Messianic joe

For what it's worth, I predicted ages ago (and soon to be proved accurately) that Obama would be elected to a second term.

But as far as who will actually win the ? I'm with Jesus.

tagged: election, Romney, Obama, Jesus, satire, politics, humor

Death be not paneled

Did you see this? You might have heard about this. There was a news blurb and a couple of people were mentioning it on Facebook and other social sites…

So the Supreme Court Justice League got together the other day and got some constitutional interpreting done before their vacations to the Poconos's, and it turns out that according to (at least 5 of) them, it’s cool for men to date.

Wait, let me reread that… oh, okay. It's not man date. It's mandate. The mandate is okay. That makes sense. Although as far as I’m concerned, men dating men is okay, too. But I guess that’s a different Supreme Court case.

Anyhoo, the mandate that we all have to buy something that we may or may not want or else we have to go to jail is just fine with The Constitution — according to the people who decide these things (I think their official title is Supreme Deciders of the United States).

A lot of people are super stoked about this, as they see it as the next step to mandating daily consumption of 64 oz Mountain Dew Red and Jelly Donuts for everyone (Hah! In your FACE, Mayor Bloomberg!).

Of course there are a lot of people on the other side who think a government that pays $25,000 for a toilet seat has no business telling anyone to buy anything, let alone something that they may not need or use.

But I think both sides are really kind of missing the point. The recent SCOTUS decision and the ACA bill it upholds represent a golden opportunity for the enrichment of the American culture. Of course I’m referring to the great inspiration it provides for a renaissance in heavy metal band names.

It’s been a good 20 years since the zenith of Heavy Metal in pop culture. Sure it’s been around, as kind of a sub-cultural underground phenomenon. But I think with the heightened awareness fostered by such high profile events such as the recent SCOTUS decision and the impending “reasoned political discourse” that we're sure to see in the upcoming election season, concepts like Taxing Powers, Punitive Mandates, and Death Panels could easily percolate into the artistic forefront of this genre.

And to help kick start the artistic revolution, I’d like to take this time to announce that the experimental neurofunk-jazz-illbient-technofolk fusion band that Manningtheship and I have been working on for the past two years (you might have seen us performing during lunch time at The Record Bar) will be pivoting into the death metal genre with a new name:

tagged: politics, Supreme Court, SCOTUS, Death Panel, Affordable Care Act, ACA, music

YouTube Tuesday: Wrecking Crew

It's not that I have anything against dance as an art form. It's just that it's not my thing, you know.

But I'm willing to stipulate that just because I don't like it, doesn't mean there's not some good dance out there. Of course, I'll also point out that, as with any other form of expression, there's a lot of … oh, what's the technical term?… ah yes, CRAP out there as well, 90 percent of which can be found in American pop culture centers such as HipHopTV and any reality television programming.

Still, every once in a while I'll see a ballet, or a stage show, or my 3-year-old daughter and see a pure form of art. And I think this amazing production from Japanese street dance crew (huh?) WRECKING CREW ORCHESTRA.

The combination of choreography, movement and technical lighting is really amazing.



tagged: YouTube, Tuesday, video, dance, Wrecking Crew Orchestra, culture

YouTube Tuesday: I don't have to be faster than a T.Rex…

… I just have to be faster than you.



tagged: YouTube, video, kids, funny, parenting, dinosaur, T.Rex

YouTube Tuesday: Interplanet

Check out this video created by stitching together NASA archival images.

According to the artist:

The footage in this video is derived from image sequences from NASA's Cassini and Voyager missions. I downloaded a large amount of raw images to create the video.

tagged: YouTube, Tuesday, video, Saturn, Jupiter, space, NASA

YouTube Tuesday: Having a ball

I'm not gonna lie. I've been busy.

Busier than a one-eyed cat watching nine rat holes. Busier than an Italian cruise ship captain with no life boats. Busier than a college athletic director with too many wire transfer receipts. Busier than a one-armed Miami tailor making Kevlar hoodies.

I've been a little snowed under, is what I'm sayin'. There are times in life when you're just trying to juggle all your projects. Toss most of them up in the air while you give attention to the most pressing ones, and hope you don't drop any balls.

In face, that's one reason (of several) I find this week's edition of YouTube Tuesday so engaging. You've got to be impressed with her ability to give concrete expression to such an abstract metaphor.



tagged: YouTube, Tuesday, video, juggling, redhead, balls

YouTube Tuesday: The cure for what ales you…

Today's the big day, guys. The big, chocolatey, hopsy, sudsy day that Kansas City has been abuzz about for weeks.

It's like Christmas in January. For, today is the day Boulevard Brewery's Chocolate Ale hits the shelves.

I know I don't have to go into a big long description of Chocolate Ale. I'm sure that by you have all heard ad intoxicum about the wildly popular collaboration of Kansas City's own Boulevard Brewery and Kansas City's own artisanal chocolatier Christopher Elbow.

Anyway, I've never tried it but apparently it's all the rage. In fact, I saw beer aficionado Chimpotle stocking up on the stuff as soon as stores opened this morning. I thought you guys might like to see the video of him bringing it home to his house.

I'm just glad he wasn't driving… his car.



tagged: YouTube, Tuesday, video, beer, train, Boulevard, Kansas City

YouTube Tuesday: No Joy

I didn't realize until today that Joyland had closed.

Not that I'm surprised. I just haven't thought about Joyland Amusement Park one way or another in ages. As a kid, my parents took us there two or three times, making the hour's trip from out hamlet to the city of Wichita for a diversion of bumper cars, Ferris wheels and carnival games (as I recall, I wasn't old enough to go on the roller coaster).

Anyway, as this video shows, the amusement park has undergone significant decay since it closed nearly 10 years ago.

Much like our culture in general.

No Joy from Mike Petty on Vimeo.

tagged: YouTube, Tuesday, Joyland, amusement park, Wichita, Kansas, decay

PvC art

I like it when artists have fun.

Oh sure, that seems obvious to you and me. We're just a couple of working stiffs, marking our time in the trenches, bringing home the Benjamins so we can put food on the table and shoes on the kids' feets. So to us, it seems crazy that someone who spends their day doing stuff we used to do in kindergarten should have anything but a fun life.

But then you hear stories about how all the artists are so tortured and how they suffer so much for their art that nobody will ever understand, because how could they, they're just a bunch of proletarian cretins who wouldn't know a Pollock from a used drop cloth.

But when I serendipitously run across the work of someone like Belgian visual artist Ben Heine, it pleases me to know that the art world isn't entirely populated by brooding alcoholics and stuffy joy-sucking academics. And maybe it paints me as uneducated in the art world, but I subscribe to the Montgomery Burns school of art criticism:

"I don't know art, but I know what I hate. And I don't hate this."

In his series Pencil vs Camera, Heine takes a whimsical stab at mixing the real world of photography with the fun and fantastical world of his mind as sketched on paper.

I like the fresh take and I'm I big fan of Heine's sense of humor.

There are a ton of images in the Pencil Vs Camera series, all of which can be seen at Heine's kickass website along with much of his other work.

tagged: art, photography, sketch, Ben Heine, culture, humor

Well, if that's the way the blog wind blows…

So, don't like the the old tried and true New Year's Resolutions, eh?

Gotta be all "progressive" and try to "start something new" eh?

"Tell you what, we’ll just create one, call it the Flashback meme: post your last sentence from the last post for each month of 2011."

Well, if that's the way the blog winds blow, then never let it be said that I don't blow.

Jan: What did I miss? How do you think we'll get our comeuppance?

Feb: The post-modern alt-pop-blues-folk singer-songwriter, not the Fox News crybaby.

Mar: I know we use some pretty big words, but try to follow along.

Apr: You may have heard of it. It was in the news and everything.

May: I did record video of the meeting, and it's pretty damn entertaining if I do say so my damn self.

Jun: I've got some ideas, just not the concurrent time and motivation.

Jul: Given the local temperatures around here lately caused by an infernal Heat Dome, I thought this brief synopsis of Dante's Inferno seemed apropos.

Aug: As a parent, I'm just flipping the script on them. Using the same kind of marketing tactics to trick my kids into eating something less unhealthy.

Sep: Word up Mr. P!

Oct: But I think the biggest affect this unusually vivid dream on me has been that I no longer have much of an appetite for sushi.

Nov: (Sorry, I wasn't feeling particularly bloggy this month. But I guess even choosing not to say anything is saying something, right?)

Dec: -- Patricia Highsmith (New Year’s Eve Toast, 1947)

tagged: blog, meme, New Year, review, 2011, quote