12/20 Show at Owen's House

On 12/20 Disowned was slated to play a show with Active Aggressive, Digne Y Rebelde, and Drugshit (all local hardcore/punk bands) and Malady from Tiajuana, Mexico - but they cancelled. I designed the flyer below, I will scan in a better copy when I get to a good scanner at work.

We had extended our set from a scant five to a meaty eight, plus a holiday favorite - 'Fuck Christmas' by FEAR. The acoustics were pretty off but people enjoyed our new material and extended set.

Fun fact: Owen and Jorge (the lead singer for All Systems Fail/
guy in the background) are wearing the same shirt from this LA
noise punk band Dead Noise we met a couple days earlier at a show.

Michael is hilarious to watch drum - besides being an amazing
drummer he gets really into it and makes faces.

The obligatory shot of me looking goofy and focused.

This picture will make more sense in a paragraph.

Next up was Active Aggressor - a local favorite who play fast, female fronted old school hardcore. Everyone loves them and since they have been around for a while, sing along and get really really riled up.

Which is why while moshing, someone busted through the window that Owen is standing on in the above picture. I fortuitously captured the exact moment of Owen seeing someone go through his ground floor window. Also in the picture - just to the right of Owen - is my good friend Marek, who came up from Austin, TX for the holidays.

Thanks to my quick thinking and Boy Scout training, I was able to make this awesome cardboard sheet by cutting up liquor boxes and interlocking them. Owen is stressed out as hell because it was about -15 C outside and there is a broken window. Marek is also in the picture, looking like a jolly Polack.

Awesomely enough, Active Aggressive kept playing the entire time with people moshing. After the set, and after we had patched up the window, without even asking people got a donation bowl together and in a couple of minutes everyone had pitched in enough to cover the new window and then some. It was pretty cool. It got me thinking about how Salt Lake has a tight knit enough group of people who will:

a) allow a show in their houses for extremely loud, gross, scary looking kids
b) play free shows - I have never been to a hardcore/punk show with a ticket or cover price
c) the moment something goes down - be it someone falling down in the pit, being out of gas/needing a ride, or crashing through a window - there are immediately twenty pairs of hands willing to give everything they have to help out.

I constantly scrutinize people, and can't help but wonder "What is their life worth? What are they doing that is worthwhile to justify their continued breathing?" I am usually pressed to come up with anything. Now, whenever I do that at a show, I can tell myself "These people will be good to each other and help to their fullest extent." It's more than I can say for most of humanity.

Shoe Sniffing Gnomes, Belschnickel, und Der Krampus!

Every family has their holiday traditions, and mine is no different. Every year all the kids get their picture taken with 'Father Christmas' - this awesome old pagan style Santa character. He is super friendly and always remembers our names and what we wanted last year, which for doing this for over 20 years and tons of families is quite some feat. We have pictures of all the children throughout the ages and it is really fun at Christmas to see them all sequentially.

My family also spends time with my maternal grandparents, who are old school Germans. They celebrate a little mini Christmas on the 6th of December, where you leave your shoes out and a little gnome visits your house while you sleep. If your shoes stink, it means you have been committing mischief so the gnome fills your shoes with twigs and pine needles. If you have been good, however, the gnome fills your shoes with chocolates and cookies.

When I was really young - maybe 5 or so - my grandparents filled my shoes with pine needles. When I went to put my boots on, all the pine needles (which were dry and sharp) pierced my feet and I started bawling hysterically. I didn't want to take my boots off because I thought there were snakes in my boots and if I took them off I would let the snakes out, so I just sat there crying with my parents trying to figure out what is wrong and me not wanting to walk. My grandparents came up and started teasing me about the gnome thinking I was naughty and that I should start being good lest 'Der Krampus' came to get me.

About ten years later my grandparents filled my shoes with pine needles and warned me about 'Der Krampus', albiet somewhat jokingly. Looking bewildered at them, they sat me down and explained the ancient Germanic traditions of Belschnickel and Der Krampus.

My grandparents are from Northeastern Germany, a wierd place that ties German, Scandinavian, and Eastern European cultural influences together. Even centuries after the Christianization of Europe, people still carried on Germanic Pagan traditions. One of the most awesome things is their depiction of Santa Klaus - or Belschnickel. He is a master hunter who sneaks into poor people's houses to make Christmas awesome - sometimes he leaves a big goose/Christmas feast or firewood. The best story involves an old miller who had three daughters, but couldn't afford a dowry for them - so Belschnickel snuck in and stuffed their socks with gold.

Now, when Saint Nicholaus/Belschnickel comes around to give presents/firewood to all the good deserving children and families, he wakes Der Krampus. Der Krampus is a demonic satyr who carries rusty chains with bells on them to frighten children, a fist full of birch branches to flog naughty children, and a sack for holding really naughty children to dump them in Hell later. There is a tradition on the 6th of December, when the shoe sniffing gnome comes, that the young men dress up in horns and furs and run around with chains chasing children. Supposedly this reminds children to shape up in the interval until Christmas.

Also, my Norwegian cousin Matthias sent me some pictures of a little hedgehog - or bolla piggsvin - that came to live with him and made it's nest in his recording studio/distro.

HeLa Cells are Awesome

Lately I have been reading about the history of divergent cells lineages within research over the past 75 years. I came upon the HeLa cells (which I had worked with in tissue culture research.) Turns out they initially came from the cervical cancer cells of Henrietta Lacks during the early stages of molecular biology research in the early 50's.

They are particularly awesome because they are biologically immortal - a product an an enzyme called telomerase which keeps the telomeres (repeating segments of DNA that cap the ends of chromosomes) from shortening during replication. Repeated telomere wear and tear is one of the leading causes of cell age and death. Beause HeLa cells don't have to worry about it, they can reproduce endlessly given sufficient conditions to do so.

Because they are prolific and adaptive, they have become a major contaminant in most cell strains today - and as large as 10% of any known cell line might have arisen from/has some HeLa cells inside of it. This actually caused a big Cold War hullaballoo after the restrictions on Soviet/US cancer research was relaxed in the 70's. Not having seen HeLa cells before, the Soviets thought the US researchers were trying to conduct biological warfare by sending them infected samples. When they isolated the HeLa cells and saw their unique capabilities they thought the US had engineered some super cell.

So as awesome as all that information is, here's what really blows my mind - that Henrietta Lacks is still living all over the world in different laboratories, and seeing how her contribution to research science has effectively made her immortal.

Awesome.

Nine Awesome Bands You Should Be Familiar With If You Want to Talk Music With Me

Every time I meet new people I inevitably am questioned about my musical tastes, what music I play, who the bands on my jacket are, etc. By no small margin do the people I meet have no fucking clue what I am talking about when I respond. 'Oh punk, you mean like Blink 182?' or 'Oh metal, like Metallica?' at which point I die a little inside and narrow my vision at them, quietly finish my drink and hate humanity a little more.

I mean, I am sorry I don't listen to more mainstream or popular music. I really am. I would like to be able to play beer pong with some brahs and listen to Nickelback without feeling the need to kick the speakers in. I would love to be able to talk about how the latest Fleet Foxes album is so overrated, I can't believe Pitchfork gave it that score with hipsters while drinking Pabst tallboys. Hell, I would even settle for being able to listen to the radio in the car with someone without changing it to NPR.

And here's the thing, I'll be the first person to admit that the music I listen to is horrible. It's dissonant, complicated, violent, and inaccessible. Subjects include death, the fall of humanity, existential angst, nuclear war, corruption, poverty, drug use, Satanism, and drowning kittens. All that nonsense aside though, I love it. Call it an acquired taste or just trying to be different, but I'll be listening to blackened crusty metal until I die.

So if you want to talk music with me, or see patches on my jacket or hear a gawdawful racket coming out of my speakers, here's a crash course.

Carcass - first off, Carcass is hands down the reason I grew to love extreme metal. Swansong, while a huge deviation from the typical Carcass sounds, got me hooked. That album is one of the most solid metal albums ever produced, a true 'something for everyone' piece. Catchy riffs, rock and roll structure, bluesy guitar, all while keeping it heavy and fast. Heartwork is Carcass' agreed magnum opus, combining grind and punk with melodic death metal (which Carcass pioneered). It set the tone for the next 10 years of death metal, giving rise to the Swedish Death Metal movement, which birthed Opeth, At the Gates, and Entombed.

Necrotism: Decanting the Insalubrious, however, is my favorite Carcass work to date. It took the heaviness and aesthetic of goregrind (which Carcass also pioneered), the speed and ferociousness of anarcho-punk, and the technicality and precision of death metal - blended it all together in a maelstorm of awesomeness. Spliced intros of autopsy audio set the tone for the visceral splattering of neck snapping riffs, dizzying tempo changes, dripping vocals, and neo-classical guitar work.

Pick this up or you could wind up in the morgue.

Electric Wizard - From the first self titled album, there was no doubt Electric Wizard would be taking Sabbath style doom, loading it up in their pipe, and hitting that shit until the walls started to bleed. The hits just kept on coming, with Come My Fanatics... - heavier, darker, and more drugged up. Dopethrone, with it's cover of the Devil hitting a bong, visually encapsulates the sound they bring on this album. Considered the high point of their career, the beginning is strong with heavy, groove based riffs and memorable desolate lyrics. The middle is a return to the droning, repetition, and heaviness of earlier albums. The end of Dopethrone, with the title track and Mind Transferal, bring heavy distortion and the sludgy haze that make the Wizards the masters of stoner doom.

We Live, while a solid album, trades catchy riffs and memorable structures for droning guitars, feedback, and almost below perceptibility bass, slowing things down for all the burnouts. Let Us Prey departs from the bass heavy distortion of previous albums, but there is still plenty of each going on. The use of more psychedelic guitars and a return to groove, along with some a healthy dose of high frequency experimentation paves the way for the best Electric Wizard album to date - Witchcult Today. Acid guitar solos and warmer sounds mingle with the uncompromising drone and heaviness that is trademark Electric Wizard.

Turn on, turn up, tune out.

Discharge - coming out of the UK 82' movement (giving punk some balls with faster and angrier sounds) they pioneered and mastered the d-beat. Using simple song structures and shouted lyrics typical of punk, they added metal guitar solos and heavy distortion for darker sounds. They were too metal for the punks, too punk for the metal-heads. Fast, aggressive, and simple, they influenced thrash metal, hardcore, crust punk, and every genre spin off from the above. Best album - Hear Nothing, See Nothing, Say Nothing.

Amebix - early crust band, combined the fast pace of Motorhead with gloomier noise from Killing Joke and Swans. A short lived band, but highly influential on the development of black metal and crust punk. Unlike most punk bands at the time they wrote about brotherhood, riding motorcycles, the consequences of nuclear war, and humanity's fear of death. One of my favorite songs of all time is by them - check it out. True fact - after Amebix, the lead singer Rob 'The Baron' Miller became a self taught swordsmith. He lives on a tiny island up in Scotland making custom swords. Badass.

Taake - black metal at it's finest. Coming from Bergen, Norway (home of black metal) they write about fog and what archetypes it takes in our collective literature and mythos. While black metal is kind of hokey and suffers from taking itself too seriously, Hoest (the head honcho of Taake) has always brought seriousness and solemnity to his albums. I had the privilege of seeing Taake and Behexen (another black metal favourite) play when I visited Bergen a couple years ago - one of the best shows I have seen hands down. I got the feeling watching Taake perform that they would be playing black metal even if they didn't come from the home of it, that the black metal sound is just who they are. Taake takes the ambient noise and doom fields of black metal and blends them perfectly with the fast, aggressive early black metal sound, never skimping on production and meticulous writing.

Hoest, rockin' with the cock out.

Origin - masters of technical death metal. Listening to them is an aural onslaught of technical brutality. When I first heard these guys back in high school, I thought, "There is no way that is a guy drumming that fast, it has to be a drum machine." I saw them a couple months later and the drummer was the fastest, most precise, and honed human being ever to sit behind a kit. He probably is a robot. The bass shreds, the guitars are doing non stop sweep arpeggios that would make Yngwie Malmsteen cry, and the vocals are inhuman. Check it out for yourself - though the band looks more at home playing WoW than being in the best death metal band ever. Orgin - Finite

Origin is what I think the beginning of the Universe sounded like.

Portishead - easily the most depressing music I own. Trip-hop before it was called such, Portishead combined fusion jazz samples, noise samplings, and hip hop beats together with haunting vocals about loneliness, isolation, and self hatred. Surprisingly, Portishead is my feel good music - it's been the soundtrack for countless breakups and depressive periods, due in part to the solidarity I have with the lyrics and how fucking chill it is. Life may suck and relationships may be pitfalls, but don't get angry and upset. I don't have a favorite album, everything they have put out is solid.

Skitsystem - Swedish d-beat/crust/hardcore, the epitome of what I love in music. Fast, brutal, heavy, and aggressive as fuck. Members from Swedish death metal legends At the Gates got together and started a kang (the Swedish term for Discharge influenced hardcore) band. I think their logo sums it up, combining the sheer awesomeness of wolves, skulls, and swords. Also they get points for singing in Swedish, which has the highest umlaut density of any language - and as everyone knows, umlauts are fucking metal.

One chain mail clad babe/greasy barbarian short of a Manowar album.

Orange Goblin - I was first acquainted with Orange Goblin in high school, but only with their later more punk/thrash influenced stuff - which is good, but pales in comparison with their first three albums: The Big Black, Frequencies from Planet 10, and Time Travelling Blues. I've listened these Orange Goblin album for hours both sober, stoned, and tripping - I still can't decide which one is the best as they are all cosmically good. The overall Orange Goblin sound has a distinct Motorhead-esque 'living fast/riding hard' mentality and sound, but brings a lot of funk breakdowns and psychedelic rock into the mix. Tracks like 'Diesel' showcase the hard hammering biker riffs a la Motorhead, while 'Shine' lures the listener through a groovy psychedelic lullaby into a black hole of astral heaviness. If it sounds like I am stoned when I describe their music, it's because it's the most apt vocabulary for its description.

Orange Goblin is the soundtrack for psychedelic drugs.

Hipsters...Dirty Hipsters...

Until recently, a good majority of people I hung out with would be classified as 'hipsters' in the modern usage of the word. Compared to most people in Salt Lake, they seemed well read and fairly intelligent on a variety of subjects, and were a welcome distraction with free Pabst Blue Ribbon. For a period of time I even dated a hipster and bought some deep v neck shirts (which are still super comfy and cool in the summer.) However, something always bothered me about the whole hipster scene/lifestyle/aesthetic. I felt dirty walking into Urban Outfitters, listening to electro-hiphop nonsense, and drinking cheap beer. It dawned on me that whole culture revolves around the sense of irony - hipsterism's refuge from society and detachment from art and culture.

Now irony and kitsch are two very different things. As Clement Greenberg points out in The Avante Garde and Kitsch, kitsch is the appreciation of the sublimely bad in art, transcending its place as a cultural artifact and by virtue of it's lack of taste, becomes a sort of high art. However, hipsters are unable to even appreciate the beauty in the tastelessness. Rather, they abstain from deep emotional and intellectual connections and have built a subculture specifically revolving around not the rejection of decadent art and culture, as many counter cultures have, but a celebration of it in its worst forms.

Perhaps the thing that bothers me the most is that rather than creating something innovative and new, making a culture of their own, hipsterism shamelessly revels in stealing from the past. The music and culture which hipsters 'take seriously' - assuming that they are even capable of such aesthetic connection and analysis - comes from their parents or older generations. Musical genres like garage punk, indie rock, electro-pop, or hip-hop - 80's clothing, tight and flared pants, old cameras, vinyl - most if not all of hipster cultural consumption is from a bygone age. Ironically enjoying these things as if they were a lampoon of culture, the oft given explanation for the love of anti-culture seems to be, "OMIGAWD it’s so awful!" followed by a loud "I LOVE it!" This attitude perpetuates the banal and ridiculous cultural institutions that so desperately need to go the way of jelly sandals and Beanie Babies. Instead of finding or creating an alternative, hipsters instead opt for ironic detachment.

Another thing that bothered me was their appropriation of working class and blue collar culture like trucker hats, western shirts, and Charles Bukowski. In trendy SLC coffee shops hipsters sling Marxist slogans*, misunderstood Chomsky and Foucault snippits, and how they know 'the plight of the working class' on their 7.50/hour barrista jobs that make them choose between buying cocaine or a fixed gear bike (in Salt Lake? Seriously?) The truth is that most hipsters couldn't make themselves a cup of coffee (which is why they go to coffee shops.) The divorce of their labour seems to leave them with that empty feeling characteristic of the post-industrial existential crisis. Rather than confronting that void and re-asserting their labour power, hipsters turn the culture of legitimately hard working people into a joke, an ironic statement meaning absolutely nothing.

What it all boils down to is that hipsters lack meaningful connection to culture and society, and what they are left with is absurdity. By mislabeling this absurdity as 'hip' and creating a gradient for immediate downwards social comparison to anyone who doesn't buy into this bullshit, they forge an identity, culture, and society of their own. But the very ideas of 'culture' and 'society' mean nothing to them - and they try to apply a simplistic misunderstanding of critical theory, postmodernism and deconstructionism. My summation on hipsters therefore is that they exist in a world without value and meaning. They lack soul, authenticity, and purpose. Fuck the hipsters.




*I will be the first to admit that I have thrown around Marxist rhetoric and French names to sound smart and important - in my defense, I do know what I am talking about when it comes to Marx. I spent most of high school devouring Marx's collected works, including doing a comparison study of Marx's most well known works (Communist Manifesto, Das Kapital Vol 1-3) in German and English as my IB Extended Essay.

Halloween Hardcore Show!

This Halloween Evening my band Disowned played at the Boing! Collective, which is a local anarchist squat and community center focusing on impact free living. We played with a bunch of other local hardcore bands - Active Agressor, Ritual Fuck, Olivia Neutron Bomb, and Drugshit - along with two touring bands from the East Coast - Product of Waste and Bear Trap. I think out of all of the bands we were the only one not classified as 'Straightedge Hardcore' - which is most likely because I am the only one in the band not a vegan, straightedger, or combination of the two. Go drug use and drinking! (That's why I have a shit eating grin on my face.)

Our band from left to right - Choi, Chris, Michael, and Owen. Not pictured, Chuck.

Pictured, Chuck.

This is me shredding on the bass, looking professional and serious. I went as a crust punk for Halloween, which consisted of not showering or brushing my teeth for a couple of days, not washing my clothes, having badly done facial tattoos, and the obligatory Nausea patch on a hat - because all crusties love Nausea - with a bullet and rope belts. All of this was strictly a DIY found item and poorly done affair, making it extra crusty.

From left to right, Maia, Owen, and Choi - who went as a woman for Halloween. The entire show people were like, "Who is that cute asian girl? It's good to see more women coming to hardcore shows." People kept trying to talk him up only to realize it was Choi.

This is Active Agressor, fronted by the only female in the room. They kicked a lot of ass and had a really good set. Michael (our drummer) played bass for them in total drag, and to his credit, did a floor slide in heels and fishnets.

Cross-dressing was a popular costume, and people kept trying to talk up Michael only to realize it was a 6'3" white guy and not some random tranny who came to the show.

Product of Waste was somewhere between Rage Against the Machine style vocals with lots of rapping and break downs, with Napalm Death speed and dissonance. The vocalist and I had an interesting talk about Eastcoast vs. Westcoast lifestyles after the set, and as intelligent as he was, he had a hilarious Rhode Island accent that I couldn't get past.

Bear Trap's set was quite an experience - lots of nudity, vulgarity, and violence. The lead singer was nude most of the show and was dry humping everything.

The room was crammed full of sweaty people who hadn't showered in weeks, and it smelled like a dumpster crammed full of butts left out in the sun.

A lot of people got socked in the face, their toes busted, and kicked in the testicles. I had sequestered myself on a sturdy shelf high above the chaos, but it was quite intense and a lot of fun to watch.

How Research Relates to My Drawing

With a little bit more time on my hands I have had the opportunity to both draw more and focus in on my research. First - a redux of what I do research wise.

I work with Alberto Bosque, a post-doctorate fellow from Spain who is over here on commission of the Spanish Departmente of Health, who Vicente Planelles (the PI of the lab and also Spanish) personally wanted to work with because he is a brilliant and laid back dude.

One cool cat.

Alberto is researching the latency pathways in the HIV life cycle. To explain what we are doing requires a little background. The HIV virus (shown below) binds to the T cells (and more specifically the CD4+ memory cells) in your immune system. Because the outer layer glycoproteins so closely resemble those of your own cells, they are not destroyed and will bind to the membrane of the host cell. They then inject the viral capsid into the cell, which degrades. There is now some free RNA floating in the cell with a reverse transcriptase attached (more on that guy in a second.) Since cells have all kinds of RNA floating around it doesn't concern itself with where the RNA came from, because free RNA is free RNA.

So the reverse transcriptase tells the cell "Hey you know where I go? In the nucleus! And while I'm there you should integrate me into your genome!" The cell, being stupid (or blissfully ignorant depending on how you look at it) says "Dur yeah let's do that." and you now have the coding regions for HIV in this cell.

HIV has a small genome, only encoding for 19 different proteins (any cell in your body codes for about 40-400 different proteins depending on the cell). Like most viruses it hijacks the host cell machinery to make copies of itself. On a related note, the other half of the lab is doing research on the Vpr coding region and it's function on expression and regulation of viral production - which is hotly debated.

So, say you have some HIV in your cells and don't want it going into full blown AIDS - currently your two options are 1) seek out the Ancient Chalice of Zhara'Gruum or 2) go on a system of Highly Active Anti-Retoviral Treatments (HAART) which are extremely time consuming and costly. What these treatments do is block the expression of the integrated HIV genes, preventing them from reproducing and infecting more cells. This is called the 'latent' phase of HIV - meaning that it is present and has the capability for reproducing but NOT expressing any of the genes for coding of the proteins.

The catch however, is that once you stop taking the HAART medications, the virus reactivates and starts coding again. Even if you took the drugs for years and years and waited for the turnover of infected cells to be replaced by non-infected cells there is still a chance that one of the billions of cells in your body has the HIV genome inside of it, and as any zombie aficionado knows, it only takes one to start a new infection.

We know exactly how to drive the viral genes into latency, but how it comes out of latency is a whole different matter entirely - they use different signaling pathways. That's where my work with Alberto comes in - I am currently designing lines of cells with a particular genomic makeup to uptake parts of the HIV genome, then mess with the signaling pathways to single out different molecules that are both necessary AND sufficient (this phrase is branded into every cellular biologist's flesh) for coming out of latency.

Basically what I have been doing for the last 3 months is doing a series of mutations in a plasmid (circular ring of DNA) called pMACS-Kk which is in an E. Coli organism. So far I have introduced 3 different restriction sites into the plasmid, effectively making it pMACS-Kk-NcoI-XhoI-NotI. This is important because the spacing of these restriction sites along the plasmid will determine how the HIV genome is integrated and how I can target my signaling proteins. I am on the last step of confirming I have the mutations I want, at which point I can begin to introduce the HIV coding regions I want.

Aww they're so cute and fuzzy!

What the hell does this have to do with art and life?

Everything I do in the lab is focused on my two favorite buzz words: process and magnitude. The research I am doing is very focused on process - perfecting the processes I carry out in the lab and a search to understand the processes happening at a cellular/molecular level. The magnitudes involved are on the order of 10^-8 (messing around with different base pairs) to 10^6 (the amount of cells I can fit in a single millilitre of media). Research shows me how process occurs in different magnitudes and the interrelations involved.

My art is likewise affected - I see processes in the microscope that make me pause and think 'that is beautiful' and as I draw what I saw begins to appear - bubbling out of the primordial doodles. The rough wrinkles of the lipid membrane budding with HIV virons - a tentacled lymphocyte attached - could be an octopus clinging onto a coral reef or nebulae rich with stars obscured by interstellar dust clouds. The forms I see under the microscope mirror as the ones I see through a telescope. It's all a question of magnitude.

With that in mind here's what I have been drawing that is influenced by my research.

I drew this after a week of learning how to split and culture two very difficult but important types of cells - HeLa (pronounced like Gila) and 293 FTR. I was using a very high precision light microscope and could see huge clusters of cells (the cells get attached to a foci and like to clump together - it's a real pain in the ass.)

My side notes said I was really frustrated (with research or art?) but looking back i really enjoyed this. The big sphere in the middle looks similar to binary star systems or the nucleus surrounded by the endoplasmic reticulum.

I spend a lot of time looking at diagrams of cell surface proteins, and they always look very boring and static. You can see one above in the HIV viron, little green balls on sticks protruding from a purple circle. Boring. I always think of the cellular envelope as this ocean of flowing protein, with receptors and surface proteins as buoys bobbing around.

I look at this and see a cocoon. Cocoons have nothing to do with my research.

And this is a drawing of one of my rats, Bjorngaard, and DNA Helicase 'unzipping' some DNA. Then I just doodled.

Evolution Pictures

Between school and lab work I have been quite busy, but I have also been working on a project for my good friend Eric Ulbrich. He has just started a company called Evolution Pictures and wanted me to design the logo - his basic parameters were 'similar to the Evolution of Man but with every step they should have a different camera. Kind of like the anatomical drawings you used to do in high school.' I had a pretty free range to work with. Unfortunately I haven't done figure drawing and worked with the classical form since my senior year of high school, and technical drawing has always been difficult for me.

I was given a series of camera models throughout the ages by Eric. I had no idea where to start with the techincal drawing of the cameras, so I just started playing around with them. Lots of re-learning to draw straight freehand lines, but it devolved into play time as usual. This guy was my favorite - the psychedelic aspect behind him has a space whale. Little known fact: space whales release nebulae out of their blowholes.

Finished Product 1

Finished Product 2

Closeup of Last 3 Evolutionary Steps

Homo sapiens before he got shading and finishing touches. I really liked how he came out.

I had a lot of difficulty with drawing the earlier evolutionary steps, most of the reference art I had available was rough at best, so I took a few liberties. As the progression neared modern humans, I had an easier time drawing, and all those years of figure drawing paid off in drawing Homo Sapiens. I had a lot of fun drawing this for Eric, and learned a lot about evolutionary anthropology, which while really interesting, is probably very very boring to research in real life. Unless you like digging around meticulously in the hot sun for long periods of time. I think it is cool how more and more mitochondrial genetics is being used to trace special lineages - maybe becuase I am just a big genetics nerd.

Anyhow, with midterms done with and Fall Break this week I will have more time to draw and write.

One False Step

My friend Michael Iverson's blog - his latest article is extremely well written and struck a chord with me. Agree with it or don't, it is well written and interesting to consider.

One False Step

Sky Jelly Fish

I haven't been drawing a lot lately since I have been so busy with lab work and school. Today was a nice change to that by taking some acid with Jordan and drawing. We began by playing D&D, in which the characters were exploring a series of Dwarven tombs laid out according to genealogy of the Dwarven Thanes. After the acid started kicking in it was nigh impossible to keep focus and tell a story and I became entranced by my sketchpad.

The strangest sensation was feeling completely detached from my hands, not being cognizant of their working as I was drawing. It became as though my mind would visualize it and it would start magically flowing and appear on the paper. It was a lot of fun, and I got pretty lost in my own little world, as I tend to do when I draw.

There are lots of small vignettes, starting with the map of the Dwarven Thanes up in the right hand corner. In the middle, there is the Sky Jellyfish, who is sweeping across a plateau towards a city and melding into the clouds. Coming out of the clouds is a monster with a steam leak, which culminates in a shai-hulud (the worms from Dune.) To the bottom is a drippy cave of stalactites and an unholy toothed altar. Up at the top there is a mushroom cloud with a psychedelic skull which also kind of looks like a large tree rising up.

Though nowhere near as epic as 'Skycat and the World of Tomorrow' this is some solid art on my part, and I had a lot of fun drawing it.

Porch Times

I get home from work and school. Damn it's exhausting. Mentally I am exhausted, my body tense and uneasy from sitting at my bench or in lecture halls for 12 hours a day. My head is full of plasmid maps, organic molecule diagrams, and trying to remember what I have to do tomorrow. Change the media. Start a transformation. Will colonies be on my plates tomorrow? Are the incubators sterile enough? How much ethanol could I put in my coffee before I went blind? A whirlwind of molecular biology, technical manuals, and Post-it note messages buzz in my brain.

Time to leave that all behind.

I grab a cold beverage out of the fridge. Today it is a glass of water with lemon flavoured ice cubes. I take my sketchbook and sit outside on my balcony overlooking the lawn and L Street. My chair has a soft worn groove for my bony ass to sink into. Feet on the makeshift coffee table I begin to let my mind wander on the page. Max comes out, we start to talk about our days, get the vaporizer warm, and plan out our evening.

That's the essence of Porch Times. Outside, with a good place to sit, a drink or snack, good company and good conversations.

The old people of a bygone era founded Porch Times. Get some iced tea/lemonade or mint julep, watch the world go by. Talk about war, recession, the youth of today, gardening, or gossip about the neighbors. A time for relaxing with friends, catching up, and strengthening community. People wander by and join in, others leave - ebb and flow. Too many people and it becomes a gathering. No, the moment has to be intimate.

It seems our generation has forgotten Porch Times. Caught up in the digital gestalt of Facebook and Twittering, texting people incessantly on the newest iPhone, these are the communities we create - a false network of face value friendships and threadbare conversations. Fast life, fast drugs, fast failings at good living. In the end what will our generation have? Bad health, large debt, obsolete gadgets, and the existential despair that comes with disconnect from others.

I repeatedly find that The Greatest Generation had it right, that for all the war, depression, and hardships they endured, they knew how to make the most out of nothing and not let life get them down. They had just as much free time as we did, and in talking to my Grandparents and various elderly friends I have, were much happier that we are now. It is interesting to note that whenever I visit with them it becomes a Porch Time. In my own weird way, I feel like Porch Times is a tribute to The Greatest Generation, both in it's simplicity, social function, and appreciating free time.

Porch Times is more of an attitude than an activity, a mindset that sets the pace of living. Keep it simple, keep good company, and relax.

The Dopesmoked Wizard

This drawing was produced after a sleepless night coming down off of mushrooms. I spent a lot of time thinking about my future and the coming indeterminacies such as grad school and the GRE, applying for lab jobs, leaving my work at the morgue, and coming out of a very intense relationship. A lot of things came together in this drawing, especially the wizard, sleepy from smoking 'wizard weed' and weary of the psychedelic visions. There were a lot of simple fractals in this drawing as well, which have strong correlations with my experiences on psychedelics. It is pretty evident I was listening to Electric Wizard's Dopethrone.

Detail of the wizard himself. His robes have the cosmos in them, his hat patch supports legalization. Wizards are among the top demographic for developing glaucoma, studying dusty tomes by candlelight and being around alchemical equipment.

This is the Bong Necromancer, who also lights up an unholy joint, rolled with the ashes of ancient lich kings. Based on the same pose as the Wizard, I tried to make him more menacing without overdoing it. My note in the corner is 'Bong Necromancer - enemy or ally to the Dopesmoked Wizard?' I still haven't decided.