Relatively Amusing 2

Hypocris-E

I found myself in the sunglasses section of CVS last week and discovered a shelf full of WALL-E sunglasses.  The irony of this should not be lost on anyone who has seen WALL-E (The movie paints a picture of a dystopian future where the world sits covered in garbage while humans have evolved into giant blobs on a huge cruise liner.)  I know that Pixar has little to do with the amount of plastic junk that Disney churns out to promote the movie. However, you would think that with the considerable power that the honchos in Emeryville hold these days, someone would have piped up and asked that Disney maybe cut back slightly( maybe they did, but you wouldn’t know it from where I sit.)  I know that the message of the film is an important one to put across, and possibly this is the price that Pixar has to pay for reaching such a broad audience.  But, once you look at the film’s impact and the pile of plastic toys that will be left over, I think Pixar will just end up breaking even on the Karma scale.

Heath Has Risen

I stumbled upon an interesting phenomenon this week end.  On Saturday, no less than 12 of my Facebook friends had status updates telling me how great “The Dark Knight” was.  More specifically, many of them singled out Heath Ledger’s performance as the Joker as the highlight of the film.  After finally seeing the film yesterday, I can say that I thought it was a very good film, and Ledger put forth the best Joker performance to date (the second best being Mark Hamil’s portrayal in the animated series.)

What I found interesting, was the uniting force that this film, and people’s affection for Ledger carries with it. All summer long at my job at Universal I have seen TONS of people wearing Dark Knight t-shirts with Ledger’s image.   It brings to mind the kind of Kurt Cobain style idol-worship I saw as a teenager in the 90’s.

In a year where the most hated president in my lifetime will leave office, and may be replaced by the first African-American president in history, the most unifying symbol my generation has found this summer is an actor playing a comic book character.

Kinda makes you think, but as Adam Carolla might say, “You can’t judge.”

SHOCKED!!

Two Paintings

I’ve been doing more painting that usual lately.  Although, considering I never paint, doing “more than usual” isn’t so hard. I’ve never considered myself a painter,  I was always more of a draftsman.  So, you’ll have to forgive the quality.  I must say though, despite my lack of skill I have enjoyed painting.  I suppose that is what its all about.  The first was a gift for Adriane that I painted after she commented on her enjoyment of Day of the Dead artwork.  The second is a “tiki monkey” painting I did for fun, but will now hang in our tiki themed bathroom.