Ravenous Destruction

+ green lava lamp
+ box of trash bags
+ can of mace
+ these things

My boss is always finding random things around his house and then he gives them to me. These are speakers. They light up, make noise and change color.

At last. The boots I’ve always wanted. A love story really. These boots are vegan. The rest is made of meat and blood.

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People often ask me what bands I listen to. It seems like a simple enough question. Really it is and I do enjoy talking about music, especially metal. However being the shy socially awkward metalhead that I have trouble answering that question… in fact I dread it. There I am at a show or a party or something and someone tries to attempt a conversation with me by asking what bands I like. I try my best to answer but I can’t name name a single band I like. Not one. My mind is a vast empty space. Umm I don’t know….I think real hard. Fuck. I don’t know. I listen to music every day. I have hundreds of tapes and cds. I collect records. I go to shows and festivals every chance I get… but no… I can’t think of single band I like. Eventually a band jumps into my mind, it falls right from my lips and it’s always a band that sux. A band I don’t like. Then I’m stuck taking about some band I don’t even like to someone who at this point thinks I listen to bands that suck. I think I need to take along some neatly written notes on little index cards next time I’m out.

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The Little Blue TreeWinter put up a little tree up in her room and decorated with ornaments she stole off of other trees, mostly the one that’s out in the living room. The pirate one was designed by me and can be found in my Zazzle shop.


The Advent CalenderMy mother gave this to us last year. Winter nearly destroyed it by tearing stuff out and what not. This year was a much better year for the calender. I fixed it up and told Winter if she messes with it, it will be gone. It is still holding up well, except for this one thing I found on her little blue tree today.

I made this from five different vintage skull illustrations from a 16th century book. I have a bunch in my zazzle shop.

Tonight I went out and bought 35mm film. I haven’t bought 35mm film in nearly a decade. I threw it in my old ten dollar camera. Replaced the old batteries with ones I found in my Walkman and a Tinkerbell lantern. Then I took a few accidental pictures trying to figure out if it still works. It seams to work but I won’t know for sure until I develop the film. I used up half The film. 24 exposures. I must choose my pictures wisely. This camera, it rattles when I shake it. Sometimes. I got it in 1997 or thereabouts. It’s been everywhere with me. Across the country with me once maybe twice. I brought along with me to Sweden. Noway. The Netherlands. Ireland. The picture above was taken in Ireland about 11 years ago. I like the special quality of this picture. This camera take special pictures. beautiful pictures. Real pictures. A tangible memory trapped in a box and then sealed onto paper. When I steal someone’s soul I want to be able to hold it in my hand.

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Aurora Dragon | Luna Guitars
I Bought this little guitar today for Winter. It’s the most fabulous guitar I could find for her. She loves music and this is going to be her first real instrument. I love the super cute dragon picture and the phases of the moon on the fretboard. Luna Guitars makes such beautiful acoustic instruments.

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Skid Row to Skyward
from here I can see only sky

pen | colored pencil | dictionary

Started a new art project…kinda. My monkey loves to destroy everything, including my books. Many of my possessions bare the mark of her destructive art talents. I try to keep them hidden in milk crates or in high up places but she still manages to find them. So I figured why not do the same. So I took my little red dictionary and got to work. This page is all I’ve done so far and I would like to keep going and see how many pages I can I can fill up with my sketchy drawings.

After I started working on this I realized this was not the first time I’ve done something like this. Many years ago, back in the reckless days of my youth, I did something similar. I was was in a hotel room in Texas tripping out and had the brilliant idea that I was gonna take the hotel room bible and fill it with art and it would be called ‘Art Bible.’ Needless to say despite my best efforts I was unable to fill every page with my art that night. I took the bible with me and left a note to the hotel staff saying that I was sorry for stealing their bible but it had to be done because that bible was meant to be an ‘Art Bible.’ I knew they would understand. I had every good intention of finishing what I started but I have no idea what happened to that bible.

Many of my designs for the things I sell online also have this theme. I like to take vintage images from books and lay them over blocks of text. This is all done digitally and with vintage royalty free images. So this here is a bit different.

I like the concept of this first drawing. The color, form and shading came out better then I expected…Although the scan did not do the shading much justice. I’m unhappy with with my line drawing skills here. I wish I had done a better job outlining the tree. I also wish it didn’t come out slightly sideways. Of course if this was an oil painting it would have come out perfect…but who has time for that ancient art form. While I was flipping though my dictionary looking for a page to begin with this page jumped right out at me. I like the words. I like the words a lot.

Well there it is… I guess I haven’t got much more to say about this. Forgive me if I’m a bit long winded when speaking about my art. It just something I picked up while studying art in college where speaking endlessly about such things is a requirement and never an option. Feel free to tell me what you think. Constructive criticism is welcome. This will available to buy soon in my Zazzle shop.

“Every act of creation is first of all an act of destruction.” ~ Pablo Picasso

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Friday
We arrived in Baltimore some time in the afternoon and found our hotel. It was a small 20 room hotel and that seemed to be located an endless number of blocks away from the venue. At first the hotel staff wanted to move us to another venue three miles away. Then they finally gave us a room…and what a room it was. The hotel itself was well old, very old. It took about five minutes to climb the wobbly antique staircases that shook with every step. It felt as though it may collapse at any moment unless of course one were to fall over the three and half foot railing first. While we were risking our life climbing the this staircase with all our things the hotel staff started harassing us about how many people were gonna be in the room. The room lacked many things like floor space and cleanliness. We had been here less the 10 minutes and we were really not liking this place. Kelly is probably one of the most laid back people I have ever met. I never once seen her disgruntled…until now. In fact she was so disgruntled that she started calling other hotels to book another room. Which is how we ended up at the Sheraton. Once settled in Joe headed over to the club while Kelly and I had a a bite to eat. Shortly thereafter our four other hotelmates from Virgina arrived. Next thing we knew it was getting late and time to head over to the Sonar.

I only saw a few bands that night, but it didn’t matter cause they were a few of the bands I wanted to see the most. There was a thunderstorm just before Neurosis was about to go on. I can’t think of many things more awesome then seeing Neurosis play in a thunderstorm. Sadly that didn’t not happen and their set was delayed for what felt like an endless amount of time. I liked their set but I felt like I was too far away from the stage. Maybe I was just stoned or something but I felt like I was miles away. I want to see them again and try that one more time.

The last band of the night Marduk. I’ve been waiting years to see them again. They were gonna play MDF in 2009 but couldn’t get into the country. Needless to say I was quite happy to see them play again.

The club tried to cut their set short and turned the lights on. That did not stop them. They kept on playing. They didn’t come all the way over from Sweden to to get kicked off the stage before they even finished their set. I have to say watching them continue to play was one of the bestest moments of the the weekend. Friday was awesome bit not as awesome as…

Saturday

Saturday was most awesome. Early in the afternoon Kelly and I got a few beers and then she started drinking this really strong rum and coke drink. I helped her drink it and then went and got another for us to share. When I returned she had abandoned me. I had to drink the whole thing by myself. That’s when things got fuzzy.

I knew I had to much to drink when I stared spending money I shouldn’t have been spending. I got a cool MDF t-shirt though and I took a lot of pictures.

I met Chicken Man. I sat down with him and lit up some herb. Before I knew it a bunch of friends joined us. We had a fun time smoking with Chicken Man. Next thing I know I was at the liquor store buying some Guinness. At that point I had enough to drink but oh well. Had a few beer at the hotel and then it was back and forth between the hotel and the club.

At some point early in the evening I was back at the hotel with Kelly. She made me a sandwich and then I decided to lay down for a bit. I ended up passing out for the rest of the evening. I missed every single band that played Saturday night. I woke up to a room full of people. Kelly told me that I told her to wake me up to party later if I passed out. She did and she even brought Tom back to hang out with us. Kelly is most awesome. We heading down to Sly and Kevin’s room at some different hotel I can’t remember the name of.

We hung out on the rooftop drinking beers and smoking herb. We stayed up there for a while and I could slowly see the sky starting to brighten. It was getting early. We eventually headed back to our hotel. Everyone went to to sleep and I hung out with Tom until the sun came up.

Sunday
Woke up, got stoned, had a cup of coffee, got stoned and had a fabulous morning. At some point in the afternoon I headed down to the club to enjoy the very last day of MDF.

I saw Malignant Tumour. It was fun times for sure. Thanx to the MDF party brigade it was like mosh pit meets beach party. Lots of inflatable things flying though the air and silly folks just being silly.

I saw Orange Goblin for the first time ever and absolutely loved them. I’m just glad I was in the right place at the right time or I may have missed them.

I also saw Coroner. Never really listened to them much but I liked their set and I got some decent pictures of them as well.

Last band of the night was that trendy new band Ghost. Their songs were pretty catchy and easy to like. They were a bit theatrical, which I liked, especially the costumes. I didn’t think I would like them but I did.

Well there it is… Another fabulous weekend at Maryland Deathfest. It was one of the best ones yet. Every year I say I hope I can make it to the next one. This year is no different.

More pictures can be found here on my flickr page