Flying Around Google Earth

It is so deeply moving for me to just fly around google earth and explore random places. Get perspectives. I imagine myself there and it shakes me to the core.

Today I found myself flying around Dallas for hours. Getting some cool and moving perspectives, but not much to say. Not much to see in street view. Then I randomly decided to drop a pin in England, street view, and BAM! Instant beauty. (Map Location). It's like that every time - I could drop a pin anywhere in the world outside the US and I have a 95% chance of seeing something wonderful. Beautiful or interesting. Humble, but glorious. Profound and withstanding. Look at this picture I wish such love was etched into our walls. I wish I knew what it was like to truly have a heritage; to really deeply love my country. In a way that I could not describe. To feel the same love you have for your country coming through the ancient chisel strokes of a man you've never met. I have no idea what that feels like. But I feel it in every brick of even the lowest slums in the farthest places on earth.

I feel like we just keep saying "America is great", "freedom!", just because we think we're supposed to, but nobody really feels it. Nobody really believes it. Is it just me? Am I just negative? Am I suffering from "the grass is always greener"? Am I "only happy when it rains"? When I have something to complain about? Or am I sincerely concerned about a very real cultural vacuum? Vanilla. I feel like our flag should just be a decaying white canvas. Like everyone who has come here has left behind their culture, and replaced it with nothing. Every other country has piles and piles of paint upon paint, and they continue to tend to it, but no one has touched ours. No one wants to say something, put something on that canvas, that then they'd have to tend to. But the canvas needs tending itself. And it will disintegrate without paint. But I have no answers, solutions, or solid ideas. How would I have started this experiment differently? I don't know. Maybe I'm just wrong and I can't see what's right in front of me. I mean if I'm right about us having some sort of culture-lacking culture, then how do we produce so much worldwide entertainment? Are we just experts at exploitation, manipulation, and spectacle, unafraid to use shock value and break laws like a cheap hooker because we have nothing else to offer? Are we just turning the world vanilla? Or is there something we really contribute that I just don't see? Is there some deep unspoken unique cultural value in the US that I live and breathe so much I simply don't notice?

I struggle with this every day. I didn't have a tough childhood compared to many, but I have never felt like I was truly a citizen of this country. Accepted. Treated equally, given freedom. A citizen of the world, maybe--at least that made logical sense. In the middle of shithole, TX, I was not given the opportunity in public school to specialize in things that kids in bigger city public schools could--the options were Ag (agriculture) or the horse-shit vanilla version of every subject. I felt neglected and discriminated; forced to participate in a system that hated thinking and learning but required my childhood as payment; surrounded by collections of people that do not care, consisting of individuals that really wanted to, but were okay without, afraid to challenge an imaginary norm, living vicariously through characters in movies who escape it. I just constantly find myself saying, "What the fuck?" I can only imagine what black kids have gone through in poorer communities. What has happened, and what do we do to change it in a real way? How was England able to get over slavery before us and fully integrate black people into their society while the land of the free is still sitting over here with it's thumb up it's ass? 240 years. 240 years of freedom and we just keep inventing new forms of slavery.

Am I just a jerk or what? Let me know. I just want to have real love and pride for where I am and where I came from, and right now it seems like the only way to do that is to be an island unto myself. I want my children someday to have that feeling I've never known.

(Map Location)

Protest Against "Pixels" DMCA Action

According to this article, Columbia Pictures has hired and anti-piracy firm to go around demanding takedowns of every video on the internet that includes the word "pixels" (thanks to reddit for bringing this to my attention). They're even taking down videos that students made for no profit for an assignment.

This is out of fucking control. What level of stupidity are we willing to tolerate? Our culture is our responsibility, and we need to stop letting these assholes destroy it. They are not allowed to stifle speech and creativity. Not because our government says so or not; because we say so. Because if we say so, our government will eventually reflect and protect that. This is OUR society. OUR culture. You can't just hijack a word out of our language. We need to seriously re-think our IP laws, but first we need those with power to know that we are not okay with this.

We need to send the IP owners of Pixels a big "fuck you".

So I say we protest by putting the word "pixels" in every sentence, picture, or context we can, while also not spending a single cent on the movie Pixels, or anything else associated with Columbia Pictures.

Here are some pixels images you can download and use for a profile picture (or whatever you want--I won't go after you).

I included the DMCA note in my images because according to the Library of Congress, false DMCA complaints are punishable under penalty of perjury, and I am sick of seeing the rich and powerful walk free when they break the law. If I put up a video on Youtube titled "pixels", then put in a DMCA complaint for the trailer for the movie "Pixels", and it got taken down, I could get put in jail. But it would never happen to someone in power at Columbia Pictures. It takes an act of congress to make someone with money or political power face criminal charges. Why is that okay? Their action against the word "pixels" should be considered unlawful, so I think they should be charged criminally for every single "pixels" takedown request submitted on their behalf. (Of course it would have to be led by an agency with the money to do it--yay freedom pixels)

Let me make this very clear: I believe Columbia's activity against the word "pixels" should be considered illegal activity punishable by perjury under the DMCA because their claim to ownership of the word "pixels" is false. No one person or entity has a right to claim IP ownership of a word that our culture came up with. Nobody has the right to claim sole ownership of any previously existing word or creation from any language or any culture that has ever existed. You do have the right to create new words and help us create new culture. You do not have the right to conquer existing culture unto yourself, thereby removing it from society and contributing to social degradation. I believe these rights are evidenced not by written law but by common sense, cultural sense, and the inherent responsibility to preserve culture, language, and freedom of speech. It's a basic human right. Pixels.

Make your own pixel images! Share them pixels! Don't forget to use the word "pixels" every chance you get. Just tack it on to the end of your sentences, like this pixels. "Pixels" can be the new period. A period is a pixel, anyways. How poetic.

We do this stuff for gay rights and other important issues in our culture. We should continue taking responsibility for our culture by protecting our language and artistic expression. I want to see what you guys create, and I don't want you to be afraid of any kind of stupid shit like this.

Some interesting ideas and thoughts in this reddit thread. If you have any other ideas on how to protest this or any useful links, please share in the comments pixels.

Art: Why So Serious?

This was today's entry for my creation-a-day challenge.

One of my tricks as a designer for keeping the spontaneous creative inspiration flowing is that whatever projects I'm doing, try to alternate one project serious, one project funny/stupid/not serious. Such a key part of unlocking your ability to create original ideas out of thin air is to allow in your mind even the dumbest of ideas. Creating something that's genuinely funny to you supercharges and motivates you, but letting yourself play with some ideas that are just dumb lays a foundation for a healthy relationship with the inner workings of your mind. Because you want your subconscious mind to feel the freedom to hurl tons of ideas at you when you need them.

There are even a ton of examples in fine art. But that's enough of that. Let's look at something funny.

Someone punched a hole in a $10 million Monet and recently went to jail for it. You can read about it here (brace yourself). But this is the most hilarious thing I've read in a long time. Now you're probably thinking, "Has Sal gone crazy? He is an artist--shouldn't he be upset?" It is definitely a travesty of art, Monet is possibly my favorite painter ever, and I am also an expressionist (salvatoreart.com), but read the rest of the story.

The guy claimed to have accidentally fallen over and hit the painting with his elbow due to a heart condition. But a witness told the court that he lunged at the painting with a clenched fist like a hammer. Like superman. But he's trying to tell the court it was a heart condition. He had 48 -- 48! -- prior convictions that included having stolen maps from the 1600s worth thousands of dollars in his possession, and damaging other artwork. But he's saying it was a heart condition! He just does not stand a chance! There's no way. The event was even captured on camera, clearly showing him lunge like MegaMan at the painting. And his story is, "heart condition". He's just so screwed, the whole thing is hysterical to me.

To make it even funnier, you only have to search "monet punch" in google and it comes right up.

Rest assured, the incident was actually two years ago and the painting has since been repaired. I would be honored if one of my pieces was taken off this planet like this. It'll all eventually turn to dust; might as well happen in a fun way.

More about humor in art. Many of the pieces in the reactionary movements across art history are actually making fun of what they're reacting to. Even Whistler's Mother was deadpan (my theory). The easiest to look at is the current reactionary movement in contemporary art: postmodernism. We've been seeing it for decades en masse now, and now it's in all our media and art. It's all about questioning the established systems, exposing the problems, and trying to find the next step. There is perhaps no better tool for exposing and talking about those things than humor. There's so much truth in humor. Sitcoms, cartoons, comics, movies, music--in our generation humor is everywhere.






I always think of Calvin and Hobbes. A great example about how easy it is to hear a serious message from someone or something that is not usually serious. People are often most impressed by serious performances by famous comics. I think their craft in comedy requires them to work more closely with the truth than they get credit for.

In the high art / fine art world you've got names like Paul McCarthy, Jeff Koons, and Banksy. All that create work that's funny. It's not all funny, and sometimes the piece wasn't meant to be funny, but it is. I think that's a side effect of hitting you in the face with that much truth in that way that happens to be your sense of humor. And it is acceptable to laugh.

Train, Paul McCarthy

Banksy, Graffiti Artist

Banksy, Street Artist

On honesty and comedy, even your own train of thought is often funny if you just let it go word-vomit style.

Some day I will write a post with my full treatise on how to generate creative and original ideas, but for now, know the most important part, of everything, of it all: enjoy it. To what end is life if not to live?

Perhaps there can be no true art apart from comedy.