My Pimpafyed name is: Sweet Chocolate P. Silk
What's your Pimpafyed name?

This had me laughing for 5 minutes straight...

HAHAHAHAHA lol poor Janet your career is MJ-destined now

Ever seen the video for Yatta? They're so weird over there...
Lindsay got much more popular after her MTV Movie Award performance lol...

The FUSE tv network did some advertisements that goofed on the iPod adds. Some of them are pretty good.


By far the funniest one...

iPod Evolution Baby. (From left): iPod Mini, 4th Gen, 3rd Gen, 1st/2cd Gen

Ditto but see how thin my new one is :D

Vh1's Michael Jackson Movie Premieres This Friday Night!!!!

The move follows Michael from his Motown days until the recent charges against him, where he did his little jib on top of a car to screaming fans. I can't wait...the Jackson 5 movie was great, but there's so much more that's happened after.

Go Mike Go!

Time for some lyrics from my favorite Throwing Copper songs :D

Live - Iris

I liked the way my hand looked on your head
In the presence of my knuckles
But the beauty of this vision alone
Just like yesterday's sunset
Has been perverted by the sentimental
And mistaken for love

The felix of your truth will always break it
And the iris of your eye will always shake it
And the armies, the armies I have created
Will always hate it
Will always bait you on

I liked the way my hand looked on your head
In the presence of my struggle
But the beauty of this vision alone I can't shake from my tree just yet I
t keeps invading all my private moments
Listen to me now

The felix of your truth will always break it
And the iris of your eye will always shake it
And the armies, the armies I have created
Will always hate it
Always bait you on
Until I take their flags
Until I take their flags!

Live - Top

This is not helping me at all
What you are doing here
In the name of god and love
It's the distribution of fear
Pyramids, healing wires, analysts with fame
I haven't got your degree
And I forgot your name

Pick me up and put me on the ground
Set me up and spin me all around
No, you are not the one I wish to see

This is not helping me at all
Where did we get this plan?
That you could give to me
What I might already have
Pyramids, healing wires, a musician's fame
I volunteered you my eyes
In place of facing me

Pick me up and put me on the ground
Set me up and spin me all around
No, you are not the one I wish to see
Oh hitler, in a robe of truth
My emptiness has built your altar
And I've worshipped myself in you forever
Until now!

Live - Stage

I wanna feel
I wanna try
I wanna rock in the city tonight
I wanna deal
Don't wanna die
I wanna bring my Captain Hook into the light
People I've seen my day
Ranting and raving this beauty away
We are by and large the same
But words are too feeble, they cannot contain
He was a "rock and roll messiah"
She was known for her childcare
The truth is gonna give up the world
If you can give up the stage
If I can give up the stage
If we can give up the stage

Come to this, I can't come to you
Don't do this, wake me up tonight
Come to this, I can't come to you
Don't do this, wake me up tonight
Come on, motherfucker!!
He was a "rock and roll messiah"
How can you stand today beside her
Messiah, besider her....
Give me the stage
Give me the stage
Beside her
Beside her
Besider her.
::Insert awesome feedback here::

The BEST song on the album...this is Live at their hardest. Go Live go!

Live - White Discussion

I talk of freedom
You talk of the flag
I talk of revolution
You'd much rather brag
And as the decibels of this disenchanting discourse continue to dampen the day
The coin flips again and again, and again, and again as our santity walks away
All this discussion
Though politically correct
Is dead beyond destruction
Though it leaves me quite erect
And as the final sunset rolls behind the earth
And the clock is finally dead
I'll look at you, you'll look at me and we'll cry a lot
But this will be what we said
This will be what we said:
"Look where all this talking got us baby."

::Insert most amazing ending to a song Live has ever done here::

This is disturbing. None of my middle or high school teachers ever got frisky with me. Then again thinking back to most of them I think there'd only be like 2 ever who would even be worthy of that.

Rush ROCKED last night. And it looks like YES and DREAMTHEATER are coming on August 20th. Could you ASK for a better concert? I don't think you could. Really I don't.

Got Lindsay's annual shorehouse bash this weekend. May go to Jess's for dinner with her family Friday night, not sure yet. Things are still up in the air this week. I know the guys want to go to Atlantic City for our annual trip...well this would be the second annual lol. So we'll see it's going to be a nuts weekend.

THANK YOU for sending me chain letters in 2003 & 2004!!

• I stopped drinking Coca Cola after finding it’s only good for removing toilet stains.
• I stopped going to the movies for fear of sitting on a needle infected with AIDS.
• I smell like a dog since I stopped using deodorants because they cause cancer.
• I don’t leave my car in the parking lot or any other place and sometimes I even have to walk about 7 blocks for fear that someone will drug me with a perfume sample and try to rob me.
• I’ve stopped answering the phone for fear that they will ask me to dial a stupid number and then I get a phone bill from hell with calls to Uganda, Singapore and Tokyo.
  I stopped consuming several foods for fear that the estrogens they contain may turn me gay.
• I also stopped eating chicken and hamburgers because they are nothing other than horrible mutant freaks with no eyes or feathers that are bred in a lab so that places like McDonalds can sell their Big Macs.
• I’ve stopped drinking anything out of a can for fear that I will get sick from the rat feces and urine.
• I think I’m turning gay because when I go to parties I don’t look at any females no matter how hot she is, for fear that she will take my kidneys and leave me taking a nap in a bathtub full of ice.
• I also donated all my savings to the Amy Bruce account. A sick girl who was about to die in hospital about 7,000 times. Funny, that girl’s been 7 years old since 1993.
• I went bankrupt from bounced checks that I wrote, expecting the $15,000 that Microsoft and AOL are supposed to send me when I participated in their special email program.
• My Ericsson phone never arrived and neither did the passes for a paid vacation to Disneyland.

BUT I AM POSITIVE THAT ALL OF THIS IS BECAUSE OF A STINKING CHAIN THAT I BROKE OR FORGOT TO FOLLOW, AND NOW I’VE GOT THE CURSE FROM HELL.

Veronica Corningstone: For Channel 4 News, I'm Veronica Corningstone. Thanks for stopping by.

Ron Burgundy: And I'm Ron Burgundy. Go fuck yourself, San Diego.

Brick Tamland:

"I don't know what we're yelling about!"

"Yeah, I stabbed a man in the heart!"

"Yeah, there were horses, and a man on fire, and I killed a guy with a trident!"

"I ate a big, red candle."

"I ate fiberglass insulation. It wasn't cotton candy like the guy said...my tummy itches. "

"Where'd you get your suit? The toilet store?"

"I pooped a hammer."

"I ate a lava lamp once. It wasn't actually lava."

"(riding a bear) Look, I'm riding a big furry tractor."

"I love... carpet."

"I love... desk."

"I love lamp."

"I love lamp! I love lamp."

"I'm Brick Tamland. People seem to like me because I am polite and I am rarely late. I enjoy ice cream and a nice pair of slacks. Years later, a doctor will tell me I have an I.Q. of 48 and that I am considered mentally retarded."

" I heard somewhere their periods attract bears. They can smell the menstruation."

Ron Burgundy:
"Oop...I almost forgot. I won't be able to make it fellas. Veronica and I trying this new fad called uh, "jogging". I believe it's 'jogging' or 'yogging'. it might be a soft "j". I'm not sure but apparently you just run for an extended period of time. It's supposed to be wild.

By the beard of Zeus!

Knights of Columbus, that hurt!

Son of a bee-sting!

Great Odin's raven!

Brick, where did you get a hand grenade?

I'm going to punch you in the ovary, right in the babymaker.

I love scotch. Scotchy, scotch, scotch.

Brian Fantana: I think I was in love once.

Ron Burgundy: Really? What was her name?

Brian Fantana: I don't remember.

Ron Burgundy: That's not a good start, but keep going...

Brian Fantana: She was Brazilian, or Chinese, or something weird. I met her in the bathroom of a K-Mart and we made out for hours. Then we parted ways, never to see each other again.

Ron Burgundy: I'm pretty sure that's not love.

Brian Fantana: Damn it!

It's so hot... milk was a bad choice.

Pinky the Pet Of The Week (Poor guys balls....)

Quotes from The 'Burbs.

Ray Peterson: No I've never seen that...I've never seen anyone drive their garbage down to the end of the drive way and then bang the hell out of it with a stick I-I've never seen that.

Art: Now they know that we know that they know that we know.

Art: I think the message for psychos and killer is "do not mess with suburbanites". We're not gonna be content to look after our lawns and wax our cars, we're out to get them, man, we are out to get them.

Ray Peterson: I'm going to go do something productive. I'm gonna go watch television.

These are also amusing.

... We polish the Polish furniture.... He could lead if he would get the lead out.... A farm can produce produce.... The dump was so full it had to refuse refuse.... The soldier decided to desert in the desert.... The present is a good time to present the present.... At the Army base, a bass was painted on the head of a bass drum.... The dove dove into the bushes.... I did not object to the object.... The insurance for the invalid was invalid.... The bandage was wound around the wound.... There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.... They were too close to the door to close it.... The buck does funny things when the does are present.... They sent a sewer down to stitch the tear in the sewer line.... To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.... The wind was too strong to wind the sail.... After a number of Novocain injections, my jaw got number.... I cried a tear when I saw the tear in my clothes.... I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.... How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?... I spent last evening evening out a pile of dust.

100% Grammatically Correct

1. A murder of crows
2. A clowder of cats
3. A leap of leopards
4. A sloth of bears
5. A rafter of turkeys
6. A smack of jellyfish
7. A skulk of foxes
8. A labor of moles
9. A peep of chickens
10. A crash of rhinoceroses
11. A paddling of ducks
12. A siege of herons
13. A rag of colts
14. A drift of hogs
15. A charm of finches
16. A trip of goats
17. A knot of toads
18. A shrewdness of apes
19. A parliament of owls
20. A troop of kangaroos
21. A gaggle of geese
22. A pride of lions
23. A watch of nightengales
24. A muster of peacocks
25. An exaltation of larks

1. Ignore everybody.
The more original your idea is, the less good advice other people will be able to give you.

You don't know if your idea is any good the moment it's created. Neither does anyone else. The most you can hope for is a strong gut feeling that it is. And trusting your feelings is not as easy as the optimists say it is. There's a reason why feelings scare us.
And asking close friends never works quite as well as you hope, either. It's not that they deliberately want to be unhelpful. It's just they don't know your world one millionth as well as you know your world, no matter how hard they try, no matter how hard you try to explain.
Plus a big idea will change you. Your friends may love you, but they don't want you to change. If you change, then their dynamic with you also changes. They like things the way they are, that's how they love you- the way you are, not the way you may become.
Ergo, they have no incentive to see you change. And they will be resistant to anything that catalyzes it. That's human nature. And you would do the same, if the shoe was on the other foot.
With business colleagues it's even worse. They're used to dealing with you in a certain way. They're used to having a certain level of control over the relationship. And they want whatever makes them more prosperous. Sure, they might prefer it if you prosper as well, but that's not their top priority.
If your idea is so good that it changes your dynamic enough to where you need them less, or God forbid, THE MARKET needs them less, then they're going to resist your idea every chance they can.
Again, that's human nature.
GOOD IDEAS ALTER THE POWER BALANCE IN RELATIONSHIPS, THAT IS WHY GOOD IDEAS ARE ALWAYS INITIALLY RESISTED.
Good ideas come with a heavy burden. Which is why so few people have them. So few people can handle it.

2. Creativity is its own reward.
You never really reach your goals. By the time you get near to fulfilling them your criteria has already changed. Which is why by the time the world recognizes your genius, it won't seem very real.

3. Put the hours in.
Doing anything worthwhile takes forever. 90% of what seperates successful people and failed people is time, effort and stamina.

4. If your biz plan depends on you suddenly being "discovered" by some big shot, your plan will probably fail.

Nobody suddenly discovers anything. Things are made slowly and in pain.

5. You are responsible for your own experience.
Nobody can tell you if what you're doing is good, meaningful or worthwhile. The more compelling the path, the more lonely it is.

6. Everyone is born creative; everyone is given a box of crayons in kindergarten.
Then when you hit puberty they take the crayons away and replace them with books on algebra etc. Being suddenly hit years later with the creative bug is just a wee voice telling you, "I’d like my crayons back, please."

So you've got the itch to do something. Write a screenplay, start a painting, write a book, turn your recipe for fudge brownies into a proper business, whatever. You don't know where the itch came from, it's almost like it just arrived on your doorstep, uninvited. Until now you were quite happy holding down a real job, being a regular person...
Until now.
You don't know if you're any good or not, but you'd think you could be. And the idea terrifies you. The problem is, even if you are good, you know nothing about this kind of business. You don't know any publishers or agents or all these fancy-shmancy kind of folk. You have a friend who's got a cousin in California who's into this kind of stuff, but you haven't talked to your friend for over two years...
Besides, if you write a book, what if you can't find a publisher? If you write a screenplay, what if you can't find a producer? And what if the producer turns out to be a crook? You've always worked hard your whole life, you'll be damned if you'll put all that effort into something if there ain't no pot of gold at the end of this dumb-ass rainbow...
Heh. That's not your wee voice asking for the crayons back. That's your outer voice, your adult voice, your boring & tedious voice trying to find a way to get the wee crayon voice to shut the hell up.
Your wee voice doesn't want you to sell something. Your wee voice wants you to make something. There's a big difference. Your wee voice doesn't give a damn about publishers or Hollywood producers.
Go ahead and make something. Make something really special. Make something amazing that will really blow the mind of anybody who sees it.
If you try to make something just to fit your uninformed view of some hypothetical market, you will fail. If you make something special and powerful and honest and true, you will succeed.
The wee voice didn't show up because it decided you need more money or you need to hang out with movie stars. Your wee voice came back because your soul somehow depends on it. There's something you haven't said, something you haven't done, some light that needs to be switched on, and it needs to be taken care of. Now.
So you have to listen to the wee voice or it will die... taking a big chunk of you along with it.
They're only crayons. You didn't fear them in kindergarten, why fear them now?

7. Keep your day job.
I’m not just saying that for the usual reason i.e. because I think your idea will fail. I’m saying it because to suddenly quit one’s job in a big ol' creative drama-queen moment is always, always, always in direct conflict with what I call “The Sex & Cash Theory”.

THE SEX & CASH THEORY: "The creative person basically has two kinds of jobs: One is the sexy, creative kind. Second is the kind that pays the bills. Sometimes the task in hand covers both bases, but not often. This tense duality will always play center stage. It will never be transcended."
A good example is Phil, a NY photographer friend of mine. He does really wild stuff for the indie magazines- it pays nothing, but it allows him to build his portfolio. Then he'll go off and shoot some catalogues for a while. Nothing too exciting, but it pays the bills.
Another example is somebody like Martin Amis. He writes "serious" novels, but he has to supplement his income by writing the occasional newspaper article for the London papers (novel royalties are bloody pathetic- even bestsellers like Amis aren't immune).
Or actors. One year Travolta will be in an ultra-hip flick like Pulp Fiction ("Sex"), the next he'll be in some dumb spy thriller ("Cash").
Or painters. You spend one month painting blue pictures because that's the color the celebrity collectors are buying this season ("Cash"), you spend the next month painting red pictures because secretly you despise the color blue and love the color red ("Sex").
Or geeks. You spend you weekdays writing code for a faceless corporation ("Cash"), then you spend your evening and weekends writing anarchic, weird computer games to amuse your techie friends with ("Sex").
It's balancing the need to make a good living while still maintaining one's creative sovereignty. My M.O. is gapingvoid ("Sex"), coupled with my day job ("Cash").
I'm thinking about the young writer who has to wait tables to pay the bills, in spite of her writing appearing in all the cool and hip magazines.... who dreams of one day of not having her life divided so harshly.
Well, over time the 'harshly' bit might go away, but not the 'divided'.
"This tense duality will always play center stage. It will never be transcended."
As soon as you accept this, I mean really accept this, for some reason your career starts moving ahead faster. I don't know why this happens. It's the people who refuse to cleave their lives this way- who just want to start Day One by quitting their current crappy day job and moving straight on over to best-selling author... Well, they never make it.
Anyway, it's called "The Sex & Cash Theory". Keep it under your pillow.

8. Companies that squelch creativity can no longer compete with companies that champion creativity.
Nor can you bully a subordinate into becoming a genius.

Since the modern, scientifically-conceived corporation was invented in the early half of the Twentieth Century, creativity has been sacrificed in favor of forwarding the interests of the "Team Player".
Fair enough. There was more money in doing it that way; that's why they did it.
There's only one problem. Team Players are not very good at creating value on their own. They are not autonomous; they need a team in order to exist.
So now corporations are awash with non-autonomous thinkers.
"I don't know. What do you think?""I don't know. What do you think?""I don't know. What do you think?""I don't know. What do you think?""I don't know. What do you think?""I don't know. What do you think?"
And so on.
Creating an economically viable entity where lack of original thought is handsomely rewarded creates a rich, fertile environment for parasites to breed. And that's exactly what's been happening. So now we have millions upon millions of human tapeworms thriving in the Western World, making love to their Powerpoint presentations, feasting on the creativity of others.
What happens to an ecology, when the parasite level reaches critical mass?
The ecology dies.
If you're creative, if you can think independantly, if you can articulate passion, if you can override the fear of being wrong, then your company needs you now more than it ever did. And now your company can no longer afford to pretend that isn't the case.
So dust off your horn and start tooting it. Exactly.
However if you're not paricularly creative, then you're in real trouble. And there's no buzzword or "new paradigm" that can help you. They may not have mentioned this in business school, but... people like watching dinosaurs die.

9. Everybody has their own private Mount Everest they were put on this earth to climb.
You may never reach the summit; for that you will be forgiven. But if you don't make at least one serious attempt to get above the snow-line, years later you will find yourself lying on your deathbed, and all you will feel is emptiness.

This metaphorical Mount Everest doesn't have to manifest itself as "Art". For some people, yes, it might be a novel or a painting. But Art is just one path up the mountain, one of many. With others the path may be something more prosaic. Making a million dollars, raising a family, owning the most Burger King franchises in the Tri-State area, building some crazy oversized model airplane, the list has no end.
Whatever. Let's talk about you now. Your mountain. Your private Mount Everest. Yes, that one. Exactly.
Let's say you never climb it. Do you have a problem witb that? Can you just say to yourself, "Never mind, I never really wanted it anyway" and take up stamp collecting instead?
Well, you could try. But I wouldn't believe you. I think it's not OK for you never to try to climb it. And I think you agree with me. Otherwise you wouldn't have read this far.
So it looks like you're going to have to climb the frickin' mountain. Deal with it.
My advice? You don't need my advice. You really don't. The biggest piece of advice I could give anyone would be this:
"Admit that your own private Mount Everest exists. That is half the battle."And you've already done that. You really have. Otherwise, again, you wouldn't have read this far.
Rock on.

10. The more talented somebody is, the less they need the props.
Meeting a person who wrote a masterpiece on the back of a deli menu would not surprise me. Meeting a person who wrote a masterpiece with a silver Cartier fountain pen on an antique writing table in an airy SoHo loft would SERIOUSLY surprise me.

Abraham Lincoln wrote The Gettysberg Address on the back of his paper lunch bag, sitting on a park bench.
James Joyce wrote with a simple pencil and notebook. Somebody else did the typing.
Van Gough never started a painting with more than six colors on his palette.
I draw on the back of wee biz cards. Whatever.
There's no correlation between creativity and equipment ownership. None. Zilch. Nada.
Actually, as the artist gets more into his thing, and as he gets more successful, his number of tools tends to go down. He knows what works for him. Expending mental energy on stuff wastes time. He's a man on a mission. He's got a deadline. He's got some rich client breathing down his neck. The last thing he wants is to spend 3 weeks learning how to use a router drill if he doesn't need to.
A fancy tool just gives the second-rater one more pillar to hide behind.
Which is why there are so many second-rate art directors with state-of-the-art Macinotsh computers.
Which is why there are so many hack writers with state-of-the-art laptops.
Which is why there are so many crappy photographers with state-of-the-art digital cameras.
Which is why there are so many unremarkable painters with expensive studios in trendy neighborhoods.
Hiding behind pillars, all of them.
Pillars do not help; they hinder. The more mighty the pillar, the more you end up relying on it psychologically, the more it gets in your way.
And this applies to business, as well.
Which is why there are so many failing businesses with fancy offices.
Which is why there's so many failing businessmen spending a fortune on fancy suits and expensive yacht club memberships.
Again, hiding behind pillars.
Successful people, artists and non-artists alike, are very good at spotting pillars. They're very good at doing without them. Even more importantly, once they've spotted a pillar, they're very good at quickly getting rid of it.
Good pillar management is one of the most valuable talents you can have on the planet. If you have it, I envy you. If you don't, I pity you.
But nobody's perfect. We all have our pillars. We seem to need them. You are never going to live a pillar-free existence. Neither am I.
All we can do is keep asking the question, "Is this a pillar" about every aspect of our business, our craft, our reason for being alive etc and go from there. The more we ask, the better we get at spotting pillars, the more quickly the pillars vanish.
Ask. Keep asking. And then ask again. Stop asking and you're dead.

11. Don't try to stand out from the crowd; avoid crowds altogether.
Your plan for getting your work out there has to be as original as the actual work, perhaps even more so. The work has to create a totally new market. There's no point trying to do the same thing as 250,000 other young hopefuls, waiting for a miracle. All existing business models are wrong. Find a new one.

I've seen it so many times. Call him Ted. A young kid in the big city, just off the bus, wanting to be a famous something: artist, writer, musician, film director, whatever. He's full of fire, full of passion, full of ideas. And you meet Ted again five or ten years later, and he's still tending bar at the same restaurant. He's not a kid anymore. But he's still no closer to his dream.
His voice is still as defiant as ever, certainly, but there's an emptiness to his words that wasn't there before.
Yeah, well, Ted probably chose a very well-trodden path. Write novel, be discovered, publish bestseller, sell movie rights, retire rich in 5 years. Or whatever.
No worries that there's probably 3 million other novelists/actors/musicians/painters etc with the same plan. But you see, Ted's special. His fortune will defy the odds eventually. Exactly. That's what he keeps telling you as he refills your glass.
Is your plan of a similar ilk? If it is, then I'd be concerned.
When I started the business card cartoons I was lucky; at the time I had a pretty well-paid corporate job in New York that I liked. The idea of quitting it in order to join the ranks of Bohemia didn't even occur to me. What, leave Manhattan for Brooklyn? Ha. Not bloody likely. I was just doing it to amuse myself in the evenings, to give me something to do at the bar while I waited for my date to show up or whatever.
There was no commerical incentive or larger agenda governing my actions. If I wanted to draw on the back of a business card instead of a "proper" medium, I could. If I wanted to use a four letter word, I could. If I wanted to ditch the standard figurative format and draw psychotic abstractions instead, I could. There was no flashy media or publishing executive to keep happy. And even better, there was no artist-lifestyle archetype to conform to.
It gave me a lot of freedom. That freedom paid off in spades later.
Question how much freedom your path affords you. Be utterly ruthless about it.
It's your freedom that will get you to where you want to go. Blind faith in an over-subscribed, vainglorious myth will only hinder you.
Is you plan unique? Is there nobody else doing it? Then I'd be excited. A little scared, maybe, but excited.

12. If you accept the pain, it cannot hurt you.
The pain of making the necessary sacrifices always hurts more than you think it's going to. I know. It sucks. That being said, doing something seriously creative is one of the most amazing experiences one can have, in this or any other lifetime. If you can pull it off, it's worth it. Even if you don't end up pulling it off, you'll learn many incredible, magical, valuable things. It's NOT doing it when you know you full well you HAD the opportunity- that hurts FAR more than any failure.