The future is so bright, it looks like the after flash of a hydrogen bomb.

NFI is starting classes Monday. They don't have many people in those classrooms. About four students at one time. The Nashville Film Institute will have one more student to add to its roster. One who mugged his way through a high school performance of "Guys and Dolls" as Lieutenant Brannigan. One who blogs about said experience AND TAKES FROM 10pm TO 8:17am TO WRITE A DAGGUM POST. SCIENCE H. LOGIC, THE INTERNET IS AN EVERPLEASING WHORE.
(Just look they were playing Outlaw Star and now they're giving me this Canadian show ReBoot)

Well I do want to become a better writer so my task today is to read. And not read comicbooks, (d'oh! My foolproof plan to read 15 comics sequentially at Borders is ruined!) but hardback ones. I'm talking about those clunky motherfuckers. The kind of books that could replace the yellow pages as the choice of torture weapon in a police station's interrogation room. The kind of book OLD people used to, and still can, read. The kind of book Oprah masterbates to. THAT book.

...
Well, not THAT book but I found one that has just as much width (mix that medium of measurement with that Oprah comment and a funny little picture will creep into your mind) as the dreaded book club book without the sass you intake from discussing it with friends and strangers at the mall. I'm talking about (has to look for the book to find the title) "Edgeworks 3 by Harlan Ellison". Yes, that Harlan Ellison. One of the most prolific, celebrated science fiction writers of the last 100 years. I knew a lot about him from Patton Oswalts pervasive rants. His name would fall out of Oswalt's mouth more than a few times. What struck me is how hard it was to actually find some stuff of his at a bookstore. Borders, Barnes & Nobles and Davis Kidd were bone dry of the stuff. It was only at libraries and the cartoonishly volumed Bookman & Bookwoman that I would find one book of his. Each time, a different one.

My local library had a Graphic Novel (SQUEEEEEEE) collection of some of his short stories with him walking in-between stories like a cross between Alfred Hitchcock, the Crpyt Keeper, and Robert Duvall (it fits. IT FITS I TELL YOU!).
My distant library in downtown Nashville had I believe one or was that Warren Ellis' "Crooked Little Vein" that I was so distracted by it opened up a portal in time for a samurai to pop out of. I named the samurai "Jack" for he had no name and I am black. I am black and call those who are unfamiliar to me "Jack" so as to label them in some fashion and keep a sense of civility up in the air.
I forget what book they had of his at Bookmanwoman but it wasn't the usually collection of short stories. When I have $8, I must remember to pay them a vis.
Most recently, my local classy library (it has glass ceilings and places to put your fedora and coat everything) perhaps listened to my written requests for A. The Wire in the DVD section (You have "Boys Don't Cry" the collectors edition and the latest season of "Cory In the House" and "Desperate Housewives" but no seasons of "the best show on television" by TIME magazine, Entertainment Weekly, The Chicago Tribune, Slate Mag, the San Francisco Chronicle, The Philadelphia Daily News, and the Gaurdian.Go out and buy this is what I'm trying to convey here.
OH WAIT I'M SUPPOSE TO BE READING BOOKS. So yeah, I see two Harlan Ellison books. I grab the one that has "Harlan Ellison's Movie" as one of the stories. It was due yesterday afternoon before 5:30pm. I showed up to the library around 7:15pm, knockin' on doors and the like. I posted up in the parkin' lot with my trunk playing "Dr. Feelgood" and me reading the first 3 or 4 pages. Shit was so cash.

Hmm, it seems I have delinated my vocabulary onto an 4chan meme without any thought of it.
Damn.

And now back to our regularly schedule programs.

Andre Churchwell

The fact that this is a satire comes in when I read:

“It was one those pictures which are so contrived that the eyes follow you about when you move.”

The feeling of an outlandish object meant for reality sits well for what I consider satire, but then I read the rest of the book and I have to remind myself that it was satire on the political atmosphere of the time. I kept thinking of it as a rollicking dystopian feature (thanks Matrix!) but I have come to appreciate the subtle angle this is taking.

It seems I was mistaken, signing up for this class, what a satire entails. More than jokes, less than an affidavit of what is wrong and right, this shows you a world and expects you to make connections to your own. It’s not supposed to be laugh out loud funny until you actually see what happens in the book take place in front of you and say, “My God, the fools have really done it!” I am getting my understanding of satire more of a foundation with this book.

Pulling the people away from natural conventions seems to be the way for a tyrannical society. The "no sex" rule in particular has been seen in such media as Half-Life 2 where the Big Brother for of the times was Dr. Breen, telling people how the brutish natural way is backwards and how new science will lead us forward to a Utopian form of living less dependent on the whims of genealogy.

What not to say during 'Live Models' class:

I just came (THREE TIMES!! LOL!) from my first class of Live Drawing 102 and that shit is great. The Teacher isn't much of an orator. And every one was on pins and needles waiting for the nude model to come out. Of cos' all I could think of was the naughtiest shiznitle ('opens hand, puts palm to face') things to say.

• "Hey, could you um, spread those...apart. Yes, I'm sorry, but I'm far better at drawing caverns and shadows!"
• "Should we get nude. Y'know to make her feel (failed to mention the femaleness of the model) more comfortable."
• "Duct tape. Duct tape. Duct tape. Duct tape. Duct tape. Duct tape. Duct tape. (Deadpool joke? YES!)"
• " (audible whisper) THIS CLASS IS FUCKING AWESOME. I GET GRADED BY THE BOOB."
• " I know I'm not supposed to have a boner, because it's art or whatever, but I DO. I REALLY DO!" Girl from the class: "Shutup! You're freaking everyone out!" Me:" I KNOW!"
• " What if I'm so good that we end up using my drawings as models if the models don't show up?"

That last one might not get you (aka me) kicked out of class but the others should do the job.

I think this is therapeutic as well as helpful (cause those two things NEVER EVER-VER go together :). I could list all the possible phrases that could possible-ly get me kicked out while a live model is nuding it up on the stage and avoid them!!
OR this could lodge in my brain and I say them everywhere I go.

It's a nervous feeling in class because there are OTHER PEOPLE joining in my professional voyeurism. It's not the butt and tits that make it weird which is weird to write here...on the fap-ternet. But the reason a lady's private parts are taboo at all is because they're..well, private.
Doug Stanhope has a bit on this. (My stand-up comic in me feels the need to mention this at this point) If the girl next to me bends over and I can see her cleavage, I'm all like "Oooo titty!" shifting my focus from the nude model on stage. Either way, I see shit that everybody outside (and a fair amount inside) the door of the classroom would freak out at so I'm a Pleased-Panda.




Failed at finding the damn picture of Deadpool saying duct tape. So here's this:

He's crazy.


CRAZY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Edit: Retractions: It's the complete opposite when you're staring at wing-wam the entire 2 and half hours.
In summary,

Boobs:

:)

song playing in my head: "Oh Happy Day" from Sister Act 2: Back in the Act

Dicks:

:(

song playing in my head: "Thank You For Being A Friend" from the Golden Girls (well, that song gets a lot of play in my head regardless)

The Title is a lie! And so is the cake.

"Something more than a blog"? Where do I get the balls?

Anywho, I love the Orange Box...trailers....for XBox 360. What a marvelous idea! Package all your good stuff into one ready-to-buy package. Kinda of like what Atari and the Vanilla Ice did. Best of's.

No kidding, Vanilla (somehow I wanna type Vinillia, that's how I say it in my head) Ice has a Best of album. I found out here. This gem from the Aaron Carter: Most Requested Hits(?) review bares repeating:
-------
Best Moment:
"That's How I Beat Shaq," in which a 15 year-old white kid tells his friends how he met Shaquille O'Neal on a playground and schooled him in a game of one on one. In the end though, it turns out to be a dream! Aw hell naw! We didn't see that coming, yo! But wait, there's a twist! At the end of the song comes the line "If it was a dream, and it wasn't real, how'd I get a jersey with the name O'Neal?" as if to imply some Freddy Krueger shit had just taken place. His friend's reply with a shocked "whooooaaa!" Our reply? "You probably bought it at motherfucking Foot Locker, now go do your homework."

------------

"Some Freddy Krueger shit" classy.

Well, that was a waste of time. I need to finish my late color wheel and pretend to my color theory teacher that I give a damn about how my project on all colors is going to look.

Seriously, the project requires you to make a tapestry of color, a glorious montage of color on a 11X 14 (not sure of measurements) bristol, where you cannot use the same color twice. OH, and all the strokes required to put the colors down? It has to be the same stroke for every color. If it's a circle, you're looking at some pointilism shit. If it's a s-curl, it looks like an ocean that was thrown up in.

Dr. Marcia Cohen? What the flip doc? Doesn't doing the same move over and over again bore the, already, less enthused student about color?
WAIT. I saw some of her past students work and it didn't look like boring crap.
My guess is: if you are a painter type artist, you'll thrive.
"Oh, your area of expertise is photography? Well you better fuckin' pray to carpenter Jesus that Rembrandt inhabits your soul for the next two months cause your up some shit!"

I gotta try really hard if I'm going to pass this class.
Which sucks, cause I know I'm not.
I gotta trick myself into getting a B.
"What? (Raises hand) Teacher? Uh...Ms....Dr. Cohen? I think this is wrong. I don't remember doing a coloh, uh, colon, uh, color wheel! This baffles me, teacher! It truly baffles me!"

Good morning y'all.
I'll make sure to say something funnier next time.