
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20.6.07 04:48 |
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union square
ok this is union square, san francisco, no i didn't go down there and draw this patiently, i sat at home looking at a photo we took there. And while i diligently penned those lines i put on the dvds of simon schama's "a history of britain", first the bits about the act of union, the jacobite rebellions, and the subsequent hanoverian butchery, followed by the rise of the british fastbuck empire, spouting liberty and trade while practising slavery and ruthless capitalism, the birth of the u.s., the colonisation of india, bloodshed, greed, power, bloodshed. Jeez, that's enough to drive you mad inside every one of those little lines. |
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21.6.07 05:23 |
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jilted george
Wow...not long now until Honest Tony is no longer Prime Minister, and we know who'll miss him the most. I had this whole thing in my head, the rewritten lyrics of Jilted John, with the whole "I know he's a moron, gordon is a moron" thing going on, it seemed to work quite well. "'who's this bloke?' i asked him, 'gordon' he replied, 'not that puff!' i said dismayed, 'yes, but he's no puff he cried. 'he's more of a prime minister than you'll ever be!'" But I couldn't decide if George was the jilted one, or Tony? In reality, it's George, George doesn't seem to care much for Mr Broon, but the love between him and Tony, well that needs no explaining. Or was Gordon the jilted one? The Deal he had with Tony, all those years ago, and in the end it's all about George, George this, George that, well why don't you get George to be Chancellor, you love him so much Tony. It also makes sense if you sing "George is a Moron". But in the end, why tamper with a classic? So I went with a reminder of that Little Britain sketch, the one where foppish Sebastian sobs at the PM's feet. Now that seems a lot more likely to me. and George can still sing "Gordon is a Moron" if he wants (and Cheney can do that little dance). Farewell Tony, only days left now. Don't forget your legacy, eh. |
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23.6.07 10:40 |
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sunday morning in the garden
a sunny sunday morning (this morning, actually) in santa rosa, in my mother-in-law's back garden, there's her dog brutus laying on the lawn. |
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25.6.07 07:59 |
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sunday evening in the beer garden
last night, at sudwerk, the local davis german-style microbrewery, i sat with a beer in the warm evening air, painting as the sun went down behind the flyover. This couple, sat some distance away, didn't know i was painting them. A group of young Mexicans were seated on the table next to me, and while I can't speak spanish, I could tell they were talking about the concacaf gold cup final (the footy), in which team usa beat mexico 2-1 in the afternoon. I herad them mention landon donovan's 'penal', as well. that's penalty to you. They didn't however mention the good news that thierry henry has left arsenal for barcelona. It was a nice evening sat in the beer garden. But before that, i decided to draw the train tracks beside sudwerk, on second street, there it is below, stretching out into the distance across davis, with a cargo train sat patiently waiting for everyone to go to bed, before rumbling on noisily into the night.
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26.6.07 05:37 |
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