Sometimes my judgement is so bad even I can tell how bad it is.

I was irritated by the report that Pluto has been officially downgraded from "planet" status. What is the new classsification? Oh, it's "dwarf planet." How lazy can you get. The worst thing is the criteria astronomers used for dwarf planets was specifically designed to downgrade Pluto, by specificying that actual planets need to have near-cirular orbits (Pluto's orbital ellipse is far more pronounced than the others in the solar system, taking it within Neptune's orbit on some rotations). What a bunch of fuckers.

Honestly, if someone had told me yesterday that this story would have upset me so much, I'd have thought they were crazy.

"I would never question the patriotism of somebody who disagrees with me. This has nothing to do with patriotism. It has everything to do with understanding the world in which we live."

-- President George W. Bush

Seriously. Bush said that. BUSH said that.

I think we killed them.

I think we killed them.

Hempfest

Britney Spears

She's certainly acting... odd...

My favorite columnist at National Review Online is Mark R. Levin. On a site loaded with sputtering, impotent white men with a slighted sense of entitlement, Levin trumps them all. It is almost required of a writer for National Review to hold loyalty to the Beloved Leader above idealogical consistency, the good of the country and even personal best interests.

Levin is supposedly a legal scholar and author, and yet when an entirely fair comment on his torture advocacy is made, he is so unable to comprehend how anyone could question his... well, to call it faith would paint his struggles with an unearned and wholely blasphemous purity, so let's say his sense of entitlement to allow torture, the best he can do is sputter in outrage: "Why does anyone take this guy seriously anymore?"

"This guy"? I know the appeal of blogging is the insta-journalism of it all, but surely a professional writer would be a little more artful. At least one would hope.

This post deserves to be quoted in full:

Gitmo Finally Revealed
07/31 03:02 PM
I want to congratulate the attorneys who work with me at Landmark Legal Foundation for tenaciously pursuing the untold story of the systematic abuse of American MPs by the al-Qaeda terrorists at Guantanamo Bay. It took us a full year to bring this stunning information to light, but the truth is now out. Thanks to Pete Hutchison, Mike O'Neill, Matt Forys, and Eric Christensen.

Because prison guards are the true victims of the War On Terror.

The other thing I like about Levin is how his mug shot at NRO is cleverly cropped to disguise his baldness.

National Review does a pretty good job with their mug shots all around. Perhaps their greatest achievement was in making David Frum, to all appearances a subhuman pig man, almost frattishly handsome.

Trunk Monkey

I had this idea a while ago, but it was as a panhandler response system. This is pretty good, though.

Holy crap, the women of the Israeli Defense Force are hot!











I read this article (hopefully a translation) about what they do.

Who'd have thought if you handed a rifle to a young Jewess she'd become so appealing?

Check out this wonderfully obsequious interview with Dick Cheney in National Review. Conducted by Byron York, the transcript repeatedly identifies Cheney as "THE VICE PRESIDENT." All caps, with preposition.

Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Rainbow

I've always heard about this, but never watched for myself. Calling it perfectly synchronized is probably a stretch, but the tornado sequence set to "Great Gig in the Sky" is synchronistic genius.

My friends dance at their wedding

After five years... you will become a zombi if you don't seek adventure and change.
-- Robert Anton Wilson

These are the saddest words I've read about Syd Barrett's sad death: Syd Barrett, who died several days ago (no one is sure exactly when)...

I've got a bike. You can ride it if you like.
It's got a basket, a bell that rings and things to make it look good.
I'd give it to you if I could, but I borrowed it.

You're the kind of girl that fits in with my world.
I'll give you anything, everything if you want things.

I've got a cloak. It's a bit of a joke.
There's a tear up the front. It's red and black, I've had it for months.
If you think it could look good, then I guess it should.

You're the kind of girl that fits in with my world.
I'll give you anything, everything if you want things.

I know a mouse, and he hasn't got a house.
I don't know why. I call him Gerald.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.

You're the kind of girl that fits in with my world.
I'll give you anything, everything if you want things.

I've got a clan of gingerbread men.
Here a man, there a man, lots of gingerbread men.
Take a couple if you wish. They're on the dish.

You're the kind of girl that fits in with my world.
I'll give you anything, everything if you want things.

I know a room of musical tunes.
Some rhyme, some ching. Most of them are clockwork.
Let's go into the other room and make them work.

Syd Barrett Dies At The Age Of 60

Pink Floyd’s legendary former front man Syd Barrett has died at his home in Cambridgeshire a spokesman has confirmed.

Barrett passed away on Friday (July 7) due to complications to do with the singer’s diabetes.

His brother Alan confirmed his death to the paper, saying: "He died peacefully at home. There will be a private family funeral in the next few days."

A statement from the remaining members of Pink Floyd says: "The band are naturally very upset and sad to learn of Syd Barrett's death.

"Syd was the guiding light of the early band line-up and leaves a legacy which continues to inspire."

Barrett, real name Roger Keith Barrett, departed the Pink Floyd fold in 1968 and became a recluse for more than thirty years after a drug induced breakdown.

However, he was convinced by EMI to have a short solo career.

He produced two solo albums - ‘The Madcap Laughs’ and ‘Barrett’ – in the late 60s and early 70s.

In 1972 he formed the short lived band Stars with Ex-Pink Fairies member Twink but he left shortly after a disasterous gig at Cambridge's Corn Exchange.

He is thought to be the inspiration behind the song ‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond’ from Pink Floyd’s ‘Wish You Were Here’ album.

Barrett made a surprise appearance the Abbey Road sessions for the album and was present when the remaining members of Pink Floyd recorded the track.

QUOTE FOR THE DAY

...we are back to David Miller invoking rumor as fact.

--John Byrne, cartoonist

The internet message board produces one thing of value: taken out of context, one can find the strange thoughtless poetry of a young cultural generation in a romantic decline.

As seen on The V.

More numbers madness: as of 9:42 omn, Pacific Time, I have used 66.6 units of insulin. Whooaa,,, And spookier still, I watched both versions of The Omen last weekend!

As part of my job, I sent an email at 1:09 pm to a group of artists, requesting an online donation. At 1:42 we received our first online renewal, from Port Townsend. A total of 33 minutes had passed!!!

Soem reflections:

33 is the largest positive integer that cannot be expressed as a sum of different triangular numbers.

Classic LP records turn at 33 1/3 RPMs.

There are 33 degrees in Freemasony. The 33rd Degree is the highest rank in the Scottish Rite of Freemasony. My uncle, Arnold Flottman, is a 33rd Degree Freemason.

33 is the best-known car number of retired NASCAR driver Harry Gant.

33 is the code for international direct dial calls to France.

A normal human spine has 33 vertebrae when the bones that form the coccyx are counted individually.

The number 33 is printed on all Rolling Rock beer labels.

There are 33 Cantos in each of Dante's 3 parts of the Divine Comedy.

Elvis Presley appeared in 33 motion pictures, including "Tickle Me" (1965).

The composer John Cage wrote a piece of silent music, entitled, 4'33".
The landmark film King Kong debuted in 1933.

Sea water pressure doubles every 33 feet of depth.

There are 33 customer reviews on Amazon.com for The Witch Doctors, by John Micklethwait.

The Hindu Rg Veda describes "the 33 divinities."

The existence of a total of 33 black holes has been confirmed, in our own galaxy and elsewhere in the universe.

Roswell, New Mexico is at 33°37'N latitude. This geo-latitudinal line also passes through what is known as the "Bermuda Triangle" in the Atlantic Ocean, as well as Dealey Plaza in Dallas, TX, where President John F. Kennedy was assassinated by as many as 33 conspirators.

King David ruled Israel for 33 years.

Michelangelo was 33 when he began painting the Sistine Chapel ceiling.

Jesus Christ was 33 years old when He was crucified and ressurected. Some Gnostic sects who accept reincarnation believe Jesus has led 33 lives.

And I will turn 33 next month!!!

Coincidence? I THINK NOT!!!

Renowned astrophysicist Stephen Hawking from the University of Cambridge, front, is accompanied by his nurse during a visit at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in Hong Kong Tuesday, June 13, 2006. Hawking, author of the global best-seller a "Brief History of Time", arrived in Hong Kong on Monday and plans to give a lecture on Tuesday. Hawking is on a six-day visit in Hong Kong before going to Beijing.(AP Photo/Vincent Yu) 

Okay, am I wrong, or is that nurse hanging out of her shirt to a ridiculous degree? I know Hawking is a reknowned astrophysicist, but that amount of cleavage on his help is just crazy.

I just finished making 40 burritos. I am all that is man!

Some guy is standing in my driveway talking about how his relationship went wrong: "We were always living in the past, and that preventd us from moving forward" I wonder if others share my knowledge, and if that contributed to the break up? Or does his trite analysis of What Went Wrong hint at greater shallows?

I have a weekly conversation with my father about the Sopranos. I was wondering out loud why Vito (the gay wiseguy), why his goomah would put up with no sex for a year. Sure, it's this guy, but still. Dad pointed out that guys like that probably pay the rent for their mistresses. That had never occurred to me. See, 32 years old and I still have something to learn from the old man.

THE GOLDEN RETRVIEVER WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD

STRATHAM, N.H. Apr 7, 2006 (AP)— Satellite tracking, helicopter surveillance and dart guns failed. In the end, it was a ham dinner and a remote-controlled net that brought a golden retriever named Sam in from the cold after two years on the run.

Until this week, "he was winning 200 to 1," said Steve Sprowl, one of the experts who took part in hunt for the dog who earned the nickname "Golden Ghost."

Raiding garbage cans and winning handouts from sympathetic neighbors, the dog survived two New England winters, deer hunting season and a blow from a car.

Peg and Dennis Sklarski got Sam in 2004, after he was rescued from a life inside a chain-link fence in Tennessee, where he was sporadically fed and otherwise ignored. They had him only three weeks when Sam got loose.

Over the months and years, neighbors repeatedly spotted Sam and called the Sklarskis, and Dennis said he spent many nights cruising the roads.

In January, experts arrived from Boston with infrared cameras and a remote-controlled net but had no luck. A friend provided his helicopter for searching. Sprowl, an investigator with New Hampshire Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, failed repeatedly to get the dog with a tranquilizer gun.

Finally, donations let the SPCA buy its own remote-controlled net, and a family that had been feeding Sam had the contraption set up on its wooded lot. Other neighbors agreed to stop leaving him food.

After five weeks, police Officer Tona McCarthy, who had devoted hours of his own time to tracking the dog, spotted Sam in the area Wednesday and hid at the lot, watching for him on a video monitor. Soon, Sam appeared.

On the video, Sam's caution was obvious. He sniffed the air and the ground and looked from side to side. He crept toward the food dish.

Normally, Sam grabs his food bowl with his teeth and drags it away to eat. This time, though, he gobbled a few mouthfuls of ham first, giving McCarthy just enough time to release the net. The far end just caught the dog as he fled with the bowl.

Sam is now at the SPCA animal shelter, being treated for a lip cut suffered while trying to escape. He will remain under observation for 10 days for any problems such as rabies. Then he can go home to the Sklarskis.

They are counting on the dog's obvious intelligence to help him recognize that it's not a bad deal to be a beloved pet.

"The first time that I saw Sam after he was rescued, I went to his cage and I got down on all fours and said, 'Oh, Sammy boy' and he looked up at me, and he wagged his tail and he reached his paw out to me," Peg Sklarski said.

SICILIAN FOR DOUCHEBAG, PART II

Conservative U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia on Wednesday called his 2004 decision not to recuse himself from a case involving Vice President Dick Cheney the "proudest thing" he's done on the court.

Is he fucking kidding? I've done more substantial work on the Supreme Court than that. My graduate essay on Nixon's "Court Un-Packing Plan," as I so wittily called it, is a lot more impressive than laying down in a sixty-nine with a corrupt, arrhythmic septaugenarian-hunter.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

At the time we were on a mission to rid the world of alcohol. By drinking it.

-- Elvis Costello, reminiscing on July 26, 2005.

I am very unhappy with myself right now.

This is Sicilian for, "I'm a douchebag."  

In the PSA that just aired during "Lost," I swear to god, I just heard them say, "A reminder: before becoming intimate, turn off the television."

What the fuck?

Polish science fiction writer Stanislaw Lem dies at 84

By Ryan Lucas, The Associated Press

WARSAW — Stanislaw Lem, a science fiction writer whose novel Solaris was made into a movie starring George Clooney, died Monday in his native Poland, his secretary said. He was 84.

Lem died in a Krakow hospital from heart failure "connected to his old age," the secretary, Wojciech Zemek, told The Associated Press.

Lem was one of the most popular science fiction authors of recent decades to write in a language other than English, and his works were translated into more than 40 other languages. His books have sold 27 million copies.

His best-known work, Solaris, was adapted into films by director Andrei Tarkovsky in 1972 and by Steven Soderbergh in 2002. That version starred Clooney and Natascha McElhone.

His first important novel, Hospital of the Transfiguration, was censored by communist authorities for eight years before its release in 1956 amid a thaw following the death of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.

Other works include The Invincible, The Cyberiad, His Master's Voice, The Star Diaries, The Futurological Congress and Tales of Prix the Pilot.

Lem was born into a Polish Jewish family on Sept. 21, 1921, in Lviv, then a Polish city but now part of Ukraine.

His father was a doctor and he initially appeared set to follow in that path, taking up medical studies in Lviv before World War II.

After surviving the Nazi occupation, in part thanks to forged documents that concealed his Jewish background, Lem continued his medical studies in Krakow. Soon afterward, however, he took up writing science fiction.

Lem is survived by his wife and a son, Zemek said. Funeral arrangements were not disclosed.

You Are 96% Evil

You're the most evil person you know. The devil is even a little scared of you!

How Evil Are You?

For the record, I would not rather harm an enemy than help a friend, and I'm not sure I'd kill someone for $1,000,000.

One visionary CBS affiliate in Los Angeles has posted all its car chase footage online. It... it's beautiful!

The South Park me. Anyone who's ever seen me will know this is spookily accurate, right down to the sword.  

White Nationalism Put U In Bondage
by Autum Ashante

White nationalism is what put you in bondage
Pirate and vampires like Columbus, Morgan, and Darwin
Drank the blood of the sheep, trampled all over them with
Steel, tricks and deceit.
Nothing has changed take a look in our streets
The mis-education of she and Hegro — leaves you on your knee2grow
Black lands taken from your hands, by vampires with no remorse
They took the gold, the wisdom and all of the storytellers
They took the black women, with the black man weak
Made to watch as they changed the paradigm
Of our village
They killed the blind, they killed the lazy, they went
So far as to kill the unborn baby
Yeah White nationalism is what put you in bondage
Pirates and vampires like Columbus, Morgan, and Darwin
They drank the blood of the sheep, trampled all over them with
Steel laden feet, throw in the tricks alcohol and deceit.
Nothing has changed take a look at our streets.

Just a few minutes ago, a woman walked down my street leading two dogs, one black, one white. Following her were three men in black track suits. Is that gang activity? The dogs seem to imply so. What the hell? This isn't the kind of neighborhood I want to live in.

I'm proud that me and my compeers begain the defenstration of Thomas Kinkade years ago. For more despicable attacks on the Painter of Light, check out the web page for Painters of Blight, a group art show we curated at Roq la Rue Gallery in Seattle.

Dark Portrait of a 'Painter of Light'
Christian-themed artist Thomas Kinkade is accused of ruthless tactics and seamy personal conduct. He disputes the allegations.
By Kim Christensen
Times Staff Writer

March 5, 2006

Thomas Kinkade is famous for his luminous landscapes and street scenes, those dreamy, deliberately inspirational images he says have brought "God's light" into people's lives, even as they have made him one of America's most collected artists.

A devout Christian who calls himself the "Painter of Light," Kinkade trades heavily on his beliefs and says God has guided his brush — and his life — for the last 20 years.

"When I got saved, God became my art agent," he said in a 2004 video biography, genteel in tone and rich in the themes of faith and family values that have helped win him legions of fans, albeit few among art critics.

But some former Kinkade employees, gallery operators and others contend that the Painter of Light has a decidedly dark side.

In litigation and interviews with the Los Angeles Times, some former gallery owners depict Kinkade, 48, as a ruthless businessman who drove them to financial ruin at the same time he was fattening his business associates' bank accounts and feathering his nest with tens of millions of dollars.

Kinkade — whose solely owned Thomas Kinkade Co. is based in Morgan Hill, Calif. — denies these allegations.

Last month, however, a three-member panel of the American Arbitration Assn. ordered his company to pay $860,000 for defrauding the former owners of two failed Virginia galleries. That decision marks the first major legal setback for Kinkade, who won three previous arbitration claims. Five more are pending.

It's not just Kinkade's business practices that have been called into question. Former gallery owners, ex-employees and others say his personal behavior also belies the wholesome image on which he's built his empire.

In sworn testimony and interviews, they recount incidents in which an allegedly drunken Kinkade heckled illusionists Siegfried & Roy in Las Vegas, cursed a former employee's wife who came to his aid when he fell off a barstool, and palmed a startled woman's breasts at a signing party in South Bend, Ind.

And then there is Kinkade's proclivity for "ritual territory marking," as he called it, which allegedly manifested itself in the late 1990s outside the Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim.

"This one's for you, Walt," the artist quipped late one night as he urinated on a Winnie the Pooh figure, said Terry Sheppard, a former vice president for Kinkade's company, in an interview.

Kinkade declined The Times' request for an interview but responded to written questions. He labeled those accounts of his personal behavior as "ridiculous" and "crazy allegations."

The artist and his lawyer, Dana Levitt, contend that Sheppard, a key witness in the arbitration cases against Kinkade and his company, is a disgruntled ex-employee, noting that he lost a wrongful termination claim against the artist's charitable foundations in 2004. They also deny the ex-dealers' allegations, which they say are driven by "lawyers playing the litigation lottery" and are "uncoupled from reality."

Kinkade, a self-described product of a broken home and a hardscrabble childhood, once worked as a film animator and hawked his paintings at supermarket parking lots in his hometown of Placerville, Calif. His climb to fame began two decades ago, when he and his wife spent their life savings to start making his prints.

Since then, Kinkade has spun a hugely lucrative career from his distinctly romantic, idealized images of street scenes, lighthouses, country cottages and landscapes. It is a world without sharp edges, all warm and fuzzily aglow with setting suns and streetlights and luminescent windows.

Critics have described Kinkade's works — with titles such as "Sunset on Lamplight Lane" and "The Garden of Prayer" — as little more than mass-produced kitsch. But that has not deterred the multitudes who pay from a few hundred dollars for paper prints to $10,000 or more for canvas editions he has signed and retouched.

"It's mainstream art, not art you have to look at to try to understand, or have an art degree to know whether it's good or not," said Mike Koligman, a longtime fan who with his wife owns Kinkade galleries in San Diego and Utah.

Karen de la Carriere feels the same way. Framed Kinkades fill her living room walls and have transformed a long hallway into a veritable gantlet of glowing lithographs. Kinkade's art is both a personal passion and a business for the Los Angeles resident, who deals in the resale market for Kinkades, selling more than $25,000 of his works each month on eBay and her website.

"This is God-given talent," she said of a favored print, "Sierra Evening Majesty," with its snowy peaks, red-gold skies and smoke wisping from a cabin chimney. "He is a modern-day Leonardo da Vinci or Monet. There is no one in our generation who can paint like that."

Nor many who make the money he does.

From 1997 through May 2005, Kinkade reaped more than $50 million in royalties from his prints and licensed product lines, according to testimony in the recently decided arbitration case. His images adorn air fresheners, night lights, teddy bears, toys, tote bags, pillows, umbrellas and La-Z-Boy loungers, which one retailer's ad describes as "something not merely to be acquired, but collected — like fine art itself."

As he built his brand, Kinkade also came to embody its underlying themes of faith, family and life's blessings. He speaks lovingly of his childhood sweetheart, Nanette — whom he married in 1982 — and their four daughters, calling his family "my proudest achievement in life."

Often, he embeds their initials or images in his paintings. Sometimes he joins them there.

"There's Thom on his Harley," a saleswoman at one of the original Kinkade galleries, on Monterey's Cannery Row, said as she showed a visitor a print of "San Francisco, Lombard Street." Hanging nearby was "New York, Fifth Avenue," with Thom and one of his daughters in a '57 Chevy convertible.

Such whimsy illustrates the lighter side of the Kinkade his supporters say is genial and genuine, a "regular guy" with small-town roots. He also has raised millions for charities, including the Salvation Army and Make-A-Wish Foundation.

But a far more selfish portrait of the artist emerges from legal action brought by former gallery owners against Kinkade, Media Arts Group Inc. — the public company he has since taken private — and some who helped build it into a $250-million-a-year retail juggernaut before its sales flagged and its stock tanked.

Ex-dealers allege that the artist used his faith — and manipulated theirs — to induce them to invest in Thomas Kinkade Signature Galleries, independently owned stores licensed to deal exclusively in his work. They also contend he sought to devalue the company before buying it back two years ago for $32.7 million, renaming it Thomas Kinkade Co.

Company executives and lawyers contend that a steep drop in the number of Signature galleries, which have dwindled to fewer than half of the 350 that once existed, is a result of a broad decline in the limited-edition art business, hastened by the dot-com crash, a shrinking economy and the Sept. 11 attacks.

"Many dealers had the ability to weather the effects of the recession; some dealers did not," said Chief Executive Dan Byrne.

But such arguments failed to persuade the arbitration panel, which on Feb. 23 ruled in favor of the former Virginia gallery owners, Karen Hazlewood and Jeffrey Spinello.

The panel found that the company and one of its executives, Richard F. Barnett, defrauded the couple by failing to disclose pertinent information that would have dissuaded them from investing $122,000 to open the first of their two galleries in 1999.

The interim award of $860,000, based on a decision that Kinkade's lawyer said he would seek to void, could quadruple when interest, legal fees and other costs are added, said the former dealers' Michigan lawyer, Norman Yatooma, whose firm is also handling the five pending arbitration claims.

Kinkade himself has been dismissed from the Hazlewood-Spinello claim, so obligation for payment of the award would fall to his solely owned company, and to Barnett, said Yatooma's associate, Joseph Ejbeh.

Though the panel did not single out the artist in its fraud finding, it wrote that he and other Media Arts Group executives had created "a certain religious environment designed to instill a special relationship of trust" with the couple, who have since divorced. The company, communicating through Kinkade and the others, often used terms such as "partner," "trust," "Christian" and "God" to convey a sense of "higher calling," the panel wrote.

Although Kinkade has said he does not market specifically to Christians, his limited-edition canvas prints bear the familiar Christian fish symbol and are inscribed with a biblical reference, "John 3:16." He also is fond of quoting Matthew 5:16 — "Let your light shine before men" — at times sounding more evangelist than artist.

"I love to talk about my faith," he said in a deposition. "I try to embrace people with love, unconditional love, like Christ did."

Former dealer Jim Cote said he was hard-pressed to feel the love. He has filed an arbitration claim, alleging among other things that he was a victim of Media Arts Group's pressure to saturate the market.

"In the beginning it was fine," said Cote, of Birmingham, Mich., who opened his first Signature gallery in 1996. "Sales were great because Thom at that point was very popular and there were limited outlets to buy his art."

But as time went on, Cote alleges, Media Arts Group pushed him to open more galleries, threatening to set up its own outlets in his territory. Cote eventually had three stores, all of which failed.

"This is not bread and milk," he said. "You can't have galleries on every corner."

Cote said his net worth of more than $3 million had been erased. Gone are his marriage, his house and most of his possessions. He doesn't blame his divorce entirely on his galleries' failure, he said, but "it certainly didn't help."

He shut his last store in December and has filed for bankruptcy protection.

"At this point, I've got a dog and an apartment, and that's it," Cote said. "This is not where I thought I'd be at 56."

Kinkade's lawyers deny Cote's allegations.

As Hazlewood, Spinello, Cote and other Signature gallery owners were faltering, the company's stock plummeted from a high of nearly $25 a share to less than $3. Former dealers allege that Kinkade allowed them to sink in order to drive down the stock price, so he could buy back the company at a bargain basement price — a charge the artist and his lawyer said was absurd.

"There was no conspiracy to shoot ourselves in the foot," Kinkade testified in the arbitration case that was just decided. "Nobody wanted to hurt the dealers."

Kinkade, who co-founded the company as Lightpost Publishing in 1989 and took it public in 1994, bought it back in 2004 for $4 a share. Investors who had put their faith and their fortunes in the Painter of Light — a moniker he trademarked — were left holding a mostly empty bag.

"I took a bloodbath, an absolute bloodbath," said De la Carriere, the Los Angeles art dealer, who said she invested her inheritance in Media Arts Group stock at more than $20 a share.

But even as the company ran aground, Kinkade and others in top positions prospered, according to testimony.

From 1997 through May 2005, Kinkade earned $53 million for his work, the company's assistant controller testified. That figure includes $11.8 million from top-of-the-line "studio proofs," small-edition canvas prints that Kinkade personally retouched, or "highlighted"— with as much as 65% of the profit going to him.

Kinkade wasn't the only one who got rich.

Barnett, then head of retail sales and now an executive vice president, also made millions as the Signature galleries were failing. Unbeknownst to the dealers, he reaped commissions on all art sold to them at wholesale, averaging more than $2 million a year for 1999, 2000 and 2001, according to testimony.

The arbitration panel found that the company and Barnett, who ran a training program for prospective gallery owners known as Thomas Kinkade University, "painted an unrealistic and misleading picture of the prospects for success" and never warned potential investors of the inherent risks.

"We were told success story after success story, and of course the 'Thom story' and his Christian views and the way he runs his life," Spinello told the arbitration panel in late 2004.

Just as it has revealed the inner workings of Kinkade's business, the dealer litigation also has delved into his personal conduct, which witnesses testified was often at odds with the God-fearing image he projected.

In testimony and interviews with The Times, Sheppard and other former employees said they often went with Kinkade to strip clubs and bars, where he frequently became intoxicated and out of control.

John Dandois, Media Arts Group's senior director of retail operations from 1995 to 1999, testified in a hearing that the artist was a sort of Jekyll-and-Hyde character, whose behavior worsened as the alcohol flowed.

"Thom would be fine, he would be drinking, and then all of a sudden, you couldn't tell where the boundary was," he said. "And then he became very incoherent, and he would start cussing and doing a lot of weird stuff."

Dandois, who left the company to become chief executive of a group of galleries owned by Kinkade's brother, Patrick, recounted that about six years ago the artist was so intoxicated during a performance by Siegfried & Roy in Las Vegas that people seated nearby moved away from him.

"I think it was Roy or Siegfried or whatever had a codpiece in his leotards," Dandois testified. "And so when the show started, Thom just started yelling, 'Codpiece, codpiece,' and had to be quieted by his mother and Nanette."

At other times, Kinkade could be downright nasty, Dandois testified, recalling an incident in which Dandois' wife tried to help the allegedly inebriated artist to his feet in a bar.

"He had been falling down, and he fell off the stool, and he was laying on the ground and just looked up at her and flipped her the bird and told her, you know, just to 'F you' several times," Dandois testified.

In an interview, Sheppard, who often accompanied Kinkade on the road, recounted a trip to Orange County in the late 1990s for the artist's appearance on the "Hour of Power" television show at the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove. On the eve of the broadcast, Sheppard said, he and Kinkade returned to the Disneyland Hotel after a night of heavy drinking. As they walked to their rooms, according to Sheppard and another person who was there, Kinkade veered toward a nearby figure of a Disney character.

"Thom wanders over to Winnie the Pooh and decides to 'mark his territory,' " Sheppard told The Times.

In a deposition, the artist alluded to his practice of urinating outdoors, saying he "grew up in the country" where it was common. When pressed about allegedly relieving himself in a hotel elevator in Las Vegas, Kinkade said it might have happened.

"There may have been some ritual territory marking going on, but I don't recall it," he said.

Kinkade's memory also was fuzzy when he was asked during the arbitration proceedings about a signing party in Indiana that went awry in August 2002.

Held at a South Bend hotel, the party began sedately enough as Kinkade met with a group of Signature gallery owners to sign stacks of prints. Some who were there say it was a goodwill gesture by the artist to smooth relations with dealers, who could sell the signed pieces at a premium.

After the larger group dispersed, Kinkade and others moved to a smaller room for a private signing with Michigan gallery owner Cote and some of his employees. Champagne was served, then hard liquor. By various accounts, most of the partyers overindulged, including Kinkade and Cote.

At one point, according to testimony and interviews with Cote and three others who were there, Kinkade polled the men in the room about their preferences in women's anatomies.

"He was having a conversation with the men in the room about whether they like breasts or butts," said Lori Kopec, Cote's director of gallery operations, who also testified about the party. "There were only two women in the room, and I was very uncomfortable at that point."

It was during that bawdy discussion, according to arbitration records, that Kinkade turned his attention to the other woman.

"He approached [her] and he palmed her breasts and he said, 'These are great tits!' " Ernie Dodson, another Cote employee, told The Times, adding that he drank no alcohol that night. "I was just standing in the corner in amazement. It was like, holy cow!"

The woman whom Kinkade allegedly fondled confirmed to The Times that he touched her breasts without her consent. She spoke on condition of anonymity, saying she was embarrassed and concerned for her family's privacy.

Cote and Kopec said they also saw the alleged groping.

"She let out a yelp and backed away," Kopec said. "That's when I knew he had actually touched her."

Kinkade testified in a deposition that excessive drinking and "some normal rowdy talk" had taken place, but when confronted with the groping allegation, he denied touching the woman.

"But you've got to remember," he said, "I'm the idol to these women who are there. They sell my work every day, you know. They're enamored with any attention I would give them. I don't know what kind of flirting they were trying to do with me. I don't recall what was going on that night."

In response to The Times' written questions, Kinkade did not address any specific incident.

"It does disappoint me when people I have tried to help and befriend make crazy allegations about me," he said. "I am a big fan of imagination, but the specific allegations you have described to me are ridiculous and I feel like the victim of a legal stalker."

He described himself as "an average, hard-working guy who just happens to be a famous artist" and said he didn't take himself too seriously.

In the recent arbitration case, he also testified that he had never claimed to be perfect.

"Book of Ecclesiastes says enjoy yourself, have a glass of wine, for this is God's will for you," he said. "It's never consistent with God's will that we behave in a sinful way; however, God also loves us and accepts us and understands that at times we have our failings."

+++

PS: Thanks to Jenny Gonzalez for the unsolicited Photoshop job on this piece from my Painters of Blight show.

This has to be the dumbest case of confession by idiotic braggadocio since those morons made that rap video about how they killed Michael Jordan's father.

Tattletale tattoo inks fate of thug linked to firearm
By Norman Miller/ Metrowest Daily News
Tuesday, February 28, 2006

A Framingham man arrested in May on gun charges after police found an exact tattoo of the weapon, down to the serial number, on his hip was sentenced to five years in prison after he pleaded guilty to 10 charges.
...
Breakspear originally pleaded not guilty at his arraignment in Middlesex Superior Court on July 19, but changed his plea to guilty on all charges. He pleaded guilty to two counts of the illegal possession of a machine gun, second offense, two counts of illegal possession of a firearm without an FID card and two counts of improper storage of a large capacity firearm.
...
At first he denied the guns were his, but the tattoo convinced police otherwise.

What was I saying a while ago about REQUIEM FOR A DREAM acted by muppets?


As seen on Break.com

COMIC BOOK MEMORIES


Remember the new, black, Bucky?

Fuckin' A. 

In case you were wondering what it's like to live in North Korea... 

Why do they hate our freedom? Fucking rednecks should be grateful. I wish my elementary school music teacher had shown us opera. Oh, but I was taught by retards.

Amusing quote from another web site on the contraversy: "Tresa Waggoner was brought to task by several parents of first, second and third-graders for showing a video, in early January, that included images of the devil."

'Faust' Opera Video Stirs Angry Parents

Some parents in this prairie town are angry with an elementary school music teacher for showing pupils a video about the opera "Faust," whose title character sells his soul to the devil in exchange for being young again.

"Any adult with common sense would not think that video was appropriate for a young person to see. I'm not sure it's appropriate for a high school student," Robby Warner said after two of her children saw the video.

Another parent, Casey Goodwin, said, "I think it glorifies Satan in some way."

Tresa Waggoner showed approximately 250 first-, second- and third-graders at Bennett Elementary portions of a 33-year-old series titled "Who's Afraid of Opera" a few weeks ago.

The video features the soprano Dame Joan Sutherland and three puppet friends discussing Gounod's "Faust." Waggoner thought it would be a good introduction to opera.

Her critics questioned the decision to show children a portrayal of the devil, Mephistopheles, along with a scene showing a man being killed by a sword and a reference to suicide.

School Superintendent George Sauter said the teacher should not have shown the video to children below the fourth grade but will not lose her job. She has sent letter of apology to all elementary school parents in Bennett, population 2,400 and about 25 miles east of Denver on Colorado's eastern plains.

"I was definitely not sensitive to the conservative nature of the community, and I've learned that," Waggoner said in Sunday's editions of The Denver Post. "However, from what has been said about me, that I'm a Satan worshipper, my character, I can't believe all of this. My intention was just to expose the kids to opera."

Waggoner, who is in her first year teaching vocal music in Bennett, said she doesn't expect to stay in town.

"I know I'm not accepted here, that I'm not welcome here by the parents," she said. "It's a very uncomfortable position."

Well, I guess they do hate our freedom... 

MORE ON BROKEBACK

It just occured to me: In a few years, not only will people wonder what all the fuss what about, but they will preted they hated it all along.

I SPEAK ON THE OSCARS

I think Brokeback Mountain is this year's American Beauty -- hugely overpraised, and hardly anyone is going to remember why in a few years. I went in prepared for a let-down, because there's no way it could have lived up to the hype, but boy, what a let down. I'm a little mystified by the effect its having on people. It wasn't even the best beautifully-filmed meditation on longing and regret to come out in 2005 (that would be The New World), let alone in Ang Lee's career (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was better). I didn't feel the passage of time -- Jack and Ennis acted like they were seeing each other every five minutes, not once a year or however long it was. It certainly didn't feel like twenty years passed during the film, no matter how many bad wigs or mustaches the actors sported. Heath Ledger is decent, as is Anne Hathaway, especially during her phone conversation with Ledger near the film's end, but Jake Gyllynhall is hopelessly out of his league when it comes to communicating anything other than blank expressions. But as a supporter of the Homosexualist Agenda, I'm glad it's doing boffo nubers, and I wish it all the success in the world.

I was pleased to see Terence Howard nominated for Hustle and Flow. I went and sasw it by mistake (a friend had reccomended "You, Me and Everyone We Know," and I got the titles mixed up). But it's a great movie (I'm watching it right now), and Howard did a great job. It's probably the only mainstream film I've ever seen in which being a pimp and a drug dealer aren't glamorized. Howard plays a seriously lower-economic-class criminal. It's refreshing.

I hope he wins.

AT LAST I CAN RELATE TO NICK NOLTE

I suspect this is how I'd be at Sundance. From Popbitch...

* Nick Nolte went to the Liz Phair VIP
room wearing a white suit, white top hat
and carrying a cane. He spoke to no-one,
stared at the wall and only moved off a
couch to make a trip to his limo every
twenty minutes or so, each time returning
to the same sofa to stare at the wall.

Looking forward to a new fascism...

Sweeping anti-abortion laws proposed

Jan. 31, 2006 at 9:28AM

Legislators in at least five states are proposing bold anti-abortion measures as the Bush administration reshapes the U.S. Supreme Court, a report said.

With the goal of challenging the Roe vs. Wade ruling that ensured a woman's right to an abortion, lawmakers in Georgia, Indiana, Ohio, South Dakota and Tennessee propose banning all abortions except when the woman's life is in danger, Stateline.org reported.

If enacted, legal experts said the laws would be the first absolute abortion bans since the landmark 1973 ruling.

However, some abortion foes worry that state bans could backfire especially since five pro-Roe justices remain in the Supreme Court.

It's as predictable as the sun rising that lower courts would strike down such state bans, said Americans United for Life Director Clarke Forsythe.

It would be better to pass legislation "that can be enforced," such as parental notification requirements and fetal pain warnings, the constitutional lawyer told the state issues organization.

WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR SAM ALITO?

According to the AP's tally, 19 Democrats voted in favor of cloture -- which is to say, against a filibuster: Daniel Akaka, Max Baucus, Jeff Bingaman, Robert Byrd, Maria Cantwell, Tom Carper, Kent Conrad, Byron Dorgan, Daniel Inouye, Tim Johnson, Herb Kohl, Mary Landrieu, Joe Lieberman, Blanche Lincoln, Ben Nelson, Bill Nelson, Mark Pryor, Jay Rockefeller and Ken Salazar.

I never liked her anyway.

Well, now that I can blog from my cell phone, all my fans can expect more frequent updates. Both of you. I will have to figure out how to eliminate all that Verizon-crap from the bottom of my post, tho.

My first mo-blog!

Some punks decided to vandalize the carport at my apartment. I actually think it's not too bad. And I'm grateful they elected to not spraypaint my new car.

This is what it takes to get me blogging again...

Fairies stop developers' bulldozers in their tracks

By Will Pavia and Chris Windle

VILLAGERS who protested that a new housing estate would “harm the fairies” living in their midst have forced a property company to scrap its building plans and start again.

Marcus Salter, head of Genesis Properties, estimates that the small colony of fairies believed to live beneath a rock in St Fillans, Perthshire, has cost him £15,000. His first notice of the residential sensibilities of the netherworld came as his diggers moved on to a site on the outskirts of the village, which crowns the easterly shore of Loch Earn.

He said: “A neighbour came over shouting, ‘Don’t move that rock. You’ll kill the fa

iries’.” The rock protruded from the centre of a gently shelving field, edged by the steep slopes of Dundurn mountain, where in the sixth century the Celtic missionary St Fillan set up camp and attempted to convert the Picts from the pagan darkness of superstition.

“Then we got a series of phone calls, saying we were disturbing the fairies. I thought they were joking. It didn’t go down very well,” Mr Salter said.

In fact, even as his firm attempted to work around the rock, they received complaints that the fairies would be “upset”. Mr Salter still believed he was dealing with a vocal minority, but the gears of Perthshire’s planning process were about to be clogged by something that looked suspiciously like fairy dust.

“I went to a meeting of the community council and the concerns cropped up there,” he said. The council was considering lodging a complaint with the planning authority, likely to be the kiss of death for a housing development in a national park. Jeannie Fox, council chairman, said: “I do believe in fairies but I can’t be sure that they live under that rock. I had been told that the rock had historic importance, that kings were crowned upon it.” Her main objection to moving the rock was based on the fact that it had stood on the hillside for so long: a sort of MacFeng Shui that many in the village subscribe to.

“There are a lot of superstitions going about up here and people do believe that things like standing stones and large rocks should never be moved,” she said.

Half a mile into Loch Earn is Neish Island. From there the Neish clan set forth to plunder the surrounding country, retreating each time to their island. Early in the 17th century, the MacNabs retaliated from the next valley, carrying a boat over the mountains, storming the island and slaughtering most of the Neishes.

This summer Betty Neish McInnes, the last of that line in St Fillans, went to her grave — but not before she had imparted the ancient Pict significance of the rock to many of her neighbours.

“A lot of people think the rock had some Pictish meaning,” Mrs Fox said. “It would be extremely unlucky to move it.”

Mr Salter did not just want to move the rock. He wanted to dig it up, cart it to the roadside and brand it with the name of his new neighbourhood.

The Planning Inspectorate has no specific guidelines on fairies but a spokesman said: “Planning guidance states that local customs and beliefs must be taken into account when a developer applies for planning permission.” Mr Salter said: “We had to redesign the entire thing from scratch.”

The new estate will now centre on a small park, in the middle of which stands a curious rock. Work begins next month, if the fairies allow.