the phenomena that anyone with internet access and a tumblr account is suddenly a sartorialist, style-maven that popular culture should follow makes me nauseous. the fact that every nerd can reblog and post pretty pictures of fake stuff from every other ‘zeitgeists’ blogroll, claim said affectation, somehow convince themselves they are original in their re-purpose and then misinform future generations of some Nth-time-twice removed-waterdown-provenance makes me wanna kick their dads in the nads for doing such a poor job of child-rearing.

look, i get that we are all born empty vessels…i accept that one has to experience many things with which to form some discrimination, develop a palate, shape their own opinion and become enlightened. what i can’t excuse is when these funk-fakers simply skim the bookcover of said pop culture and pass themselves off as having a deep, meaningful understanding of any number of subjects…simply regurgitating the same dribble their faux-futurists peddled and cliff-noted before them. this dilution and cut-n-paste ’sophistication’ actually whittles down any awareness. it squelches wonder & enthusiasm, creating a supposed short-cut to learning, understanding, instruction, insight, refinement, illumination and ultimately any cultivated wisdom.

for this very reason, i’m so suspect of all these ‘20-somethings’ so primed on all things iconic from the 60/70’s when their fathers were still wiping their future DNA off his stomach watching reel-to-reel skin flicks or ‘cutting-edge’ VHS-tapes…glint in his eye, indeed.

so so many ‘today-somethings’ drafting off of what ‘cool’ has been fed to them, whilst they were really trapped by The Goonies & The Sandlot. let’s face it…i realize it’s oh-so-much-more romantic to namecheck all the paragons of yesteryear…me? well, i’ll breakdown the real-real…

i wasn’t informed by the Wild Ones, Easy Rider or Che’s motorcycle diaries…i was informed by:

- The Lords of Flatbush
- Bad News Bears
- Little Darlings

i wasn’t introduced to the M-65 by Taxi Driver…i was informed by:

- My Bodyguard

i wasn’t around for any original screening of Bullet, The Great Escape or Two-Lane Blacktop…i was informed by:

- King of the Mountain
- Streets of Fire
- Thunderbolt & Lightfoot
- Corvette Summer

badasses to me weren’t some well-dressed, dashing & debonair Clark Gable…it was a dirty-ass ‘Falconetti’ from:

- Rich Man, Poor Man

…so, yeah, be yourself! you probably wouldn’t be liked anyway.

Hollywood based photographer RJ Shaugnessy just sent us his latest series, “Attack!”. The images were shot after Shaugnessy rescued an underfed German Shepherd, now named Rusty, from a homeless man in Echo Park and discovered that it had been trained as a police/K-9 attack dog.

“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”
— Ira Glass

visiting loved ones all holiday weekend, stay sharp…

Killed Myself When I Was Young from The Jalopy Journal on Vimeo.