In the Supermarket

I decided one day in the supermarket I would take a photo of everything with American- or Texas-related marketing. Interestingly, you see almost as much Texas stuff as American stuff.
As you will see, it's the most unhealthy and tasteless looking stuff you can find that gets the American branding. Sadly, fitting.

Here's what I saw:

We start off with the American classic, the cheeseburger. This one is prepared, packaged and frozen for your convenience, with the American flag in the corner. And what American wouldn't go for a good ol' "gebratene Rinderfrikadelle mit Schmelkäse" aka Cheeseburger?

And of course if you have cheeseburgers you got to have hot dogs:

American Style, which I suppose means made with all the bad parts of the pig and not the good parts like much German sausage. Although it's not very American-style to put them in a glass jar and advertise that they're wrapped in their own soft skin. Notice the prominent Statue of Liberty. A theme repeated in the American Style Pizza Supreme:

Also with American flag decoration. You can even more region-specific with a Texas big pizza, which appears to just be a spiced up pepperoni pizza. Although this combination brings up an interesting quirk of ordering pizza in Germany as an American. If you ask for 'pepperoni', you will get spicy pepper. If you want pepperoni, you would ask for 'salami'. Thus the peperoni-salami pizza below:

And then you have the Texas-Ribs. Already marinated and cooked and ready to go.

These don't actually say "American" or "Texas", but it's close:

It's not just meat, too. Check out the "Old Century Bourbon Whiskey".

Notice that it is "De Luxe". I wonder how much of the 8 euros per bottle is just to cover importing it from the USA. This stuff just seems really scary.

These may look familiar:

"Cool American" Doritos. Of course in the US we just call them "Cool Ranch". And I think when you're on a cool ranch you just call them "doritos."
And finally, I saved the best for last:

Feurige Texas Nudeln. It's like instant cup-o-soup. I actually had to buy this one. Surprisingly, it was actually spicy. Not real tasty. But it was spicy. Which is hard to find over here. Even when something says "fire-hot!"

I WILL vote this time!

Mailed the paper work out today to do all I can to get a ballot for the presidential election.
Last year it took a mailing, several emails, and THEN several phone calls to Virginia to get the people there to realize they were supposed to be sending me a ballot. And then, THEN, after my third conversation with the nice lady in Virginia she acknowledged that they "found" my application and would be sending me a ballot - it never actually came. (Which later I found out happened to thousands of people overseas - makes you wonder when you think about how VA was considered nearly a swing state last election and that it goes without question that most non-military overseas voters are going to vote Democratic...)

Now it seems VA could really be a key state - so I think I'll raise hell to make sure my vote is counted - at least for peace of mind.

Obama signals Republicans face fierce fight in Va.

Some horribly unfortunate Americans forced to pay just over half what Europeans pay for gas

just so they can drive their Chevrolet "Avalanche" (No, that's really the name) that was shipped from Colorado all over Maui.

"After seeing the total, I won't be smiling," Sweeney said as he watched the numbers on the Chevron pump spin faster than a slot machine.

The pump finally stopped at $97.20, which put 24.5 gallons in his Chevrolet Avalanche.

He was elated about living on Maui and being reunited with his black, super-size pickup truck, which just arrived from Colorado, but he wasn't so thrilled about paying nearly $4 for a gallon of regular.

...

"Outrageous. Completely outrageous," said Janet Carone, of Wailuku.

The thing is, it actually evens out cost-wise, because while Europeans pay twice as much for gas, their cars also get twice as many miles per gallon.

Not boding well for my future sports entertainment

There are really three things I think I miss most about not living in the USA: Stores open late and on Sundays; having a car; and watching American sports, particularly college basketball and football. Fortunately the last has been alleviated quite a bit by a TV channel I get called NASN - North American Sports Network. Each year their programming has been getting better, and I've even been able to watch my favorite teams play basketball several times this year. But when they have a poll like this on their site it worries me.

Over FOUR times as many people are looking forward to the Stanley Cup playoffs than March Madness?!?! wtf? March Madness, which refers to the college basketball conference tournaments and then the national, 65-team tournament over 3 weekends to decide the national champion, is in my opinion the most exciting time in American sports. Okay, fine, I can see some people excited about hockey playoffs, but FOUR times as many? And more NASN viewers would rather watch spring training than march madness.
spring.
training.
If they start showing preseason baseball games over college basketball tournament championships I don't know what I'll do.

Disturbing, concerning, yet not surprising.


and then on top of it things like this.

Guns guns guns

It seems like every day now there is news of another multiple victim shooting in the US.
Everybody's seen the stats: in the US there's an average of nearly 100 gun-related deaths per day.
If only we had looser gun control laws, and there were more people around with guns, these shootings would happen less because these clearly stable people would be afraid of dying at the hand of another...no, wait, well,the _shooters_ would be, er dead, uh, maybe after they shot everybody?? and only few more dead from all the stray bullets in the shootout.
Anyway, point is: guns don't kill people. Bad people kill people.
And the security guard at latest church shooting tells us that she prayed to God to guide her bullet and kill the man she killed as she was shooting. As long as God is getting involved, why not pray that your bullet disables the man without killing him, or that his bullets bounce off everybody when he shoots.

Dec 9

http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5gMs56zV1AnRE1wJ71B1sEPAmcLxw
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2004066596_gunman12.html
http://www.wavy.com/Global/story.asp?S=7474851&nav=23iiKxbV

Dec 10
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-me-tremors11dec11,1,3089749.story?coll=la-headlines-pe-california
http://blog.mlive.com/annarbornews/2007/12/shooting_victim_identified_as.html
http://www.azcentral.com/community/chandler/articles/1211cr-driveby1212.html
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/343124_shooting12.html?source=mypi

Dec 11
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5i6or47BFuliL5go-d8cv3e-fMZbwD8TFNP7G0
http://www.wthr.com/Global/story.asp?S=7484095&nav=menu188_2

Tancredo...Before it's too late.




I wasn't sure I got the message until the explosion at the end. powerful stuff. powerful stuff.



I mean, if you're upset about those Mexicans coming to take our jobs, then you will be really upset about those Muslims and their exploding backpacks.

The saddest thing of all this is that somebody must have calculated that this ad would attract more people to this guy than repulse. ahhh, the American midwest......

On my trip to NYC

I guess I'm kind of behind on this. So I was in NYC for the weekend 3 weeks ago or so. Colby had a big opening for a show at a gallery that I mentioned before. This was a great trip. It was a little crazy. Well, alot crazy. But fun. And I survived. I think I actually never adjusted to the jet lag the whole time I was there due to the stimulation of all the people I was meeting and the long nights out on the town and naps and sleeping late or getting up early. And then this hellacious trip home so really it turned out I didn't have to re-adjust back to Germany time.

<- two masses of red hair collide

But this was a convergence of craziness of friends and family. Of course Colby. My Mom flew in from Texas. My Dad flew in from Cali. And then Eric flew in from Cali. And then Amy (from Brighton) just happens to be in NYC that weekend. And Sean is in NYC. And to top it all off, my Aunt, Uncle and a Cousin from Dallas make a surprise appearance at the last minute. These are ALL OLD and GOOD family and friends. Like the best of them. So it was a bit overwhelming to have everybody at once. And then 3 days to try to hang with them! But it was fun trying. I hadn't seen Eric in like 2 years.

Eric and Colby getting angry or something->

It was great to see the two shows Colby was in at the time, and his studio. Colby's seriously blowing up. Or having his 15 minutes of fame (I ain't trying to jinx it, ya know). But his name is getting out there.

It was kinda fun. More than a couple of times at his opening and later at the afterparty/etc, people would come up to me like "HEEEEYYY! GREAAAT show. good stuff. Hey. I'll see you later, right?! allright cool, Colby..."
I mean, actually I crashed at Colby's place one night unexpectedly, and I'm sitting in the kitchen in the morning eating some cereal and his roomate walks in and is like "Oh, you know I thought your brother was here or something last night."
"Umm....I'm not Colby."
"Oh. what? Oh, God. Wait, are you like twins or something?!"
"something like that"

At his studio Colby gave us a preview of a new piece of his going into a third show that hadn't opened yet. So he just assembled his piece in his studio for Dad and I...and turn on the light and BAM! there it is.

See this piece on the right here.
And see it HERE on the announcement card for this show.
Based on the stuff at show of his I was at I'm gonna guess this will be priced at about $6000.

Check out the piece on the wall back here in Colby's studio on the photo below.
Now check it out on the front page of the Village Voice website:
(Article HERE when the front page changes)
I remember this one was $2500 framed if anybody's interested.


















Update: here's a nice picture of Amy, Eric and I. The last time the three of us where in the same spot was probably in high school in Texas in the orchestra room or something in like 1992. Ha. Notice how clearly close and comfortable we are in each other's presence: no touching.
strange looking photo.

June 8th, New York City

So it appears Colby is blowing up. Well, at least he has work in two galleries that are opening shows in the next month. First, some pieces in a show entitled "In Defense of Ardor" at Bellwether Gallery in Chelsea. The piece on the front page there is his.

And then a more prominent show opening June 8th at CRG Gallery . I'm flying in for this one, so if you're gonna be in NYC or around there, holler, and come to the opening. Friday June 8th.

If you've been looking at Colby's website, wondering what this stuff is all about, the press release will give you a clue, although I don't know if Colby actually wrote what went into it about his stuff.

Some observations of the media and the VT shooting

I was in lab the day the shootings happened, and, as usual, checking my yahoo email every couple hours by refreshing my home page. The email page always has a list of headlines of the day, that sometimes I glance at. but just short one-liners. So I first saw this (click to enlarge):

It's interesting, because we are so used to the media telling us how important a news story is, based on the size and typeface of the headline for a particular story. And how big of a picture accompanies it. How many red BREAKING NEWS banners are flashing at us. So I scan these headlines, then think, "Wait. Oh Shit. This is bad. This is huge." Yet this tiny little headline.
Then I go to CNN and there of course is the big headline

I wonder if we got all our news in the exact same format if the most-talked about stories would all still be the same, or if it would force people to think about what IS most important. i.e. not Anna Nicole Smith's baby's paternity test.

What is also interesting is to take a look at the next-day headlines in newspapers around the country and world. There is a very cool site called Newseum that everyday displays the front page of 500+ newspapers from around the world with a high-quality PDF link, and also archives the frontpages of important days in history.

I found a newspaper from Roanoke, the closest big city to V Tech.

Something disturbed me about the presentation here. It was at the top. The "Virginia Tech Shootings: A 12-Page Section". Like they are in competition with the other Roanoke newspaper and need to advertise they have the full-color best special edition coverage of this tragedy for your entertainment. What's more, is it looks strikingly to me like the headline you see on game day. Like they just used the same font and style they did last fall "Virginia-Tech Football vs. UVA: The Rivalry: Special 12 page edition." It even appears to be in V Tech colors.

In Taiwan there was this front page:

Also a bit disturbing, with the cartoon gunman at the bottom and the splashes of blood, one indicating how many victims.

Interestingly, a number of the newspapers from foreign countries did not even mention the shootings from what I could tell at all on the front page.