This is it people. As promised, I am giving away my most valued painting for free to the first person who can complete my list of 25 things to do.
If you want to own How Come Jermaine Got Two Popsicles?, the single greatest dinner party conversation starter in the history of the world, here is what you need to do. And no, I will no longer sell the painting. From here on out, the only way to get this painting is via the competition.
Intsructions: Read More
This story was originally published on Thursday, September 08, 2005.
My Boy Scout troop, Troop 406, was a dumping ground for adolescent freaks. A lot of folks are surprised to find out that I am a certified Eagle Scout, I guess because I don’t go around tying knots and building fires at random. I was one of the few proud scouts in 406 that achieved that prestigious rank because most of the other kids weren’t there by choice. You might expect that they didn’t want to be there because they thought it was lame, or gay, or for nerds. But it was the total opposite. Their parents forced them into the program because they thought it would make them normal. The boys were so abnormal that they couldn’t handle being there.
Now “freak” is not a word I use lightly. You or someone you know might see some pale chick wearing a lot of black shiny clothing and say “That chick is a freak”. Or someone watching the Jenny Jones show might see a man dressed in woman’s clothing and say “He be a freak”. Those aren’t freaks though. Those are people that fall into a fashion culture or gender identity minority. They might be very different from me and you and your mom, but they still follow the trends of a fairly large group of people with similar interests.
The boys in my Boy Scout troop were freaks the way Michael Jackson is a freak. These were kids that were one-of-a-kind weird. You can scour the earth for years but you’ll never find another person that has the same crazy-ace speech impediment as this one kid, or the gag inducing stench of this other kid, or the general creepy mentally disturbed vibe that resonated from at least half of the group. In my years there I was threatened to be killed numerous times, a kid tried to stab me and all the other kids in the troop, and I had to hear more sobbing than you would in a nursery.
It was troop of freaks.
There were maybe four boys there that were just normal kids. But they were viscous. Kids love to pick on other kids who are going to react in an erratic way, and our campouts and meetings happened to be the World’s Fair of unpredictable behavior. I was the leader of the troop so I had to keep things from getting too far out of hand. I won’t say I protected the weird kids from everyone else, because really, that was our only source of entertainment. As shameful as it sounds, it’s funny to see a thirteen year old kid cry after hearing a ridiculous ghost story. It’s funny to see some crazy kid rage out and break a bunch of stuff because you called him “Mouse” one too many times. It feels good to laugh at some kid that pisses and craps his only pair of pants for the entire weekend. When you grow up you tend to pity those people and try to help them out, but that’s not the case when you’re a teenager. I just tried not to let things go to dangerous extremes.
One of the weirdest kids in my troop was Blakely. Blakely wasn’t one of the kids that wouldn’t shower, and he never threatened to kill anyone. He was just unbelievably socially awkward. It seemed like he knew how goofy he was so he tried to play it off as his comedic shtick. He was so easily provoked to tears or temper tantrums though that it was obvious that it wasn’t an act. He was kind of a chubby kid, with glasses and a voice like some Sesame Street character reject. He would proudly joke back at the kids who picked on him, but his comebacks were terrible. I think at one time he was suspended for sexually harassing one of his teachers, and I doubt he understood the meaning of what he said or motioned to her. He was most likely parroting his peer’s behavior. Anyways, you get the point. If my description isn’t fleshed out enough then just imagine the weirdest kid you went to junior high school with, and insert him in this story.
When you are hiking through the mountains and you have to take a S, you lean back against a tree, pull your britches down, and take a S. Read More
I am giving away my favorite and most popular painting, How Come Jermaine Got Two Popsicles?, for free. Here is the promo:
I will be posting full details tomorrow, and the competition will officially begin on the 4th. Till then, talk trash in the comments section.
This story was originally published on Friday, September 30, 2005.
Substitute teachers are the babysitters of the educational world. They have no real prerogative to help the young people under their care grow in any way. Their only purpose is to make sure that you don’t die. As a student I realized this fact quickly from observing our many substitute teachers’ behavior. They had no idea what we were supposed to be doing in class and they didn’t want to take the time to figure it out. It was just a quick buck. This fact was most obvious with the subs who wanted to be cool with the kids- The fat blond college chick who told my tenth grade math class “I don’t know about you guys, but how about we just watch MTV until class is over?”, all Generation X hip-like, and who was fired an hour later. She was replaced the next day by another college age sub who wanted to be just as cool with the kids, but he approached it from the angle of proving he was a badder bad-ace than us. He hit on the young girls, he joked on the dudes, he called Cory Will “ole jerry curl head lookin self”, and he undeniably established himself as the alpha male of the room when he lifted me up by the underarms and pinned me against the wall for looking at him the wrong way.
These total strangers barely qualified to push shopping carts, not to mention teach students, but they were given complete responsibility for our health every time the real teachers couldn’t make it. There was a gorilla woman who repeated the phrase “excuse me” every time she opened her mouth. There was a toad woman, not a woman who looked like a toad but an actual woman-toad hybrid, who never opened her mouth, ever. She didn’t give her name. She didn’t repeat instructions left by the teacher. She just sat silently at the front of the class with that stern but content toad expression. There was a really pissed off middle-aged rock n’ roll sub who told us that we all “sucked”. Montgomery’s public school substitute teacher department was a Rolodex of rejects. We students couldn’t care less about the lack of professionalism though. The less competent the sub, the more fun our mini vacation was. There was one substitute who crossed the line though, and I took it upon myself to put her in her place.
One day in art class there was a little old black lady behind Mrs. Strange’s desk. She introduced herself by telling us to be quiet and make our art, which we quickly did. At some point I went to ask her a question and received a cold “Boy shut yo mouth”. I shut my mouth and observed the woman as she entertained herself by creating her own art work. All day long she had been grinding our expensive oil pastels into our expensive drawing paper, creating crude diarrhea-like images of flowers and cats and other generically pretty things.
B.T.W. was an Alabama public school, which means we had a very small budget and most of our resources came from fundraising. We could barely afford the art supplies that our substitute was wasting. From one piece to another she created artistic atrocities in every imaginable medium with a look of smug satisfaction on her face upon every horrible completion.
“Wow, that’s a beautiful still life”, said Cynthia, the class ace-kisser. Cynthia was a senior teacher’s pet with two goals in life. One goal was making paintings that looked like Baby Sitters Club book covers. The other was trying to get me in trouble. When Michael Boothe sat on the toilet seat that I left ketchup packets under, Cynthia told him it was my fault his shorts were all red. When Mrs. Strange said she would have the student that busted a stink bomb in the bathroom expelled, Cynthia tried to anonymously blackmail me out of fifteen dollars. She was a B. Read More
My cousin Tony has been very active lately making webcam videos on the YouTube channel that my grampaw set up. Lately he has focused on criticizing the subject matter of other videos that he finds outrageous and appalling, like this video of a promiscuous teen girl on a daytime talk show,
or this video, which I am sure you, your Sunday school teacher, and your estranged great-grandmother have all seen by now.
He’s not always a negative Nancy, though. Tony does take delight in some of what the internet has to offer. Unfortunately this is mostly limited to things like LOL Cat compilation videos.
Previously: My Grampaw Has a Webcam
This story was originally published on Thursday, September 08, 2005.
The corner of the cafeteria where my peers and I eat has just this year become infested with flies. There are at least thirty of them at a time buzzing around, landing on your food, your knees- anywhere you don’t want a fly to be, which is anywhere at all. The first day of school we tried to ignore the flies but by day two it was impossible to not want to interact with them. I caught one of the flies on accident just by waving my hand through the air- that’s how many there are. This chick told me to drown it so she could show everyone a trick. We drowned it in pink lemonade, then let the dead carcass wash up on a napkin. It lay there lifeless, then Briana, the science trickster, poured salt on it and ‘TahDah’, it was revived. I suggested that we tie it to a leash, so Briana plucked out one of her long hairs and we lassoed it around the fly’s neck. That was pretty sweet so we caught another fly, lassoed his neck, and roped him to his friend.
Much hilarity ensued, but it was the kind of hilarity that you would have had to been there for. High school was much funnier, and the above story was just a clever introduction to segue into a good old high school story. My first MySpace blog. It involves lunchrooms, and it involves plucking hairs.
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It was eleventh grade. Three Happenin Guys sat at what was probably the most exclusive table in the whole lunchroom. There were hot chicks. There were Three Happenin Guys. It was in the back of the building. That’s where bad aces sit. It was next to Street Fighter Higgins and Turtle Boy’s table. It was a cool table. Read More
This is an open invitation for you to participate in Stranger Mail, an experimental pen pal project. Anyone and everyone is encouraged to help out.
Stranger Mail is a social experiment in which two anonymous strangers correspond through the mail without any knowledge of each other’s individual identity.
Here’s how it works: You mail a series of letters for an unknown pen pal to a middleman (me), and the middleman repackages and re-mails your letter to a person who’s name and place you do not know. Your pen pal will not know your identity either. You and your pen pal will write each other five letters each. At the end of your correspondence I will publish your dialogue online.
What’s the point of doing this? This is simply an experiment and the fun will be in observing the outcome. I am interested in seeing what kind of interactions people have when they initiate dialogue with the freedom of anonymity and without knowledge of the identity of the person on the other end.
The Rules: The only rule is that you do not reveal who you are or where you live. Refer to yourself and your pen pal as stranger. Other than that, anything is fair game. You can hand-write your letter, type it, draw pictures, or mail your finger nail clippings for all I care. Be creative!
Instructions:
Here is a music video I made for my band a couple years ago. As you can tell towards the end of the video, my college diet consisted mostly of Ramen noodles.
If anyone wants to buy the mask, a latex-cast replica of my friend Robby Capps‘ face, used in this video I’ll give it to you for 20 bucks.
This story was originally published on Monday, September 12, 2005.
As much reading as I do in a day, very little of it is what you would consider fine literature. USA Today, Rolling Stone, Boing Boing and all of it’s associated links are what I read when I’m bored, and since my dorm room consists of a computer and a record player I’m bored almost all day. Most of the novels and short stories I was forced to read in school I actually enjoyed (Great Expectations, Adventures of Huckleberry Fin), but it would take a lot of convincing for me to voluntarily read another book. I think I’m just weary of committing a large amount of time to something that I might end up hating (Heart of Darkness, Wuthering Heights).
I had a high school English teacher who got me really excited about the transcendentalists though. Her name was Mrs. Lawrence. Most of the students at my school weren’t so fond of her because of a ‘monumental’ book analysis assignment she gave called the Anthology. It really wasn’t an unreasonable task; high school kids are just lazy. The students who were pissed about the assignment would B about how much they hated Mrs. Lawrence and give their Anthologies titles like The Reason I Wasted My Entire Spring Break Instead of Going to the Beach with my Friends, or I think Mrs. Lawrence is a Stupid B. It was obvious that it hurt her feelings. One day Mrs. Lawrence just snapped and screamed/cried at this sassy black chick who asked to go the bathroom.
“Can I go to the bathroom?” asked the sassy black chick.
“j j jj jj Just GO! JUST GET UP AND GO AND DON’T COME BACK! Get out of my classsss bwuuu hu hu wah wah….”, blurted Mrs. Lawrence before running out of the room, hands covering her red face.
The sassy black chick responded with one of those sassy side to side neck motions and a sassy “MmmmmmHhhhhh” sound.
Certainly there was something else traumatic happening in my teacher’s life to spark such a dramatic outburst. I’m sure the hate coming from a lot of the students didn’t help her mental health either. I believe though that one of the greatest contributors to Mrs. Lawrence’s stress level was the idealism of the Transcendentalists. Read More
As you probably cannot yet tell, Happenin Records is actually a record label. I am still working on getting the music part of this site to function, but I promise it will be here soon.
On the music front, I have a very exciting announcement to make. Happenin Records band Shining Path from Montgomery, Alabama are starting a nationwide tour with 25 stops, starting tomorrow, June 19th. Check the dates on their Myspace page.
Shining Path are one of my favorite groups to come out of Montgomery. They make jangly, lo-fi, punk blues with some very smart lyrics. If you like Black Lips, King Kahn, and 60’s garage psychedelia you are going to love Shining Path. They’re young too. These kids are literally fresh out of high school, so having an amazing album under their belt and a national tour is a significant accomplishment.
Check out some of their music. We recorded Shining Path’s debut album two summers ago and I’ll be working with them again on some new stuff later on this summer.
This is probably my favorite track: Really Small
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Here is some experimental noise goodness: Feelin Blue
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How many high school kids do you know that would write a song about a Courbet painting?: Stonebreakers
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I will have Shining Path music and merchandise available for sale as soon as I complete the storefront of this site. Till then you can buy stuff directly from the band at one of their shows, download their album from Itunes with this link, or pick up the new tour poster I designed next time you visit my studio.
One of the most exciting acts I saw at this year’s Bamalama Fest was Milwaukee rapper JUICEBOXXX. This 22-year-old dude, along with backing DJ Dre Skull, put on one of the most intense live performances I have ever seen. JUICEBOXXX probably spent 50 percent of the set on the floor. The other half of the time he was leaping through the air and bouncing over people’s heads.
JUICEBOXXX’s music is an unusual mix of rave, Technotronic-style 90’s jams, modern hip hop, and clever party lyrics. If that sounds like a weird and unworkable mix for a punk rock show, watch out. It’s all about the delivery, and JUICEBOXXX delivers his music with a fierce sincerity that will have you wondering why no one thought about mixing those genres before.
JUICEBOXXX spoke to me over the phone about his music, his performance style, and what motivates him to get on the stage night after night. Have a listen.
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Download JUICEBOXXX’s music from Itunes here or order some vinyl from Viscous Pop Records. Subscribe to the Happenin Records Podcast here.
Previously on the podcast: Shortwave Society
Like most of you readers I have a Myspace account, and also like many of you my Myspace has been neglected for ages since I discovered the much more elegant and efficient world of Facebook. Two things have been holding me back from deleting my account. The first was my Max Magician group, which I just finished migrating to this site. The second is my collection of illustrated short story blog posts with which I am doing the same thing now. I will post a new one of these old personal essays every few days. All of these were written during my college years, and I hope to get back in the habit of writing stuff like this again soon. I’ll kick things off with some high school tales.
This story was originally published online on Tuesday, September 13, 2005
This is a story of transformation. It details the metamorphosis and development of a true hero. The hero isn’t one that you or your little sister or your great grandfather from the civil war would know. This hero’s name is Higgins. His story, like all the best stories, takes place in high school.
Higgins, although he really does exist in this material world, was largely a product of Three Happenin Guys’ collective imagination. The one true source of entertainment at school for Clint, Chris, John Teschner and myself was to observe other students who we referred to as “characters”. To qualify as a character one had to have distinctive and unique traits. You had to be one of those kids that made people laugh even though you weren’t trying to be funny. You had to be weird, or just incredibly unattractive.
Now don’t get ahead of me. This sounds like a setup for the typical high school ‘popular kids pick on the misfits’ story, but it’s the exact opposite. I’ll continue.
To enter the catalog of characters you had to have a distinctive and unusual trait that was name worthy. For instance, if you were a hardcore punk rocker with an incredibly normal kid looking face you would be named Normal Face Punk. If you looked like a stupid ace goose that you just wanted to punch in the f’n face you would be called Goose. If you were a kid that wore a trench coat that made you look like two little kids, one on top of the other’s shoulders, who put the long coat on so they could look like a teenager and be able to sneak into the high school unnoticed, you would be called Two Kids Sneaking In. If you were a really fat guy who was surprisingly good with chicks you would be called Fat Guy Good With Chicks, or eventually just FGGC.
Three Happenin Guys were lucky enough to exist in a world filled with these people. We observed them like they were true life characters from some insane TV sitcom. Would Ugly Boyfriend and Ugly Girlfriend ever break up? Why did Goose rip the partition out of the boys bathroom, and why did his girlfriend get stabbed in the eye with an umbrella? What shirt is Thief Of Shirts going to rip off next? Their habits and day-to-day exploits were what made our time at school exciting. As much as we admired them, we intentionally separated ourselves socially from the characters because meeting them would humanize them and destroy the mythos that we had created. Those people had no idea how important they were to us strangers.
Higgins and his sidekick Turtle Boy were two rare characters that maintained their character status even after we met them. Higgins started off as just any other slightly unusual kid. He was skinny and pale with rosy cheeks. He had the fashion sense of a little kid, he had a nasally voice and a somewhat gay southern accent, and he lacked basic social skills. He also had a name that wasn’t Higgins, or anything close to Higgins, but his real name wasn’t important.
One day all of those things changed. It would be the first of a series or incredible transformations. This kid who we had never paid much attention to suddenly decided that he would be a fine scholar. More and more we noticed his increasingly scholarly behavior until he was finally deemed Professor Higgins. Professor Higgins wore corduroy blazers with leather elbow pads. He tucked in his dress shirts and turned up his nose at ignorant commoners such as ourselves. At lunch he would sit alone and read books while slowly sipping his tea. He was the poster child of higher education.
Then, without warning, and for reasons totally unknown to us, Professor Higgins changed over night into Street Fighter Higgins. Street Fighter Higgins didn’t give a F. If you looked at him out of the corner of your eye he’d probably say “What are you looking at, buddy?” all threatening-like. He had stubble. He wore a black leather jacket and two bad ace leather gloves with the fingers cut out. Street Fighter Higgins wore the bad ace gloves because he was a bad ace. He had moves and postures similar to Michael Jackson circa 1989. Street Fighter Higgins rolled with Turtle Boy, but he was still a one man army, a desperado-slash-renegade. Read More
This post is about something very dear to me, you guys. Those of you who know me personally should be aware that I am a big film buff, and there is one film in particular that has plucked that iron string of my heart since my best friend discovered it in the 5 dollar bin of Walmart in 2005.
Here is a trailer of sorts:
Max Magician and the Legend of the Rings is the awe-inspiring tale of a young boy who discovers through the power of magic life’s most valuable lesson: Anything is possible if you believe in yourself. That truism gave me the confidence to start the first ever Max Magician and the Legend of the Rings Fanclub. Here is the footage of our first meeting:
After our first convention the MMATLOTR Fanclub’s membership grew by the thousands. Read More
I just completed my first fancy-pants pop-up card. I have made pop-ups before, but this is the first time I have ventured into Matthew Reinhart/ Robert Sabuda territory. Here is a short video and some pics of the pop-up in action.
http://www.vimeo.com/5044598The swimmer’s head sometimes get’s caught in the sharks teeth, but I think that kind of adds to the effect.
It took me several hours to prototype this piece and get everything to fold up nicely. After figuring out all the mechanics I assembled the final product and painted the entire thing with watercolors.
I made a template so that I can cut out and make more of these in the future, but because these are hand painted every one will look different, especially the swimmers.
Like all of the art work you see on this site, this card is for sale.The price for this card is $75 bucks. I know that sounds pretty steep, but consider that this is a completely one-of-a-kind, hand-made item of my own original design. If you are interested in buying this piece, drop me a line in the comments section or email me at happeninrecords at gmail dot com.
I will post a how-to about pop-ups before too long. Before then you can learn one very basic pop-up from me in this video.
Last night I finished the first run of my six color screen print poster for the upcoming Pine Hill Haints show at Bottletree. I decided this would make for a great how-to about the screen printing process. This is a step-by-step guide with photo illustrations.
Screen printing, like most other forms of printmaking, is one of the more technical art mediums. There are many steps and a lot of brain work that go into creating a multicolor image, but the final payoff is something completely unique from all other media. A screen print looks nothing like a photo reproduction, a lithograph, an etching, or a block print. It has it’s own distinct qualities that set it apart from other print media and sustain it as a powerful art form.
My friend Greg Price (seen holding the poster) screen prints for a living and is an expert at the process. He pulled these prints himself and helped me prepare the drawing for printing. He also shared some little-known tips that will be helpful for anyone who is familiar with screen printing but not yet a pro. Read More
Hooray! I just finished installing the brand new Facebook Connect feature for Happenin Records’ comments. Now you can post comments using your Facebook account. No more need to post anonymously or set up a new account.
Webcam comments, Youtube comments, and now Facebook comments! This is going to be a lot of fun.
I am eager to test this feature out, so why not post a comment somewhere on the site. You could share some encouraging words about my creepy Grampaw situation, give Shortwave Society some love after listening to my first ever podcast, or you could discuss the latest addition to my found-art collection, a middle school student’s inspiring rendering of a heroin-addicted gangsta baboon.
This is something I have been hesitant to post about since publishing this site, but the truth is bound to out eventually and I would prefer that it be on my own terms. As most of you readers may know, I live with my grandfather and my cousin Tony. It’s not the most comfortable housemate arrangement, but I spend enough time in my studio away from home to make it work. Well now my familial life has begun to follow me around on the web. That is, my Grampaw has a webcam.
Well technically it is my webcam, but he has somehow managed with Tony’s help to set up a Youtube account and post his own videos in the dead of night when I am fast asleep and only a 73 year old man would be up and ready for Hardees.
Here’s the depressing part: Over the years I have put blood, sweat, and tears into making creative and well-crafted videos for the HappeninRecords Youtube channel, all to be rewarded with just a few hundred hits. My grandfather, on the other hand, posts a video response to something he does not even understand and recieves 1000 hits in his first week. WTF?
My cousin has also been posting under the same pseudonym, dustinsgrampaw, with his own brand of useless commentary about the most banal videos on the internet. Here’s the next big vocal star who’s videos Tony will not stop proselytizing to my Grampaw and me about:
And here is Tony’s insightful video response to a girl who is probably already confused enough as it is:
Neither one of these family members can come up with an original idea for a video, so these short editorial masterpieces are limited to responses to other people with the inclination to actually come up with their own material. Unfortunately for me, this means that my name is constantly being brought up in responses to some of the most popular videos on Youtube. Not cool. And in case you haven’t noticed yet, my grandfather has a tendency to come across as a little bit creepy.
So please, if you start getting videos, messages, and comments from either one of these people, just block them. No matter how much they refer to me, I have nothing to do with this insanity.
Thursday night I was lucky enough to interview and do a live recording of Knoxville band Shortwave Society. This is my first attempt at podcasting and I’m pleased with the results. The band was very gracious to give a noob like me a chance to use their music and insight into their songwriting process. And they were super-fun guys to work with.
Shortwave Society make distinctly elegant and romantic pop music that incorporates strings, electronics, vocals, and other acoustic instruments. Their music is not like anything I have heard come through Huntsville, and it’s been a treat to have them perform at the Flying Monkey. There’s plenty I could write in the way of describing their sound, but this is a podcast, so just listen!
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And if you enjoyed their stuff, why not download their excellent debut EP from Itunes?
Subscribe to the Happenin Records Podcast Here.
Today was my first day as a self-employed full time artist. The first order of business was to design a poster for the upcoming Pine Hill Haints show at BottleTree. Birmingham’s We Have Signal, a public television show that shoots awesome indie band performances and makes them freely available online, will be shooting the event. The new Haints album is being put out by K Records around the same time, so this should be a pretty big show. Here’s the poster. Let me know what you guys think.
Occasionally on this site I will be posting about other artists that I meet who’s work I really admire. I want to start with Guadalupe Robinson, a ceramicist here at Lowe Mill. I introduced myself to Guadalupe because I know her son from Montevallo, and because I recognized her pottery from some art festivals I have been to. Her work is incredibly distinct and unique. She makes large wheel thrown vessels with incredibly precise patterns and textures that beg to be touched.
The craftsmanship of these pots is very impressive to me, but I think what I find most impressive is the amount of time the artist spent finding and perfecting the formula that makes pieces like this possible. Anyone who has worked with ceramics knows from painful experience that it is a volatile and unpredictable science experiment. Pieces explode in the kiln, glazes come out the wrong color or pattern, and there is rarely a sense of security in knowing what will result from a firing. It is a major accomplishment just to throw a standard pot and properly glaze it, so I can’t imagine the amount of careful time and work Guadalupe invested in creating this unique style.
What really blows me away though is the fact that Guadalupe uses glaze only on the inside of her vessels. The colors that you see on the outsides are actually carefully mixed clays that she layers on in different stages. The red skin of those apples in the image above isn’t achieved by paint or glaze. The artist actually figured out what mixture of different stoneware clays would achieve that color after firing. That’s painstaking stuff that should appeal to the geeky side of every ceramicist.
Recently I was able to trade one of my paintings for the piece in the image below. I think I got the better end of the deal.
