Buy James Stuff

You know, I was thinking to myself, "James, what you and Dash do (the podcast) is pretty selfless isn't it? Every other week, you give unto the world around an hour of thoughts, quips, opinions and discussion for absolutely no payment at all! Wow, you're quite a guy (and a catch!)."

So I though, "Why not tell people how they can repay you for all the hard work you've done!" And that's what I'm gonna do. People, this post is all about how you can rightfully give back to your lovely host, just buy me some of the stuff I'm about to talk about!

CHEFSTACK



It's an automatic pancake maker. It makes 200 pancakes in an hour. 20 pancakes every six minutes. The article I've linked to says "ChefStack is Like an ATM For Pancakes". Very apt. It's also $3,500. BUT WORTH IT. Buy it HERE.

SLEEPING GRIZZLY BEAR BEAN BAG


Oh my goodness. Ok, we all know how awesome bean bag chairs are, they're like waterbeds or Tom Sizemore movies. They're awesome, but you're not telling anybody you actually think that. But look at this one! IT'S A BIG OL' SLEEPY BEAR AAAWWWWWWW. And it won't wake up and eat you! Hopefully. It's on sale right now for $135 (it was $159).

ARTWORK BY DANIEL HOCHSTEIN


Mr. Hochstein is the father of one of my closest friends and is an incredible artist. The painting above is named "The King" and I've been lucky enough to see it up close. Those eyes are even more intense when face to face with them. He goes between realism and surrealism in his work, and I've been lucky enough to actually obtain a drawing of his.

SOME GOD DAMN SURGE.


This...this soft drink. This beverage. THIS NECTAR OF THE GODS. Was THE soda of my youth. I drank it so much. There was a mini-mart connected to a gas station near my house and I'd go there nearly every day to procure a can or bottle of this heavenly liquid. AND NOW?! It is GONE. Apparently it only exists in Norway, so I want you to go to Norway and find me some! Please?

That's it for now, feel free to just send money too!

-James

Now playing: OM - Flight of the Eagle

MoMA Art: Part 2

This is the continuation of this post, where I show all you lovely people some of my favorite pieces when my mother and I went to MoMA. Remember to click on the paintings to have them enlarged!

Four Panels for Edwin R. Campbell - Wassily Kandinsky



MME Kupka Among Verticals - František Kupka



Student With a Pipe - Pablo Picasso



Armored Train in Action - Gino Severini



Dynamism of a Soccer Player - Umberto Boccioni



The Sleeping Gypsy - Henri Rousseau



Opus 217. Against the Enamel of a Background Thythmic with Beats and Angles, Tones, and Tints, Portrait of M. Félix Fénéon in 1890 - Paul Signac



Chère Petite Soeur - Tacita Dean



-James

Now playing: Enslaved - Essence

MoMA Art: Part 1

A few weeks a go, my mother and I went to the Museum of Modern Art on one of their "Target Free Fridays", which means that if you go anytime after 4pm on a Friday, admission is free. Pretty neat! The one downside is that it's really crowded.

Now, before we get into it, I would like to say that I do not know much about art. I know what some of the styles are and how the pieces in that style are similar (impressionist, surrealist, cubist), I know the big names, but that's about it. I don't consider myself an art lover or enthusiast, not that I wouldn't like to be one. It just hasn't happened yet.

So anyways, when we went to MoMA, I wrote down the names of the paintings I liked the most. I didn't (at least not consciously) decide this through thinking which took the most skill to do, just which hit me for some reason. This post will show some of the art I enjoyed. Let's begin:

The Menaced Assassin - René Magritte

Phantom of the Past - Kurt Seligmann

Dr. Mayer-Hermann - Otto Dix

The Poet Max Herrmann-Neisse - George Grosz

The Birth of the World - Joan Miró

Umbrella and Bowler - Fernand Léger

The Duo - Giorgio de Chirico


More will be posted at some other time. Any of you out there like any of these pieces or want to share some of your favorites? Comment below or send an email at wearefriendspodcast@gmail.com

-James

Now playing: Mogwai - Glasgow Mega-Snake

Give the children lasers.

Well-dressed children now have laser technology.  I'm can no longer live on this planet.

Here's Goodwyn.  Mostly into lampin' wherever works.

Reagan is the final boss!  Do you have your Universe Key and Dust Sword to defeat her!?

Bertrude just gave you LSD and now he's going to steal all your Bulls merch.

Devin saw your partner naked.  Couldn't tell if it was a dude or a lady...and liked it that way.

God has lasers too.

-Dash

"Immersion" sounds like a John Coltrane song.

Ohhhhh folks...it's a big day for me. Because, before today, I was not aware of Robbie Cooper. Mr. Cooper is a video artist, currently working on a series called "Immersion".

"Immersion is a project that records video of people “through the screen” as they play games, use the internet

and watch TV. Using the Facial Action Coding System, developed by Paul Ekman, we’ll be analysing the

reactions of teenagers to war in video games, movies, news footage, documentaries and online video. Outside of

this study we’re also filming people consuming a range of media- everything from the shopping channel, porn,

sports, to programming created for babies."

So, yeah, watching people watching things. I'm FASCINATED. Below is the video for "Immersion: Porn". It's awesome.

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DJ!

So who remembers Full House? That lovely, little family sitcom with the dad (Bob Saget) who's wife died and has three daughters. And his two best buds live with them and they all are on big (weird) family. Remember? It's how the Olsen twins got their start, and now look at 'em.

Anyway, this guy, Paul Slocum, decided to create a multimedia art piece using a scene from the show. He asked for participants tor ecreate the scene visually and with the same dialogue and to send the video to him. he then edited all the videos and also laid loops of the scene's original music over the finished video.

I dunno what it is about the video, but when I watched it, I went "MY BRAIN!" Enjoy!



-James

Now playing: Colin Meloy - Jack The Ripper

King of Pop...all of it.

Michael Jackson is auctioning off a treasure trove of memorabilia.  Let's peruse, shall we...

We begin with...

...this...waking nightmare.  In the disparate year of 1997, when the Terminator robots started enslaving humanity, Skynet's first attempt was a bit different.

Michael Jackson is Peter Pan.  Remember?  I betcha 'ememBAH-AH!

Here we have the infamous portrait Highness Jackson V of Gary, having returned triumphant from the Battle of Disco.  After burning it out completely, he brought home the spoils and saved his nation from almost total civil war.

What you're actually buying here is the opportunity to press the button that launches this painting into space...E.T. really wants it back.

Sure sure sure, there's a lot of deserved praise heaped onto Christopher Nolans' interpretation of Batman, but, seriously, MJ was a pretty solid Bruce Wayne.

I want this so bad it hurts.

Nice things are nice.

I really like flower arrangement.

It's a fascinating art-form to me. Blending nature's majesty with human creativity. Recently I was turned on to Ikebana, which is the Japanese "version" of flower arrangement. I'm consistently blown away by this style of minimalist expression.

So, yeah, flowers have some awesome colors, and I find it interesting how people who know how to use color blend them into specific patterns. With Ikebana, the arrangement is as much about color as it is the stems, leaves and form. That LOW album cover is a traditional flower arrangement, and while the spectrum of pink is cool, it's a bit lacking. Now, go back to those first two pictures. THAT is Ikebana. Fuck yes. Look at how the positioning creates a landscape, and the colors bring about certain emotions. How everything bends very carefully and specifically to form a movement, guiding your eyes in a CERTAIN manner.

I am way down with flowers.

Dune

Now I don't know if you're me, but if you are me, this would have been pretty great if it actually happened. This is a picture of a sand-worm, inspired by the book Dune by Frank Herbert. It was created by H.R. Giger (one of my favorite artists) for Alejandro Jodorowsky (weirdo/surrealist director of the Holy Mountain and other films) because he was going to direct an adaptation of the book.

Jodorowsky began working in 1975 on an adaptation of Frank Herbert's Dune. The project was intended to involve his son Brontis Jodorowsky as Paul, Orson Welles as the Baron, Salvador Dalí as the Emperor, Mick Jagger as Feyd Rautha, Alain Delon as Duncan Idaho, Geraldine Chaplin as Lady Jessica, David Carradine as Duke Leto and Gloria Swanson as The Benne Geserit Reverend Mother. Dan O'Bannon for the script, Chris Foss, Pink Floyd, H. R. Giger and Jean Giraud (Mœbius). Ultimately, its funding evaporated, but Jodorowsky claimed it was sabotaged by the major studios in Hollywood because it was too French, a strange claim considering that Jodorowsky, while a naturalized citizen of France, has never identified with any particular country or culture (although the funding and his producer, Jerome Seydoux, were French).

Do you see those names?! It would've ruled! Or at least made my brain melt.

Like Dune? Hate Giger? Think I'm gorgeous? Email us with your thoughts, opinions, sage advice, silliness and anything else you want to say at wearefriendpodcast@gmail.com

-James

Now playing: The Green Evening Requiem - Expiration