Here’s some of the loot that Santa brought me for Christmas.



Saucony ProGrid Ride 5 running shoes, FujiFilm Instax 210 instant camera, Old Spice classic after shave and a jump rope!

I really like the collage I made for this year’s card for our favorite waitress at Jo Jo’s Tavern.

What’s your desktop look like?

Over the weekend I once again visited the Maker’s Mark distillery. Back in 2005 I joined a special program they have in order to be a Maker’s Mark Ambassador. I promote my love for Maker’s Mark to all, which is no surprise to those that know me. Among the perks I get are freebies sent to me periodically through the mail, invitations to special events and parties, discounts and Christmas gifts! At the parties over the years I’ve had the chance to meet and hang out with the President, the master distiller and others. All great people. Another perk of being an Ambassador is that your name is put on a metal plate and that plate is then put on a new barrel of what will be bourbon. The reason I went to the Maker’s Mark distillery this past weekend is because I graduated from their ambassador program, the barrel with my name on it has finally matured to the point where it can be bottled. It took almost 7 years for my barrel to mature. I visited the distillery and now I have a bottle of Maker’s Mark that was made for me from a barrel that had my name on it. Cool. Very cool.

These photos were sent to me showing the “sold” red sticker next to my painting. Sara is gone forever.

My first painting in over 5 years. This will be for sale in the 10x10 Benefit Art Exhibit and Sale.

Come to the Monster’s Ball at Artworks - Trenton THIS Saturday, October 27th. Here’s the flyer:



Get your collective monster-mashing asses out there and enjoy two bands, food, oracle/tarot readings, beer/wine, silent films, Tahitian-style belly dancing and the incredible “Art of Darkness” Halloween themed art show!

Tickets are available at the door but you can also purchase them online at www.artworkstrenton.org!

Recently I’ve been thinking of the best concerts that I’ve ever been to. I consider sound quality, set design, creativity, music and of course live performance. Obviously how I experienced each show is unique to me but here’s the top 5 shows that I’ve been to. I’ve tried to include a video of that performance and a little description on how I viewed it.

1. Fever Ray - Webster Hall, NYC. 2009.



This show was extremely difficult to photograph and video. Everything was enshrouded in darkness and smoke. There were lasers. There were amazing costumes that they wore to add even more mystery to it. Those lamps throughout the set were strange. There was incense burning. It was a very odd mixture of things and it added to the mystery of the music and the performance. Hands down the best and most unique concert that I’ve even been to. It’s hard to find a video that gives justice as to how unique this show was. It’s going to be hard to top this show.

2. Coil - Irving Plaza, NYC. 2001.



This video is actually the entire performance. My experience is very different than everyone else’s. I actually had the privilege to hang out with the band the night before. Out for sushi and drinks. The band ended up using 2 of my friends from that night in the performance. Around the 50 minute marks is when they come out in their underwear covered in blood while holding a sheet of metal which the singer begins banging his head into it before kneeling into some sort of prayer. You can see it was hard to really photograph them because their suits were glowing. It was purely experimental, who knows what drugs they were on then. It was their only performance in the US and are considered on of the most influential underground bands from the last 30 years.

3. Dead Can Dance - Radio City Music Hall, NYC. 2005.



This concert was incredible. It was only 1 of 2 shows in the US that were played with a full orchestra. This video is one of my favorite songs of theirs. Live there is so much energy. However, imagine all the synthetic strings and electronic horns were actually played by the full orchestra. Added so much more to the energy level. It was a beautiful show. Brendan Perry and Lisa Gerrard’s voices were nearly flawless. An amazing show. I wish there was video of it somewhere.

4. John Maus - Johnny Brenda’s, Philadelphia. 2011.



Easily the shortest concert that I’ve ever been to. I don’t think it was even 20 minutes long. Also easily the most energetic performer that I’ve ever seen. Although this clip isn’t from the show that I’ve been to it’s from the same tour. I actually ran into him in the bathroom before the show and you can see that he’s getting into the zone. Talked to him after the show and he’s a totally normal guy. Seriously looks as if he’s handicapped from his performance though. Even though it was really just a glorified karaoke it was the only show that I’ve been too where I smiled the entire time.

5. Depeche Mode - Spectrum, Philadelphia. 1993.



Great production. Great performance. Great show. Enough said.

I’m trying to find artists to put on a list that will be The Baddest and Toughest Artists of All Time. I’m having a lot of trouble finding the baddest of them all. Maybe I would be on that list, a painter and performance artist, I am a fierce competitor and Spartan warrior. I may not be the fastest, strongest or smartest but there will be no one that will outwork more or give a greater effort. But am I a badass? No, far from it.

So, what makes an artist a badass? I think of Ernest Hemingway, fighting in WW1. Delivering goods to the front line only to take shrapnel to the leg and then go off to carry a wounded soldier to safety. In WW2 during a war long correspondent mission he led a group of vigilantes during or near the Liberation of Paris. That is badass.

I think of Caravaggio. Who was always a rebel and constantly in bar fights and trouble with the law. During one of these bar fights he killed another man. He escaped from the law and remained on the lam for the rest of his life. He often carried a sword with him to defend himself from those wanting to fight him and/or bring him to justice. He did all of this while painting grand masterpieces.

Of course there is the legendary samurai warrior Miyamoto Mushashi. Although he was a master swordsman first and regarded as one of the greatest warriors of all time in his later life he was also an author and considered a master painter.

I’m looking for traditional artists rather than music/film artists. There are plenty of musicians and actors that are badasses (LL Cool J beat the shit out of a home invader, I remember a story about Ernest Borgnine and how he beat the shit out of a would be carjacker at the age of 60 and Audie Murphy was the most decorated soldier and American hero during WW2 before going onto a successful film career). However, there aren’t many badass or valiant traditional artists. There has to be more than Hemingway and Caravaggio. Whether they’re just badass brawlers like Caravaggio or heroes like Hemingway there has to be more out there. We can’t all be sitting in a corner and painting pictures. There has to be someone! Help me find them! I’ve made it my quest to be the next badass/valiant artist, will I be number 4 on the list?

These are the commercials produced by EA for Madden 13 starring Ray Lewis and Paul Rudd. They’re pretty funny. It might be because I’m a huge Ray Lewis fan, no, they’re pretty funny regardless. I even included the interview between Ray Lewis and Paul Rudd discussing their lifelong friendship.

Loving the new Old Spice commercial. Very well done commercial. Great writing, acting, editing. It’s perfect.

Here’s a composite that I put together for a new painting that I just started working on.


As of now it’s to be my first digital painting which is a lot harder to do than I thought it would be. So i’m thinking about doing it in a traditional oil paint version as well. Any suggestions?

A few days ago Bat For Lashes posted a video of a new song from her upcoming album. I must have listened to the song a dozen or more times already. It’s a gorgeous song and the video is beautiful. I can hardly wait to hear what the full album will be like. Check it out:

The incredibly beautiful and continually interesting Diana updated me on a little side project she’s working on. Every day she posts a large number of haikus, some are funny, some are brilliant and they’re all pretty damn amazing. Here’s one of them:

Your sister is hot.
I mean… she looks just like you.
I’ll let myself out.

Visit Diana’s Tumblr page at http://morbidhaikus.tumblr.com/
If you don’t find her as funny and amazing as I do then, well, something is seriously wrong with you.

The St. Germain Cocktail. I discovered this drink a few weeks ago at the Jazz Age Lawn Party on Governor’s Island. It was my first time having St. Germain and I instantly fell in love with it. The cocktail is crisp and refreshing and is a great drink to have during these hot summer days. I picked up a bottle of it, which is gorgeous in itself, and made some cocktails during Independence day. We went through the entire bottle of St. Germain and a bottle of sparkling wine. It is delicious!

It’s around the halfway point of 2012 and here’s my top 10 of my favorite albums so far. In a rough order from my most favorite.

1. Beach House - Bloom
2. Santigold - Master of My Make-Believe
3. Sleigh Bells - Reign of Terror
4. Lower Dens - Nootropics
5. Actress - R.I.P.
6. Nite Jewel - One Second of Love
7. Polica - Give You The Ghost
8. Grimes - Visions
9. Mi Ami - Decade
10. The Flaming Lips - The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends

A few that other albums I also really like that may take a few more listens to be higher on the list but are definitely among my favorites are the new albums by Chromatics, Squarepusher, Niki & the Dove and Xiu Xiu. The new Rapoon and Windy & Carl albums are also very good. We’ll see if the top 10 changes when I do my end of the year round up.

Last week Trenton, NJ held it’s 6th annual Art All Night. A 24 hour arts festival. This year DeLorenzo’s hosted the smart phone scavenger hunt. I was the ‘host’ of the scavenger hunt so when visitors to the arts festival started the scavenger hunt they were presented with this video:



When they came to shoot me we had a packed restaurant and I was insanely busy. I’m amazed that they did this great of a job on the video considering that I was constantly distracted during the shooting. They’re truly talented to come up with this brilliance.

I haven’t been posting nearly as much as I should or even want to. Max passed away back in May and this is the first that I’ve written about him. I’ve known Max since he was just a puppy running around here chasing sticks in NJ. Last year we spent the night up in Syracuse, NY and he’s upgraded to chasing frisbees. Earlier this year we both were lulled to sleep by a boring first half during the Super Bowl. We share many more memories together and even though Maxxers is gone those memories will always be with me. Good bye Maxx!!!

The brand new official video for David Lynch's Crazy Clown Time. Not weird at all.

Hello Newman! Ryan Newman wins at the 1/2 mile short track Martinsville Speedway. At one point during the race Newman was a lap and a half down and wasn't looking good. However, he never gave up and slowly worked his way back onto the lead lap and at the last restart with 2 laps to go he found himself in 5th place. The 3rd place car dive bombed the leader and the second place car after they didn't get going fast enough. They went three wide and all made contact, Newman shot down low and avoided it all and took the lead. At the last restart Newman held off the #22 car for the win. It was so exciting! GO NEWMAN!!!

The HOTTEST art exhibit on the East coast is happening THIS SATURDAY in Asbury Park. Did you see all those capital letters? That's how HOT this is! Christopher Lucania does some great multi-media work (see the samples I included? I'm not kidding).



See what I mean? The thing is, as amazing as these look, they look even MORE amazing in person. Expect a whole lot more than this at the exhibit. Right? I don't know what you're waiting for, just clear the time slot already.

Ok, if you really are waiting for more then here it is. Besides the incredible artwork there will also be a special musical guest. WHAT? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? No, i'm not kidding. TEEEL is performing!!! Holy SHIT! I've never seen this much awesomeness in one location before! I mean, seriously, look what Teeel has done:



Ok, I know what you're thinking, "So, Teeel got lucky with one track", I say "BOLLOCKS!" Here's another example:



DAMN!!!!!!

So, QUESTION: Where are you going to be Saturday night? ANSWER: In Asbury Park at this art exhibit!

Here is the official invitation. If you click the link it will take you to the Facebook invitation page. Spread the word, link the Facebook page, link this blog entry. SPREAD THE WORD. I know what I've showed you should be enough to bring in the masses but the word needs to get out. LETS GO MINIONS, TAKE ACTION!

For those of you looking for the 2012 NASCAR season iCalendars you can find them under File Sharing. I had updated the links to comply with Apple's new iCloud. As always all dates, times and race names will be updated as soon as possible.

Happy New Year everyone! 2011 was another great year for music, movies and tv! Well, some good TV, some great movies and a whole lot of great music! Here's a wrap up of what I liked this year.

First. Movies. My 2 favorite movies of 2011 are Midnight In Paris and 50/50. I'm a huge Woody Allen fan so I may be biased with my love for Midnight in Paris, but he has a movie out every year and they usually don't make my list. I found Midnight In Paris to be very creative and intelligent. Maybe it's because I'm an art major and anyone with an art history background will love all the references in it. Plus, it's good to see a funny and entertaining film with an original idea and without all the toilet humor that's so easy to do and so common in most comedies. My other favorite film of the year is 50/50. Based on a true story. I found it very sad and very funny. I don't normally like Seth Rogen. I think he's an awful leading man, in supporting roles he's always the deadbeat stoner and it's just kind of annoying. He's ok in very small doses. His character in 50/50 was still a pot smoking hippie but there's something that he has that was missing in his other films, charm. I found him charming and he was a great friend to the main character played by Joseph Gordon Levitt. It is a truly great film and I highly recommend it.

I thought Melancholia was amazing. The opening was visually and beautiful (similar to Tree of Life). The first part to the film was good. The second part was where this film really succeeds. That part was so damn interesting and has one of the most bleak and hopeless endings in any film. Very good. I also really like The Tree Of Life. I think as far as movies go, you can't find a better made and more gorgeous looking film than this. It's all about life and death and it's a very powerful film. Absolutely loved A Separation. I loved all the twists and lies, great story, excellent film. I surprisingly liked the film Contagion, I found it freaky scary and creepy. Ides of March was decent. I believe Source Code was also 2011. I really liked that one too. Great pace, kept interest the whole time and left you thinking. I may update this entry again, I still really want to see The Descendants, The Skin That I Inhabit and Shame.

TV. Curb Your Enthusiasm was hilarious. A lot of hilarious moments. Especially the Buckner episode. It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia was also hilarious. I'll never forget the imagery of what happened under the boardwalk at the Jersey Shore. It will always haunt me. Parenthood always has top notch acting. Breaking Bad had some excellent moments. Louie was very good. Falling Skies had some good moments. Games of Thrones was alright. Boardwalk Empire was ok. Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe and Oddities are always very good shows. Wasn't crazy about the final season of Entourage. It felt forced. I liked James Spader's character in The Office. I liked the mystery behind him but the show itself fell flat. The new season of Harry's Law was much better than the first season. I look forward to more of that. The New Girl is starting to grow on me. Zooey Deschanel can grow on me anytime, he oh! Even though the new season of Beavis & Butthead is completely immature I found myself laughing out loud at times, I'm embarrassed. Bored to Death was good, shocked that it was cancelled. Probably the best character Ted Danson has ever played. I loved the suits he wore in it. Dexter was very good, some great imagery this season but I really think they're stretching too much. It's time to wrap that show up, just like I'm going to wrap up talking about my favorite shows of the year.

Onto the music. I'm going to try something differently than I've done in the past. I just mentioned my favorite albums (and a few EPs) of the year with usually a little talk about my top favorites. This time I think i'm going to make a list in a general order of preference. Here's my top 50 albums of the year. There is a lot of good stuff that didn't make the list and I feel bad but, hey, it just didn't make the list!

1. Panda Bear - Tomboy (The track 'Last Night at the Jetty' might be my favorite track of the year)
2. Planningtorock - W
3. tUnE-yArDs - W H O K I L L
4. Tim Hecker - Ravedeath, 1972
5. St. Vincent - Strange Mercy
6. James Blake - James Blake
7. Youth Lagoon - The Year of Hibernation
8. M83 - Hurry Up, We're Dreaming
9. Gauntlet Hair - Gauntlet Hair
10. PJ Harvey - Let England Shake
11. The Weeknd - House of Balloons
12. Destroyer - Kaputt
13. Niki & The Dove - The Drummer
14. Gang Gang Dance - Eye Contact
15. Cold Cave - Cherish The Light Years
16. Peaking Lights - 936
17. Lykke Li - Wounded Rhymes
18. Saint Saviour - Anatomy
19. James Blake - Enough Thunder
20. Memory Tapes - Player Piano
21. Cults - Cults
22. Grouper - A I A : Alien Observer
23. Emika - Emika
24. John Maus - We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves
25. Timber Timbre - Creep On Creepin On
26. A Winged Victory For The Sullen - A Winged Victory For The Sullen
27. Nicolas Jaar - Space Is Only Noise
28. Austra - Feel It Break
29. Puro Instinct - Headbangers in Ecstasy
30. Zomby - Dedication
31. Grouper - A I A : Dream Loss
32. Holy Other - With U
33. Oneohtrix Point Never - Replica
34. Grimes/D'eon - Darkbloom
35. Kate Bush - 50 Words For Snow
36. Holy Ghost! - Holy Ghost!
37. Washed Out - Within and Without
38. Cascadeur - The Human Octopus
39. Lana DeL Rey - Video Games
40. Toro Y Moi - Underneath The Pine
41. Anna Calvi - Anna Calvi (you must hear her cover of 'Surrender')
42. Tom Waits - Bad As Me
43. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross - The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (soundtrack)
44. Current 93 - HoneySuckle Æons
45. Blue Sky Black Death - Noir + Violet
46. Björk - Biophilia
47. David Lynch - Crazy Clown Time
48. The Antlers - Burst Apart
49. SBTRKT - SBTRKT
50. Zola Jesus - Conatus