Flattery?

You know how I spell Theater the American way? I really should have snagged both spellings on the web when I had the chance. Now it would seem that I'm getting enough traffic for something that could only be the spawn of, well, internet gremlins doing stupid obnoxious things.
So if you like pop-ups and webpages made only to annoy, please check out:
http://www.headinjurytheatre.com
(Note the spelling difference, if you will.)

The funny thing is that you can find this site by Googling my name.
Damn it.
-jared

State of Emergency in Upstate New York..

Dear God, what the hell is going on with this vacation/road trip?

First my grandmother gets horribly and nightmarishly sick forcing me to delay my outing and now that I'm in New York the entire area that I'm in is nothing but flooding streets and washed-away bridges? What the hell?

In bettter news, you might have noticed I FINALLY got a new article up on the site as well as posted a kinda cute children's story about a koala and his dim-witted adopted brother. Check them out:

http://www.headinjurytheater.com/koala.htm

http://www.headinjurytheater.com/article52.htm

Oh and for the sake of entertainment, check this out. My sister got married earlier this month and just before the happy day she got a letter in the mail.

I think it has to do with how my sister spent time as a "Young Republican" volunteer on George Bush's campaign (which is scary unto itself), but somehow getting a letter from the White House blessing your marriage hurts my soul a little. It's funny to me, but I'm sure there's OTHER people out there that didn't know the president's staff sent "official" glad you're getting married letters out. Or hell, maybe my sister tried to invite Dubya to the occassion herself. I just don't know.

-jared

Hospital Beds and Censorship: The Week Ends.

Definitely been a rough week. Thanks for your support guys. My grandmother came home from the hospital today...which is definitely a good thing. There were some difficult nights in there, as restlessness and what the nurses told me was "night fever" set in. Apparently it's a common thing for elderly patients to act demented when the sun goes down. Gah. I stayed awake until the sun came up keeping her safe and in the bed...I wrote down and drew a lot of what happened on those scary nights. You'll see it soon.

The good news is that my trip to Yankee country is no longer being delayed and I'll be up amongst the Yorker of New before the week's end.

The other issue that I wanted to "officially" repost in the Blog was this:

http://www.mediawatchwatch.org.uk/?p=501

If you read the Eyeskream board or Digital Strips, you probably already know about it. Censorship frightens the bejesus out of me. It should frighten you too.

If you're new to art getting people in trouble, this is an example that springs to mind as a good refresher on the subject.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piss_Christ

The scary things about this piece is that if you didn't know the name of it, you wouldn't be offended. Seriously. It's almost pretty.

-jared

Edit: If you want another look at troublesome art, google Mark Chamberlain and his homosexual Batman paintings. It's a pretty interesting story, even if religion isn't involved. And, to be fair, Batman and Robin being gay lovers has been a point of contention for DC comics since the 1950's. So don't blame Mark too much for what he does.

http://www.artnet.com/artwork/424463268/mark-chamberlain-untitled-no7327.html

And really, you don't have to be a comic book fanatic to need to know where some of this caped-crusader history comes from:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seduction_of_the_Innocent

"I was an Ugly Child"

You may or may not have noticed there's no article on the site, as promised. I do my best to not get to personal or emotional on the site...because whenever I see it displayed so openly it's often ridiculed or somehow overly sappy. The reason there's no article for you right now has a lot to do with how my grandmother is sick and our clan's been spending a bit of time in the hospital hoping for the best. Even now I'm not sure what to type because excuses are excuses, but real life always comes first. I'm having a lot of trouble writing about a killer Gingerbread man or the time that Scooby Doo farted on a pirate while a family member is in intensive care. But instead of focusing on a sad note, I'll give you guys a preview of something ELSE I was working on that'll eventually be on the site.

When I was 9, our class made a time capsule. I don't remember what I put into that one, but apparently I thought it was a good idea so when I got home I made a time...box. I threw some things into it and then taped it up....promising to open it when I reached an age that seemed so far away. I decided I'd open it when I turned 13. Years later, 13 rolled around and while I couldn't remember what I put in the box, I didn't feel enough time had passed...so I decided to wait until I was 15. At 15 I decided to wait until I was 21. At 21 I was in New York and had long forgotten about the time capsule (box). So when I came home a week or so ago at the age of 26, I figured it was a good enough time to open it.

Inside I only found 2 things. 1 was a softball. This is pretty funny because when I was 9 I was pretty active on the softball team...but quit playing mysteriously because my ball vanished mysteriously. So my softball was important to me when I was 9, so I put it in the time capsule...which sort of creates a paradox because by putting it in the capsule I guaranteed that my interest in softball would fade. Or something like that.

The other thing in the box was a stack of pictures that I'd stolen from our family albums. I didn't steal particularly good photos, but it's pretty telling. I'll walk you through all of them in an article eventually, but for now I'll share two. Here's me with my family enjoying Christmas hotdogs of all things (that's my grandmother in the middle).

I can't even fathom what the glowing phantom bird is doing in the foreground there.

The other realization, that must have been obvious to everyone else, is that I was apparently one goofy child growing up. Goofy-looking I mean. Take a look at this photo taken of me at Space Camp:

That's one of my favorites mostly because I still wear that outfit from time to time. :shudder:

Enjoy yourselves and, well, I'll keep you updated as to the drama.

-jared

Madness continues...

I've been working like a madman this past week. The sad thing is that I can't talk too much about what I've been working on just yet. Suffice to say what I thought would be a quick project has mutated into something that eats my time like sweet, sweet candy. The following picture is part of it, but, well, I'll explain later.

Oh and while I hate the whole "Hey guys, I apologize for not updating thing" that all websites pull from time to time, I still have to follow the trend in regards to this month's significant lack of movie reviews. Expect a deluge soon, particularly if you've figured out the secret organizational system that stores reviews for future weeks. That said come back later tomorrow for a review of a film where Gary Busey plays an evil killer gingerbread man. It's very special.

Oh yeah, it's called The GingerDEAD Man. When a title makes you cringe, that's never a good sign.

-jared

Edit: Oh and if you like the "Pornographic Nightmare Fuel" section of the site, now's the time to bookmark it. When my current project launches I'm going to have to remove all direct links to that particular page. I won't delete it or anything, I just plan on making it very hard to stumble across. Pornographic trivia fiends out there: You were warned.

Urinal Fun in Amsterdam...

Sorry for the silent running there. After finishing the Art Crash I had to scramble to get everything in order for my trip to America that happened on the 1st this month. I've finally gotten everything straightened out and am just now dealing with that which has been neglected. I'll give more details as to what I'm doing on this continent a bit later, but in the meantime enjoy a random observation. I'm not sure if I've mentioned this on the Blog before...so If I'm repeating something I said a year ago, accept my apologies in advance. I've been wanting to share this for a while and haven't gotten around to it (as far as I know).

I think this is really only for the guys out there, as the concept of a urinal is ultimately just a fancy name for "a sink that us fellows are allowed to pee in" to most women. Bathrooms with urinals have always brought up unpleasant questions with me. I mean, how hard is it to pee in a straight line? Why is every men's room thoroughly saturated as if a blind man with a bladder full of Gatorade went to town there? Obviously progressive bathroom designers are keeping this trend in mind, particularly with these new urinals that I saw in the Amsterdam Airport.

That doesn't look that different from a normal urinal, does it? Look closer:

That's not a fly in the urinal....it's a picture of a fly. Holy Crap, they've not only given you a bullseye to aim for when you're draining the lizard but you actually can pretend you're drowning an insect with your wiss while you do it.

This might not amuse anyone else, but I've been wanting to share that for a while. There are urinals like that all over Europe. That's not to say that European bathrooms are cleaner than American bathrooms...it just means that Europeans have more fun when using a urinal. I think that's what it means.

-jared