All Peas and Carrots

Show and Tell: What's Justin Working On?

noreply@blogger.com (Justin) — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 20:07:00 +0000

Lots of freelance, including posters and putting the finishing touches on the redesigned website for the (downtown) omaha lit fest. Check back as the festival nears for updated lists of panelists and events. After two years away, I'll be attending this the fourth installation of Timothy Schaffert's lit weekend. Should be interesting to see what he's done with the old gal in my absence.

The Endorsement: August 13, 2008

noreply@blogger.com (Justin) — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 17:14:00 +0000

Move over, my wedding day; today is officially the greatest day in the history of the universe: Madden 09 is on shelves, Sweetpea is on her way home, and I found a penny on the sidewalk this morning. If the microwave in the breakroom shorts out and the fire department sends us all home early, I'm buying a fucking lotto ticket.

Bachelor Week in Review

noreply@blogger.com (Justin) — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 21:17:00 +0000

Those of you filling out your Bachelor Week Bingo cards can go ahead and mark off the squares for "fell asleep watching Porky's II," "ate cereal straight out of box while not wearing a shirt," and "drank a beer in the bathroom." Classy times here at Bachelor HQ.

I Will, However, Adopt The Practice of Addressing to All Women as "Sweetheart"

noreply@blogger.com (Justin) — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 02:04:00 +0000

Few things turn me off more than ubiquitousness or bandwagoneering. And with seemingly everyone spurting blog-love for AMC's Mad Men, I planned to avoid a show I figured was basically just Gossip Girls for the mutual fund set. However, bored with Simpsons reruns and DVR'd episodes of The Sopranos and drawn by the fact that the show was set in an advertising agency in the early 1960s—long before viral marketing and social networking and that stupid fucking Burger King king—I decided to give Mad Men a shot.

Two episodes of the new season in and I can't say the show is as great as has been reported, but I'm enjoying it well enough. There's something uniquely satisfying about men with square jaws and precise hair standing around talking mechanicals and art departments, tumblers of scotch and lit Chesterfields in hand. Beyond that, however, there's not much else going on. The mad men wear wool suits and eat red meat for lunch and drive their American cars out of the city at five o'clock to their homemaker wives. The mostly one-dimensional secondary characters—the Jews, broads, blacks, and homos—seemingly exist only for the proselytising of the writers. This is how it was in 1962, man!

Meh, I'll keep watching for now, either until the storylines spiral into overwrought love triangles, outlandish murder cover-ups, and long-lost twin brothers, or when football season starts, whichever comes first.

I've Said Stardream Quartz So Much The Words Have Lost All Meaning

noreply@blogger.com (Justin) — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 20:23:00 +0000

Behold, my first—and last—attempt at wedding invitation design and construction. Special thanks to Paper Source for the stock; ModLux for use of their paper cutter; and Sweetpea, whose yes kickstarted the whole project.

Plus, It's More Commute-Appropriate Than, Say, Juggs

noreply@blogger.com (Justin) — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 21:35:00 +0000

I renewed my GQ subscription today. Just mailed the check, as a matter of fact. A check that killed me to write.

See, last week I found out my health insurance premiums are going up (again). And last month my office learned Clark Griswold-style that there would be no raises this year. Gas is closing in on $5 a gallon, groceries are more expensive now than at any point since I started buying my own Lucky Charms—store brand, of course; they're 40¢ cheaper. Generally speaking, the dollar is in the toilet and I don't have enough of them (dollars, not toilets) to feel any kind of relaxed.

So, all that said, why spend $17.83 on a subscription to GQ? It's not for the $600 wingtip buying guides. Or the editorial features and pictorials of half-naked actresses I've never heard of. (Esquire does those better.) Nor is it even the layout of design of the magazine. (Again, Esquire.)

What convinced to to re-up GQ was Joel Lovell's "Men and Money" column. It's great. The last two columns of his I read—renting vs. owning your house and being 30 with no retirement fund or investment plan beyond your savings account to speak of—especially. Dude might as well be writing my financial life. And while he offers a few simple, doable plans of action to begin managing one's money like a big boy, I'm more buoyed by the fact that there are financially fucked brothers-in-arms out there, guys my age and professional standing who are just as confused and scared shitless by the fact that no matter how hard they work and deny themselves consumer pleasures in order to squirrel away a little money, there never seems to be enough of it on their monthly statement to feel like they can take even a weekend vacation or order the $32 bottle of wine just this once because the economy could go fuck-all (moreso) any moment. Lovell's "Men and Money" is not bulletproof financial security, but it makes me feel a little better about my money strategy. And that's worth $17 in my book.

This Ain't Stealing, Volume Whatever: Fasciination

noreply@blogger.com (Justin) — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 15:59:00 +0000

Wow, how cuddly (read: disinterested, lethargic, neutered) is the new Faint sound? Way, that's how. My old friend Dead Alison would be spinning in her grave if she heard what has become of her second-favorite Omaha export.

The Faint: Fasciination (pw: nodata.tv)

Bachelor Week, Day 1

noreply@blogger.com (Justin) — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 22:04:00 +0000

Let's all wish Sweetpea safe travels during her ScavenTour road trip, okay. And while you're at it, send some of those guardian angel vibes toward me and Chairman Meow left at home, because if anything happens to to that cat while Sweetpea's away, this blog will get updated even less frequently than it is now.

... because I'll be dead.

... and they don't have WiFi in whatever torturous hell it is Sweetpea would send me if she comes home to a house one kitten lighter.

Jealous?

noreply@blogger.com (Justin) — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 02:53:00 +0000

Lemme paint a picture for you: It's mid-July in Chicago and it's hot, real hot, maybe 91 or 92 and humid as fuck. The house is sweltering. But here in this room, the window is letting in a little breeze and you have a big, icy glass of lemonade sweating on the table in front of you. She's at her desk across the room writing a new story and playing DJ. She likes the Air France EP and your Smiths library and between songs you joke and snark and talk nostalgia in that easy manner afforded to best friends sharing cold drinks on summer nights. The sketches and scribbles that will eventually become the poster for the 2008 (downtown) omaha lit fest are spread out in front of you, gathering momentum in your mind, but, for now, sit mostly untouched. It seems such a shame to spoil this moment with work. Work can wait. It's time for lemonade and "Suedehead" and Sweetpea.

This Ain't Stealing, Volume Whatever: Black Kids

noreply@blogger.com (Justin) — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 15:30:00 +0000

Oh boy! I haven't been this excited over a new release in a long time. Wizard of Ahhhs [previously] was so raw and fun and good, but the Black Kids' Columbia signing and slurping in Rolling Stone had me worried for the integrity of the follow-up.

Fret not, however, as Partie Traumatic retains most of the spirit of the self-released EP. Rough edges have been buffed smooth but not slick. The DIY vibe of friends-and-a-four-track hasn't been major-labeled to death. Well played, Black Kids.

Black Kids: Partie Traumatic

It's Just a Shirt, People, Not a Political Statement

noreply@blogger.com (Justin) — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 01:43:00 +0000

All day long I've been getting looks. How-dare-you looks from old dudes. Right-on-brotha looks from hipstery types. All kinds of looks. I heard one girl, before she shouted across the street, "I like your shirt!" hiss-whispering with her friend something along the lines of, "Well, it can't be a coincidence today. You should say something. No, you say something. Fine, I'll say something..."

Sorry to disappoint you, ladies, but yeah, it's just a coincidence. This was the shirt at the top of the laundry pile today, so it's the one I pulled on. No biggie.

Everyone be safe this weekend, mkay? Don't light Ladyfingers with a Zipppo and call me if you need a ride home after the party.

Oh Covetous Desire, Thy Name is iPhone

noreply@blogger.com (Justin) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 18:18:00 +0000

I just watched this entire clip and all I can say is, Me want. Remember back when my Pilcrow wish for a Tony Fitzpatrick painting came true? Let's try that again, shall we? Better make it two, though; I'm not sharing with Sweetpea.

Finally, I Can Pimp My MySpace Page

noreply@blogger.com (Justin) — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 14:34:00 +0000

I'm a retarded fucking web designer. That's no metaphor, either—when it comes to web design, I'm as big a halfwit mongoloid as they come. Talk of DIVs and absolute positioning and style sheets leaves me spitting and shitting and sputtering like crazy and the amount of key-jingling (in the form of friendly, comfortable print design) it takes to calm me down has been steadily increasing for years.

Yeah, I've designed a few websites. Simple things, cobbled together using Dreamweaver and amatuerish bits of html and JAVA, that look and act mostly like I envisioned them when they were just sketches on paper, but their duct-tape-and-baling-wire code and execution always bothered me. Profesh web designers chided me for my DW crutch, bloated code, and hacky workarounds. I tried to change, to evolve. I really did. Time and again I sat down with TextEdit and a browser, trying to get a handle on all those lines of baffling code. CSS eluded me. I pored over websites and books and message boards. Tried new angles, new ways of thinking. Took every bit of advice and instruction. Still I couldn't make a go of it, always falling back into my familiar, clumsy Dreamweaver ways.

But no more! I will not be HTML's bitch one second longer. Not since I found Coda, a miraculous little application that has finally made web design graspable to me. "One-window web development," the tagline given to Coda by Panic, is, in my experience, both completely true and wholly insufficient.

Yes, Coda's interface design lets me generate, test, and edit code all in the same window. But what's more incredible is how it's lifted the fog from my tiny pea brain and snapped web design into brightshiningcrystalclear focus for me. Suddenly it all makes sense—and it's so easy! The revelations brought on by Coda make me feel retarded again, but a different kind of retarded. Now I feel dumb for not getting web design sooner, easier.

I'm still green, still feeling my way around this new world of tags and selectors, but I'm feeling really good about it. Any of youse need a website built? This web design stuff is a piece of cake.

No Cuts, No Butts, No Coconuts

noreply@blogger.com (Justin) — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 18:30:00 +0000

Man, last weekend was fun. If you ever get a chance to spend a couple days in the Blue Ridge Mountains, sipping vodka lemonades and grilling delicious food with a bunch of super-silly peeps, do it. Seriously.

Kelly Erickson Has It All Figured Out

noreply@blogger.com (Justin) — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 19:24:00 +0000

This stuff makes me so mad.

No fucking doy men and women think and act and process differently. (Psst, they also have different privates. No lie!)

How bad sitcom writers and marketing gurus like Kelly Erikson (Obsessed with your success!") get paid scads of money to boil those differences down to their most broad-stroked, stereotypical base is beyond me. According to Kelly Erikson, anything designed, bought, sold, written, manufactured, or desired is done so with one simple tenant in mind: Girls think with their brains! Boys think with their dinks! Girls consider the future. Boys want everything right now. Blah, blah, fucking blah. (Statistics, studies, or citations to back these assertions up, it seems, are relevant to neither men nor women, as they appear nowhere in Erikson's essay.)

Nonetheless, kudos to you, Kelly Erikson, for your brills social acumen. I hope your thoroughly modern views make you rich beyond your wildest dreams. But just in case that whole marketing consultant thing doesn't pan out, I hear Veronica's Closet is coming back and they're looking for someone to write a killer bit about diet TV dinners in pink boxes.

Today's Featured Article on Wikipedia...

noreply@blogger.com (Justin) — Wed, 28 May 2008 16:30:00 +0000

Fucking rules.

Pilcrow Recap

noreply@blogger.com (Justin) — Wed, 28 May 2008 14:39:00 +0000

Whew. What a weekend. It was a big chore, a huge undertaking, that Pilcrow Lit Fest, but madams Güth and Jones pulled it off with aplomb. Panels were well attended and lively, the NOLA fundraiser was a $mashing $ucce$$ and gobs of fun, and the authors on Sunday trickled back to the homes and cities and airports from whence they came full of smiles and inspiration. [Willy Blackmore's DIY bookbinding demo, along with cues from Tim Schaffert and the Featherproof boys*, got me all riled to start my own boutique press.]

There were photogs and documentarians floating around all four days of the Lit Fest. Some of their great work can be found at the Pilcrow flickr page, or here, or here. More interviews and videos and podcasts and photos to come, surely.

The thank-yous and you-rocks and that-fucking-ruleds are still spawning in inboxes but already talk has turned to Pilcrow '09. It'll be hard to top the inaugural Fest, but whatever plan that Güth hatches is sure to kill.

* I lived in Omaha in the early aughts and what Messinger and Co. are doing—and the hype and groupiedom that follows them—is basically a lit-mirror image of Saddle Creek Records when everyone was fawning over the New Seattle and The New York Times dispatched writers to Nebraska almost monthly to spend weekends profiling Nansel and Oberst. Crazy.

Pilcrow Pretties Make Perfect Presents

noreply@blogger.com (Justin) — Thu, 22 May 2008 15:30:00 +0000

You guys, I got a sneak peek last night at the painting Tony Fitzpatrick donated to Saturday night's Pilcrow NOPL auction and it's fucking stunning. Sexy and dirty and sly—remind you of anyone? So of course it needs to be hanging in my office. I'd been saving that space for a Sunday Ticket-powered flatscreen, but I'm rethinking those plans now.

If only there were some sort of occasion happening in the near future that necessitated the gifting of, to me, by you, the aforementioned Fitzpainting. If only.

Talking Type at Pilcrow

noreply@blogger.com (Justin) — Mon, 19 May 2008 17:38:00 +0000

Were I moderating or speaking on the Lit vs. Tech panel at Pilcrow on Saturday, I'd surely use this article by Paul Dean as crib notes or a discussion starter. So thorough, so informative (Who knew "#@$%*!" had a name? Not me.).

Dean's history lesson gives me some reassurance that digital will not, in fact, kill the typographer—though I'll never fully embrace the idea of books and newspapers going the way of the rotary telephone, a curious antiquity you think your grandmother foolish for keeping around and actually (eye-roll) using.

Either way, count on me being front-row for this discussion. Should be a good one, with LOLspeak and Twitter nerds on one side and crotchety fuddy-duddies on the other.

Pilcrow: Let's Get Ready to Mingle

noreply@blogger.com (Justin) — Mon, 19 May 2008 16:07:00 +0000

Forgive the lack of updates, here at MBD HQ, we're up to our elbows in the final push toward Pilcrow Lit Fest. The posters are done. Programs are printing this week. Various cards and fliers are mostly wrapped up. All in all, things are in good shape and I'm really excited for the weekend. DO drop by for all the litty goodness if you can, but if not, check back here after, when I post some photos of the Fest and samples of the PCL tchotchke.

Flippers and Falsies for the Disney Set

noreply@blogger.com (Justin) — Fri, 02 May 2008 02:50:00 +0000

I've been reading The Corrections during my commute to work. It's good and I'm been enjoying it, uncomfortable with but reveling in how claustrophobic and anxious all Franzen's iddly, paranoid characters make me feel. Yesterday after work, rapt with Alfred and the bullying turd, I missed my stop and had to hike a little extra to get home. (The exercise, I figured, couldn't hurt, as I've noticed recently that stairs get me flushed and send my heart revving—and not just because I know Sweetpea lives at the top of those stairs and I'm taking them two and three at a time.)

On the stroll home, I stopped at the park where a couple little league games were in progress. On one field were the tee-ballers, the real tiny guys who corkscrew wildly in the batter's box dirt when they whiff over the top of the ball and whose too-big helmets go all bobblehead as the tinies weave toward third after a hit.

Older kids, maybe grade threes or fours, junior White Sox and mini Reds, were playing on the next field over. We had uniforms back when I was a little league pitcher and weak-hitting infielder, but they weren't, like, real MLB team uniforms. Usually we got a blue or green or red t-shirt with "Philips Siding and Awnings" screenprinted above our numbers on the back. One year we got actual jerseys with our names on the backs and pinstriped pants to play in. I took extra time getting dressed on game days when I had that uniform, making sure the shirt was tucked and and all the seams straight, and hiked up the pants el Duque-style to show off the cool black stirrups. In that uni, I was Ted Williams and George Brett and my Dad all at once. I was badass.

I think, down the road a bit, if I have kids, that baseball in the summer would be great fun, if they want to play. Grammar-school beauty pageants, however, are completely and indisputably out of the question.

The Bears are on the Clock

noreply@blogger.com (Justin) — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 14:42:00 +0000

Oh, boy, the NFL Draft!

Living in Chicago, where the biggest, most compelling football happening since about early November was the free agent signing of Marty Booker, the draft is like a beautiful bacon oasis in a desert of puffed rice. It's hope renewed, and the first official cue that it's cool to start thinking about the next season.

Think about it: The Pro Bowl is a watered-down, two-hand-touch Nancy-game. Free agency is interesting for about a minute. Minicamps are full of worthless, non-story storylines that Sportscenter beats to death. Heck, even preseason games aren't that great; yeah, preseason is live action football, but just barely. No, in the months between the end of the Super Bowl and kickoff weekend—September 4; put it in your GCal now—the draft is the only part of the off-season that is even the tiniest bit exciting.

Last year at this time, with the Bears coming off a Super Bowl appearance and the team returning pretty much intact, I wasn't looking for much—some youth on the offensive line and maybe a safety to step in when Mike Brown invariably gets hurt. Not only didn't I get those in the draft, but the Bears basically gave away Thomas Jones, making candyass Cedric Benson (whose Madden ratings don't reflect his actual abilities, by the way) the featured back. Injuries and inconsistencies combined with a tough schedule to make for a throwaway 2007 season.

2008 could be even worse for the Bears. The schedule is easier, but with the defection of Bernard Berrian, they are without a single playmaker on offense. Rex still has the tiny hands of a chimp, Benson showed last year that he's got no heart, and the offensive line is another year older and more rickety. Both Tommie Harris and Brian Urlacher are disgruntled about their contracts and Urlacher's coming off a sub-par season and surgery on his motherfucking neck.

So where do the Bears go draft-wise? I don't watch enough college ball or Mel Kiper to know at all who's good and who's a washout waiting to happen. If I'm picking in the Bears war room, I go unsexy and take an offensive tackle in the first round, though it'll be hard to pass on Rashard Mendenhall or Jonathan Stewart if either are available at 14. They also need an explosive WR but rookie receivers are hit-and-miss and drafting one high is often a bust waiting to happen. Other holes in the roster included defensive linemen, maybe a younger corner, and, again, a safety or two for when Mike Brown shreds his knee buckling his chinstrap during the National Anthem.

So there you go. I don't have any better idea who to draft than do Jerry and Lovie. Whatever they do, I'll be watching on Saturday—seven hours, I'm sure, Sweetpea will think are the biggest, dumbest, most philistinian waste of time ever.

Crotchety Rant!

noreply@blogger.com (Justin) — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 15:11:00 +0000

I always like it when music and visual design get married. Or if you're Crystal Castles and Trevor Brown, get married blackout-drunk in Reno, realize after the fact you never intended to get married and you now hate each other, kick each other's ass, and take the nasty divorce proceedings public to be chimed in on by me and the guy from the Mountain Goats.

I won't get into the money side of all this art-ahj, the alleged contracts and non-payment, the conflicting accounts from each camp (...there I was, on my way to drop off some blankets and fresh peaches to the local orphanage, when Crystal Castles, wild-eyed and drugged-out, ripped my livelihood and identity from my organically-grown bamboo tote and printed it on their record sleeve...), but as someone who's been on both sides of similar situations, I can only say this: Get over it, everyone.

At it's core, this purported Horrifying Example of Artistic Plagiarism isn't actually so societal-fabric-shredding as the players and commentors would have you believe. It's really just a painter nobody's heard of sniping with a band nobody cares about over some queasy pictures on a t-shirt.

Yeah, we, as artists, all gots to get paid, and stealing is bad, and once lawyers get involved forget it, but can we please please please stop taking ourselves so goddamn seriously all the goddamn time, please? Very rarely, especially in creative circles, is anyone even remotely as important as they think they are.* Crystal Castles aren't groundbreaking, Trevor Brown isn't Earth-shattering, I won't change your life, and there are maybe three people in the entire world who give two shits about you and your schedule/kid/headache/job/opinions. Jus' sayin'.

*Unless you're Minor Threat and Dischord. Then, by all mean, go apeshit.

A Welcome Break from the Recent Sports and Video Game Posts

noreply@blogger.com (Justin) — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 18:29:00 +0000

I scored 31 of a possible 34 in this game. My Designer card should be revoked.

Play Goddamn Fucking Ball!

noreply@blogger.com (Justin) — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 14:58:00 +0000

Now that the weather's caught up with the calendar, it finally feels like baseball season. And what better first pitch to throw out than this classic from Earl Weaver and his Manager's Corner on the Baltimore Orioles Baseball Fucking Network.