this weekend i turn thirty-two.

to celebrate this occasion i am going to have a little get together for 8pm at waikiki wally's, 101 east 2nd street (between avenues 1 and a), for food and/or drinks. you can see their menu on their website (you need flash, it also seems to be taking a while to load so here is another site with their menu here, although it may be missing some items and unfortunately doesn't have their amazingly named drinks listed).

now for something totally unrelated to anything whatsoever:

This style seems wild
Wait before you treat me like a stepchild
Let me tell you why they got me on file
'Cause I give you what you lack
Come right and exact
Our status is the saddest
So I care where you at black
And at home I got a call from Tony Rome
The FBI was tappin' my telephone
I never live alone
I never walk alone
My posses always ready and they're waitin' in my zone
Although I live the life that of a resident
But I be knowin' the scheme that of the president
Tappin' my phone whose crews abused
I stand accused of doing harm
'Cause I'm louder than a bomb
C'mon C'mon louder etc...

I am the rock hard trooper
To the bone, the bone, the bone
Full grown - consider me - stone
Once again and
I say it for you to know
The troop is always ready, I yell `geronimo'
Your CIA, you see I ain't kiddin'
Both King and X they got ridda' both
A story untold, true, but unknown
Professor Griff knows...
"I ain't no toast"
And not the braggin' or boastin' and plus
It ain't no secret why they're tappin' my phone, although
I can't keep it a secret
So I decided to kick it, yo
And yes it weighs a ton
I say it once again
I'm called the enemy - I'll never be a friend
Of those with closed minds, don't know I'm rapid
The way that I rap it
Is makin' 'em tap it, yeah
Never servin 'em well, 'cause I'm an un-Tom
It's no secret at all
Cause I'm louder than a bomb

Cold holdin' the load
The burden breakin' the mold
I ain't lyin' denyin', 'cause they're checkin' my code
Am I buggin' 'cause they're buggin' my phone - for information
No tellin' who's sellin' out - power buildin' the nation so...
Joinin' the set, the point blank target
Every brothers inside - so least not, you forget, no
Takin' the blame is not a waste, here taste
A bit of the song so you can never be wrong
Just a bit of advice, 'cause we be payin' the price
'Cause every brother mans life
Is like swingin' the dice, right?
Here it is, once again this is
The brother to brother
The Terminator, the cutter

Goin' on an' on - leave alone the grown
Get it straight in '88, an' I'll troop it to demonstrate
The posse always ready - 98 at 98
My posse come quick, because my posse got velocity
Tappin' my phone, they never leave me alone
I'm even lethal when I'm unarmed
'Cause I'm louder than a bomb

'Cause the D is for dangerous
You can come and get some of this
I teach and speak
So when its spoke, it's no joke
The voice of choice
The place shakes with bass
Called one for the treble
The rhythm is the rebel
Here's a funky rhyme that they're tappin' on
Just thinkin' I'm breakin' the beats I'm rappin' on
CIA FBI
All they tell us is lies
And when I say it they get alarmed
'Cause I'm louder than a bomb

-Public Enemy, Louder Than a Bomb

topical.

and for your very special day here's two pictures of "the crown":

from the side

head on

those are probably nsfw pics from this event (for the stragglers).

and since it's 4/20 light one up for the big guy.

then you will probably not be interested in drawing restraint 9.

i however loved the cremaster cycle. i liked this new movie but i found the underlying idea to be less compelling than that of the cremaster cycle. the basic concept of this series is energy for creation being restrained from the act of creating.

this idea is supposed to also be cyclical, with an eventual creation and return to a state of restrained energy.

most of drawing restraint 9 takes place on a japanese whaling vessel at sea. matthew barney and bjork are guests on this ship and are transformed into quasi-oceanic creatures when they are dressed by elderly japanese women. you can find a still of them here and here.

they attend a strange tea ceremony with teaware that appear to be the skeletons of sea creatures hosted by the captain of the ship who gives them the history of the ship. the manner in which he gives the ship's history, makes you think that the ship is a whale or perhaps the nation of japan. the crew of the ship harpoon a long cylindrical floating rock that could be taken to represent a whale or the nation of japan.

matthew barney and bjork go at each other with knives cutting off each others feet and cutting up each others legs as the tea room fills up with water. i don't want to spoil the ending for you, but i'll leave you with the knowledge that in shinto mythology whales are said to be the ancestors of the japanese.

that being said this isn't a good explanation of what goes down in the movie, and this movie is just as cryptic as barney's cremaster movies. it's like a moving painting with almost no dialogue and cryptic action.

i enjoyed this movie, although, as i said earlier i find the underlying concept to be less compelling than that of cremaster. i would definitely suggest seeing this movie; but if you don't like cremaster or barney you will loathe this movie because it is two and a half hours of barney.

a few side notes. i thought that the circle with the bar through it that he used in the cremaster cycle was the symbol for cremaster. that symbol is all over this movie, so i guess he is using it as a symbol for himself or for general ideas in his art work.

also, barney became a notable artist when he exhibited a video of himself naked and climbing the walls of the gladstone gallery naked and covered in vaseline in 1991. i wonder if this inspired trent reznor to pen the line "covered in hope and vaseline" for the song "gave up" on his 1992 "broken" e.p.

i think it may be harder for barney to keep this movie from being bootlegged and getting wider notoriety because it features bjork and some songs by her. in fact the soundtrack is listed as being a bjork album.

oh yeah, and yes he uses tons of vaseline in drawing restraint 9.