Please help us never forget.

Poem by Matt Lang.

Goodbye, Elphia. You've been a beautiful dream.

Spanxzilla: Female mood swings

One thing I love about this mini-project that I've created for myself is that I get to hear the most random songs bump up against one another. It makes me really happy. I always get so bored listening to the radio play the same 12 songs every other hour. We're in the age of media! It litters the information superhighway. The only thing that keeps people from it is licensing laws. People who have stock in things always want to argue about who owns what. Commercial talent is mostly summed up in dollars and cents. Which is a shame but as to be so, understandably. Business is business even if it's selling art.

That's exactly how this transition felt. It started with M.I.A.'s, "Hussel" which, from what I can tell, is about a guy who is out there trying to make a profit. Then went to a song that I hear a lot, "Punjabi Girl" (DJ A.P.S.) a kind of Bollywood musical remix ending with Ingrid Michaelson's "Keep Breathing" which is as it sounds: a meditation to remind you that you'll make it through if you can just stay alive.

Listening to other songs that came after (Kate Nash, Regina Spektor) I suppose that it was following the female singer genome.

Please, help. We almost existed in the same time and space as your world.

I found an old scrap book from when I was living among the humans. Three dimensions is a strange feeling, I'll have you know kiddos.

Please, help. We can't put our life on hold indefinitely!

Heh, heh, heh. I tricked those that random assortment of objects. I told them I was having a little get together that Cornucopia didn't know about. Then they all looked disappointed, so I told them he didn't know about it yet if they just closed their eyes.... Heh, heh. That kept them still. Then I ran off. And Cornucopia is never going to show up. Ha, ha! Ha, ha! Ha HA aha ha ha!

Spanxzilla: Old country can be just like walking on broken glass.

Sometimes I think that the project has taken on a highly ironic sense of humor. Right in the middle of a classic country run (Johnny Cash, Tommy Cash, Lefty Frizzell) it pops in Annie Lennox's "Walking on Broken Glass" with a little wink and a smile and then goes right back the country. If it's not trying to say something then I don't know what to think.

Spanxzilla: The church is a circus.

Someone hit me back if they can figure this one out:
Britney Spears "Circus" --> "Dirigatur, Gradual In Mode 7 (Liber Usualis, No 1060a): Dirigatur" performed by Alberto Turco (Gregorian Chant)

It is by far the furthest fluctuation that I have ever seen in the music genome project. It's not for lead vocals, not for excessive vamping, not danceable beats. Possibly attention paid to recording quality? That's the closest I can come.

Spanxzilla: Beck falls in love with water.

So this is a kind of confusing one, I can't quite make out which strand it was following.

The chain started with "E-Pro", Beck (it kind of sounds like... Beck) --> Danny Seward (who sounds like a young Nat King Cole) "When I Fall in Love" --> "Around the World", Aqua (off of Aquarius, the follow-up to Aquarium, the album with "Barbie Girl" on it)

Spanxzilla: Julian Casablancas has an angry inch

A honorable mention in the annals of Spanxzilla: starting with "Razorblade" by the Strokes (...my feeling's are more important than yours...) --> The movie rendition of "Angry Inch" (...six inches forward and five inches back...). Maybe it's for aggressive lyrics because it went Violent Femmes, "Country Death Song", a murder ballad that sounds only like the Violent Femmes can, whiney and with good guitar work.

Spanxzilla: U2 is a choir

A great one today, as it went from one of my favorite songs, U2 "Acrobat" to "Cantemus Domino, Canitcum" by the mostly anonymous, and I quote Pandora, "Chant, Gregorian." It must be the use of a strong male singer, and something about discordant harmonies.

Spanxilla: Defiant lyrics

Alright, new all-time awesome transition on Pandora going from Paul Simon's "I am a Rock" (released on the album Paul Simon after Simon & Garfunkel broke up) --> "Fight Music" by D12 which is Eminem's group rapping about how they want to fuck up all sorts of people. It must have been the defiant lyrics genome.

Spanxzilla: Testing the Music Genome Project.

For those of you who don't listen to Pandora, you're missing out. It's a free-ish online radio station that you can set preferences on. It's all run out of Flash, and selects songs based off the songs that you vote. Each song has probably 50 things listed about each so that they create a sort of music zone. So I created Spanxzilla to test the very edges of the Project and how strangely music can be attached to each other.

The opening one is a real winner going from mellow, jazzy "I'm Beginning to See the Light" (Danny Willams) ----> "5:59" (Hototogisu) which is something like guitars feeding back in an ominous sound wave.

Here a list of all the genes in the project.

The gates have been opened.

Dearest Citizens, I write you today about a great moment in history. One to be preserved and remembered. You will get to tell your grandkids about where you were the moment you read this post. The gates have been opened! They are now inviting people into :

The Dangerous Fireman's Pole.

I was looking for this image for a completely different reason. I love the sign.

I do not support Starbucks. I do support Aaron Kozbial.

The Cheat is not dead.

Citizens, lend me your ears. I just finished illustrating The Inventor for Adam Higgins. I am very excited about this because I've been working on it constantly for the last three months and it looks really, really good. I'll keep you all posted about when and where it's getting published. This post is more for a point of reference in case anyone is ever wondering when that book was actually done for the first time. Greetings Citizens of the Future!

Pls, hilp. Pirated documents.

This strip was not sanctioned by the King of Elphia. This is a joke that stand-up Emily Galati tells (or told, if you're reading this in future).

In the middle of a children's book.

This is one of the pages of a book that I am working on. I think most of you have heard about it at least in passing. I should have the whole thing finished in a month or so. But I liked this page so much that I thought I would share it.

On the Carrie and Ashley Show

Please, help Henry Chinaski.

Some guy with a camera hunted now the drunken muse of the phony beat poet and author, Charles Bukowski. Due to books such as Post Office, Barfly, & Confessions of a Man Insane Enough to Live With the Beasts, Mister Chinaski has been ostracized from his native city of LA. "I couldn't take the ridicule any more," he slurs in unreleased footage. Henry isn't asking for any monetary sum from you or the Bukowski estate, just that his name be crossed out of every single existing copy of those books. So please, do your part.

http://tympanictheatre.org/

A present

It's my mom's birthday today. I am cheap and we aren't really speaking to each other right now but I wanted to get her a gift. So, I've been scouring the internet for days. Here it is: