You're Just A Stupid Little Baby Who Ain't Got No Teeth

Art

2011-07-10T15:12:00.001-07:00

I'm done with it.

Infomercial

2011-01-17T18:47:00.000-08:00

My infomercial / My rant about the US prison system.

X-Post

2010-09-08T14:45:00.000-07:00

I'm keeping a blog as part of my film class this semester. So far it's proven rather time-consuming, so I probably won't be posting very much at You're Just A Stupid Little Baby Who Ain't Got No Teeth for a while. If you're interested in keeping up with my other blog, please see the link below:

High Tech Folk Art - my video blog

Scrap

2010-08-05T21:38:00.000-07:00

"Robert Murphy...used to sum up the difference between modern societies and the small-scale hunter-gatherer communities in which human nature took shape in this way: "everyone is famous in a tribe." He meant us to understand that, for human beings, the need to be recognized is almost as basic as food."

from Mediated: How the Media Shapes Your World and the Way You Live in It by Thomas de Zengotita

LOOK AT ME, LOOK AT ME, LOOK AT ME, LOOK AT ME!

Digital Photography #3

2010-07-08T08:25:00.000-07:00

[This was a project for a digital photography course I took last spring. /// Final Portfolio!]
Inspired by Abu Ghraib and fashion models. [Click to enlarge]

Digital Photography #2

2010-07-08T08:19:00.000-07:00

[This was a project for a digital photography course I took last spring.]

This project was very process-oriented for me. The end product is about reproductive technology / becoming post-human / cyborgs, and the process is almost a literal interpretation of the idea of having sex with a machine. To create the images, I turned off all the lights in my apartment, stripped naked, and pressed various parts of my body against a scanner, which "read" my body in pieces. These pieces were then processed further and stitched together like a digital embryo. TRIPLE X RATED! [Click to enlarge (OMG WTF LOL)].

Digital Photography #1

2010-07-08T08:12:00.000-07:00

[This was a project for a digital photography course I took last spring.]

For this project, I used photographs of my computer screen in a gay webcam chatroom. Here are two versions of the final product. I wanted to use different bedrooms, but I had a deadline. [As always: click to enlarge.]

Visual Inspiration: Ida Applebroog

2010-06-28T09:56:00.000-07:00

One of the things I like about Ida Applebroog's Photogenetics series is its process. The artist starts with a lump of white clay, which she molds into a strange, lumpy, semi-human figure. The figures look unfinished and awkwardly built, and she rightly compares one of them to the Venus of Willendorf [one of my favorite things].

Next, she photographs the figures with a black background, usually posing or reclining in some [creepy, awkward, weird!] way. Then she adds hair, facial features, cigarettes, or whatever to the images in Photoshop. There are usually very few additions, but the added features dramatically transform the figures.

After printing out large copies of the images, she will sometimes add a little paint or other material. In the case of Bettie, she added some silver glitter to the braces. The end.

I saw her do this on Art21.

Vera Mae

Betty

This last picture is obviously something different, but I like it too because it fits in with my last post:

Visual Inspiration: Laylah Ali and Matt Leines

2010-06-28T09:43:00.000-07:00

I don't know why, but I really like art that's stuck in the second dimension. It might be a rebellion against the drawing books I looked at as a teenager, which all pointed to good "shading" as the ultimate goal. Stark lines and solid colors were not privileged.

It could also be that a 2D image on a 2D surface feels more honest. Or that the solid blocks of colors are just easier to process. Whatever the reason, here are two artists who paint with the graphic quality that I like. Their work seems to come from other worlds, each with its own mythology and history. I love that! I also love that there seems to be some need to translate these two-dimensional images into three-dimensions.

Laylah Ali: [her 2D work has been used to create dance performances]

Matt Leines: [his 2D work carries over into semi-2D installations in 3D spaces]

The Aesthetic of Virtuosity

2010-06-11T20:37:00.000-07:00

The aesthetic of virtuosity, art typical of Western European cultures, attempts to manage the energies of its own internal system such as conflicts, harmonies, resolutions and balances. It bears the presences of qualities and internal meanings. It is dedicated to the validation of itself. Its task is to move humans by means of achieving mastery in content, technique, feeling. Western art is always whole and always "in power." It is individual (not communal).

Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands / La Frontera: The New Mestiza (90)

[I just realized that, when taken out of context, this quote sounds rather neutral. I should have included more information. I might come back to edit.]

Visual Inspiration: Helena Almeida

2010-04-10T10:34:00.000-07:00

Serigrafia

A Casa 1981

Collateral Murder

2010-04-05T14:36:00.000-07:00

My friend Liz posted a link on Facebook to this website:

http://collateralmurder.com

On the website you will find a video from Wikileaks. I recommend watching the video and showing it to everyone you know. Here is a description:

Wikileaks has obtained and decrypted this previously unreleased video footage from a US Apache helicopter in 2007. It shows Reuters journalist Namir Noor-Eldeen, driver Saeed Chmagh, and several others as the Apache shoots and kills them in a public square in Eastern Baghdad. They are apparently assumed to be insurgents. After the initial shooting, an unarmed group of adults and children in a minivan arrives on the scene and attempts to transport the wounded. They are fired upon as well. The official statement on this incident initially listed all adults as insurgents and claimed the US military did not know how the deaths ocurred.

This war needs to end.

Les Rita Mitsouko - Marcia Baila

2010-02-22T13:45:00.001-08:00

I don't really know what this is, but I love it.

Scrap

2010-02-08T22:36:00.001-08:00

"Despite the illusion of giving understanding, what seeing through photographs really invites is an acquisitive relation to the world that nourishes aesthetic awareness and promotes emotional d e t a c h m e n t."

-Susan "Total Bummer" Sontag, On Photography (111)

Heaven (featuring Markaholic) - "Heaven"

2010-02-02T22:28:00.000-08:00

I <3 Heaven.

Visual Inspiration: Kristin Smith

2010-01-20T13:48:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite artists is Kristin Smith. Even though I don't normally like photographs that don't have people in them, I love her simple, elegant nature photography. She makes images that I return to again and again. Here are three of my favorites [as always: click to enlarge]:

High Heels

2010-01-20T13:23:00.000-08:00

The only thing sexier than a woman in a three-piece suit is a man in high heels. I've been advocating high heels for men for ages, and now Baptiste Giabiconi [Karl Lagerfeld's boyfriend] has proven me undeniably right. I'm inspired.

David Wojnarowicz - "Fire in My Belly"

2010-01-19T13:49:00.001-08:00

Baby Wurzbach: Revisited

2009-11-10T23:48:00.001-08:00

In May of 2008, San Antonio-based band Baby Wurzbach (duh: me and Kristin's avant-garde music machine) released its hit song "Girls Who Masturbate" on YouTube. This song, which is about the liberation of womyn's bodies, quickly became the most popular video on my YouTube channel and has since been viewed by over 68,000 people worldwide.

For those of you who are still unfamiliar with "Girls Who Masturbate," I have included the video below:

Q & A (Dear Bradley)

2009-11-09T01:45:00.000-08:00

Q: Why haven't you updated in so long?

A: Because I'm taking a class with an insane reading load.

Q: What's next?

A: I made a little video, but I'm supposed to keep it offline. Maybe I will post some pictures once this semester ends.

Q: It's almost 4:00 am. Are you a party boy?

A: No, I'm a middle-of-the-day-nap boy.

Q: I am in a funk?

A: It's not funky.

Peripheral Produce

2009-09-29T07:59:00.000-07:00

I ordered a DVD of the "All Time Greatest Hits" from Peripheral Produce, a group that distributes experimental films. One of the films is "Getting Stronger Everyday" by Miranda July. After watching it, I want to amend the part of my last post where I wrote "I love everything she does." It's not that I hated it. But I didn't love it either. There was a shape in the air and a woman in unflattering pants, but it just wasn't enough.

My favorite thing about this DVD is the liner notes. This is what it says:

THIS IS NOT THE ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY. This is a channel that is not on your remote control. This is folk art for a high tech society and a challenge to the cinematic status quo. Truly independent cinema is not a cinema bound by the needs to please a target audience or earn millions of dollars the box office. It is a cinema that is made by individuals who use the movie camera as a tool of self-expression [Note: I accidentally wrote "sex expression, but I erased it because that isn't what the liner notes actually say]. Every time an artist picks up a camera and makes a movie, it is a small victory over the monopoly that Hollywood and the corporate media have on our culture. Peripheral Produce is here to amplify those victories, complete with slow-motion-replay.

Who needs the rusty Hollywood robot when all along your next-door neighbor has been making the best movies in the world? THIS IS THE INTERNATIONAL CINEMATIC UNDERGROUND. The movie is over but the lights aren't coming on. It's a shooting star; catch it on your tongue like a snowflake.

Isn't that nice? So come on, everybody-- make some little films! You don't need much. You can make them with a $15 webcam if you want. You can show them on YouTube. It doesn't even matter if someone else likes it-- you're all set!

Miranda July - A Shape Called Horse

2009-09-17T22:36:00.000-07:00

I have been a huge Miranda July fan since I was in

high school, when I downloaded a track from her

spoken word album off the Kill Rock Stars website.

I love everything she does.

Cat Massage

2009-08-28T23:06:00.000-07:00

Remember that old Simon and Garfunkle song?

"Slow down, you're movin' too fast..."

That says a lot about life, and about cat massage.

I don't see what the big deal is. My boyfriend has been doing this to our cat for YEARS.

Pictures of Michael Sleeping

2009-07-31T23:29:00.000-07:00

Goals

2009-06-30T23:14:00.000-07:00

Step 1: Get famous.

Step 2: Get rich.

Step 3: Die young.

[This used to be a picture of Garcia Lorca]

Yr Dildo = Yr Liberation

2009-06-29T09:18:00.000-07:00

"There's no mistaking that the lesbian assimilation of the sex-toy industry is reterritorializing the culturally constructed aura of the phallic signifier. By appropriating the phallus/penis for themselves, lesbians have turned technoculture's semiotic regime of simulation and the political economy of consumer culture back against the naturalization of masculinist hegemony. Once the penis is mass-reproduced, any illusion of a natural link between the cultural power organized under the sign of the phallus and the penis as biological organ is exposed as artificial. The reproduction of the penis as dildo exposes the male organ as signifier of the phallus, and not vice versa-- that is, the dildo exposes the cultural organ of the phallus as a simulacrum. The dildo is an artificial penis, an appropriated phallus, and a material signifier of the imaginary ground for a historically manifest phallic regime of power."

-Cathy Griggers in "Lesbian Bodies in the Age of (Post)mechanical Reproduction"

Thursday Confessional!

2009-06-25T20:58:00.000-07:00

I'D RATHER BE CUTE THAN SMART.

Who's Afraid of Kathy Acker?

2009-06-24T19:03:00.001-07:00

The students who come to my class are very closely related to all the evil girls who are very interested in their bodies and sex and pleasure. I learn a lot from them about how to have pleasure and how cool the female body is. One of my students had a piercing through her labia. And she told me about how when you ride on a motorcycle, the little bead on the ring acts like a vibrator. Her story turned me on so I did it. I got two. It was very cool.

I'm very staid compared to my students, actually. I come from a generation where you've got the PC dykes and confused heterosexuals. No one ever told me that you could walk around with a strap-on, having orgasms.

-from an interview with Kathy Acker

Slavoj Žižek: Love is Evil.

2009-06-24T13:06:00.000-07:00

Indifference to the universe and a non-specific kind of love-- it sounds Buddhist, right?

'Pilgrim At Tinker Creek'

2009-06-08T14:05:00.001-07:00

"We have not yet encountered any god who is as merciful as a man who flicks a beetle over on its feet."

Last month I read Annie Dillard's Pilgrim At Tinker Creek. It was about the universe (the big one and the small one), and terror, and biophilia. It was a spiritual experience.

Aside from the quote given further up (which makes me feel satisfyingly smug and powerful), here are two others that I love. They might seem odd since they're taken out of context.

"I sip my coffee. I look at the mountain, which is still doing its tricks, as you look at a still-beautiful face belonging to a person who was once your lover in another country years ago: with fond nostalgia, and recognition, but no real feelings save a secret astonishment that you are now strangers. Thanks. For the memories. It is ironic that the one thing that all religions recognize as separating us from our creator--our very self-consciousness--is also the one thing that divides us from our fellow creatures. It was a bitter birthday present from evolution, cutting us off at both ends. [80]

"All the green in the planted world consists of these whole, rounded chloroplasts wending their ways in water. If you analyze a molecule of chlorophyll itself, what you get is one hundred thirty-six atoms of hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen arranged in an exact and complex relationship around a central ring. At the ring's center is a single atom of magnesium. Now: If you remove the atom of magnesium and in its exact place put an atom of iron, you get a molecule of hemoglobin. The iron atom combines with all the other atoms to make red blood, the streaming red dots in the goldfish's tail. [128]

Glasnost

2009-06-08T13:49:00.000-07:00

GLASNOST!
YOU'RE JUST A STUPID LITTLE BABY WHO AIN'T GOT NO TEETH
IS CHANGING. IT IS [henceforth] LESS A PORTFOLIO OF UNFINISHED WHATEVER,
AND MORE A HUB OF semi-NETWORKED WHATEVER-CONSCIOUSNESS. SPACE AND TIME UNHINGE!
THE ALOOF GOD DESCENDS AGAIN!*
GLASNOST!

*It's 4:00. It's Monday. This was the most interesting thing I could muster today. Sorry.

Babe-raham Lincoln

2009-05-27T09:29:00.000-07:00

Final score in the t-shirt competition: 1.32 of 5. Thanks for nothing, Caucasian lower-order hipster scum! I hope you enjoy your next cropping of pirate-themed apparel.

Next topic: is an adult nostalgia for childhood [and all the narcissism it implies] destroying the chances of subversive t-shirt designs? Yesss, and the greater society is wronged!

Julie's Hair: Lament Mix

2009-05-27T09:25:00.001-07:00

Thanks to Kristin for the pictures of raw meat.
Thanks to Julie for the hair rant.
Also: thanks, mom.

Scrap No. 7

2009-05-14T14:57:00.000-07:00

Fractionation is considered as a 'dark art' tactic which is the basis of hypnosis-based seduction, and while controversial, it is known to be one of the most effective tactics ever invented by underground seductionists.

These psychology tactics are highly unconventional techniques that are used by the secret elite in the seduction community. Use at your own risk.

-from an online article: "How to Make a Girl Fall in Love with You"

Fat Weight

2009-04-20T12:15:00.000-07:00

Eric has too many cats.

2009-04-13T14:17:00.001-07:00

A Little War God

2009-03-12T10:57:00.000-07:00

St. Sebastian Beefcake Hottie

2009-03-12T10:51:00.000-07:00

Michael.

2009-01-23T20:26:00.002-08:00

Lily

2009-01-09T09:41:00.000-08:00

I fucking hate this Baby Jesus cat.
But also I love her.

Scrap No. 6

2008-12-06T12:56:00.000-08:00

"The author (Lord Kames) prefers Gothic ruins to classical ones, because the former demonstrate the triumph of time over strength, the latter, the triumph of barbarism over taste."

from a footnote in Meaning in the Visual Arts by Erwin Panofsky

Baby Dancing

2008-11-10T22:48:00.001-08:00

San Antonio-based band BABY WURZBACH explain "baby dancing."

Scrap No. 5

2008-11-01T14:00:00.000-07:00

"There is an ancient story that King Midas hunted in the forest a long time for the wise Silenus, the companion of Dionysus, without capturing him. When Silenus at last fell into his hands, the king asked what was the best and most desirable of all things for man. Fixed and immovable, the demigod said not a word; till at last, urged by the king, he gave a shrill laugh and broke out into these words: 'Oh, wretched ephemeral race, children of chance and misery, why do ye compel me to tell you what it were most expedient for you not to hear? What is best of all is beyond your reach forever: not to be born, not to be, to be nothing. But the second best for you-- is quickly to die.'"

-from Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy

Two Drawings (Click to Enlarge)

2008-11-01T13:21:00.000-07:00

An unknown saint on a horse in Egypt

An orgy suspended in air

Martha Stuart

2008-10-30T16:33:00.000-07:00

This is a short story I wrote one night when I was drunk. I changed, removed or added about twenty words once I was sober again. See if you can guess which ones they are.

Martha and Stuart sat in their living room. They lived together but they were not lovers. They had separate bedrooms because Stuart was a faggot.
"I am going to buy a $500 pair of Gucci sunglasses," said Stuart.
"Don't do it!" said Martha. Stuart closed his eyes and fell into the carpet of the living room floor. He did not feel drunk, he felt handicapped. He felt like he would never be able to speak a rational sentence again.
"When I buy those sunglasses I will feel complete. I will absorb the meaning of life like UV rays," he said. "You can borrow them sometimes," he said.
"Stuart," said Martha. "I am going to buy a Versace dress that I saw. It costs six thousand dollars. I have been saving my tips for three years. Every day I work I save a little money for that dress. I have not been eating carbohydrates for three weeks because I must fit into the dress and I must look beautiful."
"You WILL look beautiful," said Stuart. "We will go to chic parties together and we will look beautiful. When we have those items we will finally be able to stop trying. It will be like easy street."
Martha and Stuart kissed, with tongue. It was something they did sometimes, to remind each other of what it was like. Martha did not have a boyfriend. Stuart did not have a boyfriend either. They were very lonely and they hated to sleep alone, so they usually shared a bed. Usually it was Martha's bed.

On Sunday Stuart went to yoga class. When he came back home Martha was waiting for him in the living room. She was wearing a nice dress and white shoes.
"I thought we could go to church," she said.
"You mean, like, ironically?"
"No," she said. "The way regular people go to church. I feel like something is missing from my life".
"Churches don't like faggots," said Stuart. I am going to make french fries and eat them with ketchup. Ketchup has lycopene in it. I heard that lycopene is good for your prostate health.
"Ok," said Martha. "See you later."

Stuart made french fries and ate them with ketchup. He watched a movie about the Civil War. It was a sad movie. Stuart drank an entire bottle of Italian wine. Martha had been gone for a long time. He wondered what she was doing.

Martha was praying. She was kneeling in a pew at a large non-denominational church and she was praying that she would not ever die. She knew that she was completely alone. There were hundreds of people in the pews surrounding her. They were clapping.

Reine de la Seine

2008-10-30T15:30:00.000-07:00

This imprudent lady is the kept mistress of M. Desmarais. She is a frequent patron of the most disreputable hostelries on the Left Bank and is, therefore, not to be trusted. Rumor has it that she enjoys whipping M. Desmarais heartily with a switch while in the presence of the monsieur's footman.

An Upscale Retirement Community for the Active Senior

2008-10-09T15:58:00.000-07:00

Jeder für sich und Gott gegen alle.
(Each for his/herself and God against everyone.)

I made this when I was 18. I felt miserable after coming back from Germany.

Hanging Tomato Basket

2008-10-05T20:00:00.000-07:00

In which I plant tomato seeds in a hanging tomato basket.

Don't Cry Over Spilled Grapejuice

2008-09-26T15:25:00.001-07:00

When I was little I would pretend that there were tiny people living in the kitchen, and that if you spilled something it was toxic to them and it would kill them all if you didn't clean it up right away.

Think about that when you look at these terrifying photos of a natural disaster.

Scrap No. 4

2008-09-23T21:39:00.000-07:00

In estranging from man (1) nature, and (2) himself, his own active functions, his life-activity, estranged labour estranges the species from man. It turns for him the life of the species into a means of individual life. First it estranges the life of the species and individual life, and secondly it makes individual life in its abstract form the purpose of the life of the species, likewise in its abstract and estranged form.

For in the first place labour, life-activity, productive life itself, appears to man merely as a means of satisfying a need-- the need to maintain the physical existence. Yet the productive life is the life of the species. It is life-engendering life. The whole character of a species-- its species character-- is contained in the character of its life-activity; and free, conscious activity is man's species character. Life itself appears only as a means to life.

Marx, from Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844

People You May Know

2008-09-21T18:57:00.001-07:00

Some ink and watercolor paintings from a few years ago:

Brad

Cody

Danielle

Menagerie Drawings

2008-09-21T17:36:00.001-07:00

A Sea Beast

Bird Brains

Sad Existential Gorilla

Two Women and a Dog

Notes for a class called "Social Foundations of Education in a Diverse U.S. Society"

2008-09-03T14:50:00.000-07:00

Click image to enlarge.

Cartoon Characters

2008-07-25T14:54:00.001-07:00

Scrap No. 3

2008-07-15T10:40:00.000-07:00

"David Halperin agrees with Foucault, suggesting that the pleasure produced by practices such as fisting, anonymous sex, bondage, and so on, functions- however briefly- to 'shatter identity, and dissolve the subject' (1995:95). This is because such practices work against the logic of heteronormative sex - a practice that ultimately serves to reproduce selves (in the humanist sense)."

from A Critical Introduction to Queer Theory, "Sadomasochism as Resistance", pg. 156

Scrap No. 2

2008-07-10T12:24:00.000-07:00

¿Cér zala usté cenuben
enamoratzia?
¿Sillan ishirí eta
guittara jotzia?

Basque folksong. What did you think that falling in love was? Sitting on a chair and playing a guitar?

Scrap No. 1

2008-07-09T20:29:00.000-07:00

According to new research in the Journal of Consumer Research, people who are thinking about their own deaths want to consume more.

Borrowed Guitar

2008-06-29T19:05:00.000-07:00

I wrote a little song on a little baby guitar.

Le Tigre - "Deceptacon"

2008-06-03T20:04:00.000-07:00

In which Kristin and I dance the "Deceptacon" dance for the very first time all the way through.

Baby Wurzbach - "My Relationship With My Father"

2008-05-02T00:45:00.001-07:00

A new song by avant-garde San Antonio band Baby Wurzbach. This song explores the nuances of the father-child relationship within the context of thousands of years of socially-conditioned generational discrimination. It's a response to the issue of an offspring's right to $75 haircuts.

Baby Wurzbach - "Girls Who Masturbate"

2008-05-02T00:39:00.000-07:00

A new song by avant-garde San Antonio band Baby Wurzbach, this time featuring special guests Kristen B. and Sarah G. It's about the liberation of womyns' bodies.

How to Smoke a Cigar

2008-05-02T00:23:00.001-07:00

In which Kristen, Kristin, Sarah and I drink wine and learn how to light a cigar.

Home Improvement

2008-04-29T20:25:00.001-07:00

In which Kristin and I make some much-needed home improvements.

Baby Wurzbach

2008-04-15T18:34:00.000-07:00

Kristin and I have formed an avant-garde band called BABY WURZBACH.
The following are two videos from our debut performance at San Antonio's Witte Museum:

This is LIFE!
This is LOVE!
This is what your mother wants to do to you after you are born.

Picasso & Curry

2008-04-08T07:24:00.000-07:00

In which I make green curry in the kitchen while Kristin reads about Picasso.

Monday Afternoon

2008-04-07T16:46:00.000-07:00

Feeding My Baby

2008-04-04T19:15:00.001-07:00

In which Kristin, Jay and I try to feed a venus fly trap some fruit flies while listening to Yoko Ono's song "Why."

Typewriter

2008-04-02T16:58:00.001-07:00

In which Kristin types up a job application while I try to hang a picture in the kitchen of our new apartment.

Multigrain Bread

2008-04-01T09:17:00.000-07:00

In which I eat multigrain bread and drink orange juice in the new apartment while making a "to-do" list.

A Theoretical Approach to Videoblogging the Mundane

2008-03-21T00:43:00.000-07:00

“People sometimes say that the way things happen in the movies is unreal, but actually it's the way things happen to you in life that's unreal. The movies make emotions look so strong and real, whereas when things really do happen to you, it's like watching television -- you don't feel anything.”
-Andy Warhol

“The American imagination demands the real thing and, to attain it, must fabricate the absolute fake.”
-Jean Baudrillard

I have been thinking a lot about the hyperreal. The hyperreal is something that is "more real than real." It is better than reality. It is more compliant, it is safer, and its impurities have been filtered out.

It is also more entertaining. Reality television, for example, is actually hyperreality television. On hyperreal TV, nobody poops. Nobody makes a bowl of Kraft Easy Mac. Nobody has a conversation about lawn chemicals. There are only extreme situations and their extreme responses. The "mundane" is eradicated on a grand scale, and with it the humanity of the participants.

Human relationships and their elements (love, sex, friendship) are grossly distorted in the hyperreal world, and I believe that these distortions are projected back onto the "real." Anything that is not sensational is considered mundane and hidden away, and so loses its value in the "real" world. I think that over time people will begin to forget what these moments feel like, or how they are even performed.

So, this is the slightly-formed theory behind videos of myself reframing a picture and eating rice in my kitchen. I am trying to reclaim the mundane as an extant and important part of what it means to be human. But, I am also not sure that these videos are a real antidote to hyperreality. I think that these videos could have two opposite implications:

A) They will be an antidote to hyperreality. People will see things that they cannot see on the television. They will remember that it is important to eat pasta with your friend or to listen to music in your living room while you pet your dog. They will do these things more often and not feel ashamed about doing them. They will remember that these things are real and they will remember doing them.

Or

B) They will not be an antidote to hyperreality. People will see the videos and the things that happen in the videos will only become hyperreal. The videos will destroy the last safe haven of authentic experience by turning it into a performance. People will imitate these performances in the same way that they imitate the vocal inflections of Harrison Ford or the way they fall in love in a similar way as the contestants on "The Bachelor." Everything will be even less authentic and more reproductive. Eating pasta will no longer be an escape from the hyperreal, but yet another performance.

Of course, I realize that my blog does not have the same kind of reach as shows like "The Flavor of Love" or "Trading Spouses", but I like to think about this problem in a theoretical way. I have really been thinking about why I started making these videos after reading Baudrillard, and it has taken me a long time to figure it out, and I'm still not sure it's a sound idea. What do you think?

In the Kitchen

2008-03-15T20:49:00.000-07:00

In which I eat pasta in the kitchen with my brother.

Fourteen No. 3

2008-03-15T18:35:00.000-07:00

In case you didn't know, you can click on pictures to make them full-sized.

Fourteen No. 2

2008-03-03T12:24:00.001-08:00

When I was fourteen I left Alaska and my friend sent me e-mails.

A few years ago I painted my brother.

2008-03-01T11:06:00.000-08:00

"The Dead Bird" by Brad, age 6

2008-02-22T19:22:00.000-08:00

To my Mom and Dad with love o and my brid who gav me the idea.

It was a sunny day and the bird was visiting the cemetery to watch the show "How A Baby Bird Dies." The curtains were closed now but soon to open.

First the bird was carrying his lunch box to school when a robber came up behind him. And he bit his tail. The little bird died.

Then the boy's mother went away sadly.

"I Like It! I Like It!" by Brad, age 6

2008-02-22T19:02:00.000-08:00

One day I said that I wanted a little doll. Every one said you are a boy. You do not need a doll.

One day my grandmother came for a visit. I asked her if I could go to get a doll. She said "Yes."

I got a doll with a red dress and gold hair. Then we went home. But dad threw it away. Grandma saw him and took it out and then!
THEN!
I had it with me every day.

Elementary School Journal No. 1 - (7-8 Years Old)

2008-02-22T18:40:00.000-08:00

Tuesday
Sept 21, 1993
If I could go anywhere in the world, I would like to go to Alaska because it is quiet and peacefuland there is very few people who live there. Many orcas and marine mammals live there....And there are few fishermen, because some seals jump in your boat because a killer whale is chasing them, and then the killer whale would jump in your boat, knock the boat over and leave you in the freezing cold water.

When I Grow Up
Oct 8, 1993

When I grow up I can make the world more beutiful by taking injured animals to the vet, esspecialy whales and dolfins. If there is a whale stranded on shore I will try to push them back into the water, with some help of course. I do not have to wait though, because I have Bill Clintons adress and I am going to write him and tell him to stop the evil kangaroo mascares and make people have a life in prison if they kill a whale.

A Christmas List
Dec 6, 1993

1. A tape with sounds of the whales.
2. $300.00
3. Peace on Earth
4. A toy for my baby brother.

I want two (2) things the most.

Peace on Earth so everyone will be safe and silence and so I can sleep.

And $300.00. $100.00 to help save the whales. $100.00 to go to charity. And $100.00 for the poor. And that is my Christmas wish list.

Shopping Spree
n.d.

I bought my baby brother a remote control car so he can chase in all over the yard.

I bought myself a Super Nintendo, but its mostly for the birds. Because the place were you put the tape in is were I put birdseed.

I also got myself a cordless telophone from AtaT, and a camera. I bough a camera because my old one broke and a phone because I want one badly.

I bought my dad a wilderness wallet so I can beg for money.

I bought my mom a poinsettia so she can miserbly watch it grow.

My New Years Resolutions
Jan 7, 1994

A good way to start 1994 is to make some good resolutions.

1. I will stop saying I'm psychic.
2. I will convince myself that I am not a dot.
3. I will save $100.00 for the whale adoption prodject.
4. I will become a better marine biologist than Jock Coustou.
And those are my resolutions.

Fourteen No. 1

2008-02-22T13:34:00.000-08:00

When I was fourteen I left Alaska and my friend C---- sent me e-mails.

Two Dogs

2008-02-21T20:58:00.001-08:00

In which I pet two dogs while listening to Susumu Yokota.

Mathematics

2008-02-19T20:13:00.001-08:00

In which I help my brother with his geometry homework while listening to The Kinks and Handsome Boy Modeling School.

This Is How You Blog

2008-02-18T20:02:00.001-08:00

In which I help my brother to make a videoblog.

Feb 17 2008 No. 2

2008-02-17T01:11:00.001-08:00

In which I eat kimchi and rice and drink orange juice while reading the Winter 2007 issue of The Paris Review.

Feb 17 2008

2008-02-16T23:50:00.000-08:00

In which I re-frame a Renaissance print of St. Sebastian in a shitty IKEA frame while listening to Elliot Smith in my living room.