I’ve long been an admirer of the stark and gritty work of Serbian photographer Boogie. His ability to immerse himself in a situation and vividly capture the feeling and emotion of that moment is breathtaking. Boogie has accomplished this feat time and time again, with his coverage of Nazi Rockers, Italian hip-hop, and of course his grittier work of documenting gang violence in Bushwick, Brooklyn or the destructive nature of crack addiction.

Time magazine is currently featuring a moving photo essay, narrated by Boogie, on their website. It’s called Hard Times in Brooklyn, and is well worth your time.

Nostalgia can be dangerous, at least for me. For example, on my commute to work this morning (a 40 minute/75 mile one-way trip I could drive in my sleep), for some reason I thought about the video for Iron Maiden’s “Wasted Years.” My mind then bounced around as I recalled the multitude of metal bands I used to worship as a junior high schooler/aspiring speed metal guitarist.

I should download all the Iron Maiden albums I used to have. I thought. Remember all the awesome Maiden posters Rich Mantino used to have in his room? Oh shit, remember that boombox Gregg used to have, with all the Batman stickers on it? I wonder if he still has that? Probably not. I haven’t heard Suicidal Tendencies in so long. Rocky George was from Braddock. Wonder what he’s up to nowadays. Remember that eBay auction a couple years back that had one of his guitar rigs for sale? I wonder who has my Ibanez that I traded in for that DeArmond several years back? I should have never sold that guitar. Fuck.  

It cycles and cycles, bouncing from randomly connected idea to randomly connected idea. My experiences growing up are so integrally tied to music that it’s almost impossible to hear a song from the time period in question (late 1980s/early to mid 1990s) without triggering a thousand memories.

In my current mental state, it seems only right that “Wasted Years” is the song that popped into my mind while commuting to a job that I have no passion for, no connection to, no interest in (I’ve just passed the 2.5 year mark, but who’s counting). What’s funny is, I actually stopped keeping a blog about a year ago because it always seemed to digress into long ranting posts about how much I dislike my job (real original for a blog, as there are a million buffoons who can and do currently write on the topic). But here it is, almost a year since pulling the plug on The Beautiful Destruction, and I’m back to ruminating on the same topic. Maybe there’s a theme here. Without going into a long explanation about my personal choices in life, or decision to stay at my current job (the reasons are practical and support-related in nature), I’ll just leave it at this: I’ve promised myself to make active changes in my life this year (my 30th on planet Earth). Somewhat surprisingly — considering my first child was born this year, which has made for a complete upheaval of life as I knew it – I’ve made great strides.

Namely, I’ve finally shed a lot of the unecessary weight that has traditionally bogged me down (i.e. too many freelance writing assignments, not enough time, fracturing my focus on the The Good Work as I like to call it). To explain, The Good Work is comprised of two things: 1.) PSNCTRL (this creative imprint you’ve arrived at via some link or another; a labor of love that I’m seeking to breathe new life into in the coming months) 2.) Writing a book. This is the task I’m focusing my energy on right now.

We’ll see if I can pull it off. I have faith in myself, but there are so many moments when that faith is shot to shit. Maybe that’s normal, or maybe I’m just an asshole. Ha.

Ethan’s got teeth (see above). Two on the bottom, one on the top, and a couple more popping through as we speak. This isn’t exactly a news flash, he’s had teeth for several months now, but as his mouth slowly fills up, it becomes an experience that repeats itself over and over again. The poor little guy gets a fever, gnaws on whatever he can wrap his sore gums around (i.e. the wood of his highchair, teether rings, my ear, etc.), and all-around feels miserable.  

Ever heard the phrase cutting teeth?  I have, even used it before in articles I’ve written as a way to describe how people earned their stripes in their respective fields (i.e. “Actor Dabney Coleman cut his teeth in repertoire theatre”), but never quite understood its meaning. It turns out that cutting teeth means almost exactly what it states, the teeth are actually piercing through the gums, and it’s not a comfortable experience at all.  

With yesterday being my first Father’s Day, and Ethan, or Bug as we normally call him, simultaneously getting his two front teeth in, it made for an interesting and memorable experience. I woke up this morning (Monday) to Ethan tapping my shoulder, staring at me with a huge almost five-tooth smile, and saying, “Da, da, da, da.” Which felt sort of like him saying, “Hey guy, thanks for taking care of me yesterday.” 

Our old pal Tyler Stout has just updated his website, and it was well worth the wait. For those of you who don’t know, Tyler is a multi-talented kind of guy who does illustration work for books, magazines, album covers, and the like. He’s also rather well known for his killer rock posters, a medium which has become super hot in recent years, but Tyler’s an old schooler who’s been at it for some time now.   

Pictured above is the page Tyler contributed to our debut anthology, Young & Reckless. It’s titled “Ewik,” and here’s what Tyler has to say about it:  ”This is a drawing of my old co-worker Erik, of Kiss Me Deadly fame. The message is, ‘Don’t take your face off, you will probably die.’”

El-P’s Fantastic Damage was a damn-near perfect hip-hop album. I had that record in rather heavy rotation for a couple years. So, as you can imagine, I was pretty stoked to get my advance copy of I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead, El-P’s sophomore solo effort, in the mail several months back. After getting over the irritating-as-fuck anti-piracy messages that Def Jux soils all its press advances with, some guy saying “This promo belongs to Matthew Newton” three to four times per song, I gave the album a rather thorough listen. My intial reaction was disappointment, I just didn’t like it. However, with so much lackluster work coming out of the Def Jux camp in recent years, I unfortunately wasn’t surprised.

But after giving my ears some time to cool down, I tried this record again the other day. Once again, the anti-piracy messages were driving me crazy, making it almost impossible to listen. But I started to feel a little bit of nostalgia listening to a few of the tracks, mainly a single called “The Overly Dramatic Truth.” While overall this record doesn’t shine nearly as bright as Fantastic Damage, I can respect El-P’s attempts to push his sound in a new direction and lace it with even more emotional content in his lyrics (something he has been more fully embracing in his solo efforts post-Company Flow era). 

Check out the clip above. El-P performs “The Overly Dramatic Truth” on this past Monday’s Conan O’Brien Show.

With Warner Bros. discussing plans to begin production on a Thundercats feature film, it seems only fitting to post a clip of this ridiculous, and mind-bogglingly detailed, amateur Thundercats production. These folks really, really spent some time on this. It’s actually pretty damn impressive for, what I can only assume, was a no-budget affair. If movie studios think comic book readers are a fickle audience to please, it looks like cartoon junkies may be just as bad, if not worse.

Stumbled upon the work of photographer Mattijn Franssen via our pals over at YouWorkForThem and their fresh new(ish) blog. Mattijin’s photography looks like a snapshot straight out of Tolkien’s mind. A tip of the hat to Mike Cina (who contributed some pages to our debut anthology Young & Reckless) and Michael Young from WWFT/YWFT for consistently shining a light on the best and brightest in the art and design community, while being no slouches in their own right, check it for yourself.

It would be far too lazy to write off Sean Hannity as an out-of-touch, ratings-hungry bottomfeeder. He does, however, fit the aforementioned description. But it’s Hannity’s ingrained arrogance and his use of patriotism for the purposes of political theatre that continually confounds me.* The “patriots” who religiously call in to his syndicated radio program assume he is their friend, addressing him with the “You’re a great American Sean Hannity” salutation while they can barely get a word in edgewise. Fuck you, listener. Sean Hannity’s not your friend, he just wants your ears.  

However, it’s Hannity’s recent debate over whether Hilary Clinton should receive campaign contributions from Timbaland and RZA (who also prolifically use “the ‘N’ word” in their music as Hannity explains) when she had called for the firing of Don Imus during the “nappy-headed hos” media circus, is just purely entertaining. Honestly though, this is a long clip, and the best part is when Hannity calls the Wu-Tang Clan the “Wee-Tang Clan.” This is the type of factual innacuracy that he would reply to by saying, in a disappointed and holier-than-thou tone, “Do your homework America.”   

*Author’s note: The exception to this example is Hannity’s Freedom Concert series, a charity event with 100% of the proceeds benefitting the children of slain Iraq War veterans. It’s a good cause, no matter how much Hannity skews it to his favor, he deserves credit where credit is due. Sidenote: I only endorse his choice of where the money goes… the artists who perform at these concerts are, rather simply put, tragically awful.

Amsterdam’s own Parra, mastermind behind the Rockwell Clothing brand and artist extraordinaire, is having an opening this Thursday at The Reed Space in New York for his latest exhibition titled “Random Tits.” The artwork on the exhibition kind of says it all. But if you’re still not convinced, and your in the NYC area, stroll on over to the LES this Thursday to peep the action for yourself.

 Here’s a press release about the show.

“Are you hearing this shit?” Mike Patton says, while being interviewed for the G4 show Icons. “What year are we in?” It would appear Patton doesn’t prefer Wolfmother. Whether you like Wolfmother or not, or hate Mike Patton or not, seeing the expression on the Fantomas frontman’s face is reason enough to tune in to this clip.