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Friday, June
18, 2004 at 12:25:44 (EDT) |
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Didn't need no welfare state
Now that Motico
has entered the world of legitimate poster art, we are now listed
on gigposters.com,
a site for designers to showcase their work. More than that,
if you're a sucker for a good flyer, you can wallow through
the site and see just how good this oft-ignored medium can be.
I became obsessed with poster art after reading my friend's
copy of Persuasive
Images, a coffee table book that focuses on propaganda
art from the last century.
 My
first love was of course for the constructivist poster of
the early Soviet Union. In terms of creating bold, somewhat
melodramatic images, few could match the Soviet artists in
their iconography. But the poster that really stuck with me
above all was one was the burgeoning Nazi party in post WWI
Germany. The poster itself is fairly simple, just sketches
of German citizens, downstrodded and shabby. In huge letters
the slogan declares: "Our last hope: HITLER." In
the book the poster is presented on a lamp post on a street
corner. A sea of passersby have stopped in their tracks forming
a rough circle around the pole, just staring at the poster.
It's not like there was a lot to read on it, just the one
line. But its visual implication must have floored a people
so beaten down by the previous war that it must have looked
like prophecy to them.
Poster art is no longer the de facto method of getting the
word out the people anymore, what with TV and the Internet.
But I hope it never dies out completely. There's still something
about seeing a really good flyer on the street that can't
be duplicated by these other formats. In fact, the poster's
influence is still heavily borrowed from for website design,
such as Electric
Turn to Me's home page and countless others.
I don't get to make flyers as much as I used to, although
maybe I should. For Motico, I've been trying to stay away
from the Soviet rip-off designs, as I feel I pretty much exhausted
that with my old band. Here's a couple flyers I made in the
past, along with their original version:
"We smite lazy workers."
"Literacy is the path to communism" |
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Posted By Jimmy Legs
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Wednesday,
June 16, 2004 at 14:06:14 (EDT) |
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Eat of my flesh
 Part
I of my plan for ever-increasing job-slacking is complete. I
just got a wireless PC car for my work laptop, so now in theory
I should be able to take this thing anywhere in the country
and still do my job. In theory ...
See, as a perma-contractor, I don't really get time off of
any kind. The agency I work through does offer vacation pay,
however. This means after I work a certain number of hours
(which keeps suspiciously increasing, à la Catch-22)
I automatically get a week's pay added to my next paycheck.
Not too bad, but I never know exactly when the next "vacation"
is gonna happen. Added to that is the fact that a lot of my
job requires me to do things on a daily basis (updating websites
with vital, highly-ignored info) and nobody else seems to
know how to do this, so they give me a hard time when I take
time off. As much as I'd like to screw them over, I know a)
my position with the firm is tenuous at best, and b) I pretty
much have to make up any time off when I'm back on the clock.
So, like the sea
cucumber, which protects itself from predators by exposing
its internal organs as bait, I am resigned to my fate, and
find ways to survive the process any way possible.
 So:
my idea is, as long as I have decent internet access, I can
do the bare minimum of my work from anywhere. If the daily
work gets done, no one can complain, at least not for a while.
Hence the WiFi setup. Now all I gotta do is figure out how
to make the damn thing work.
The card works with the connection in my house, and I see
on its Site Survey that there is another connection
nearby I could possibly tap into. But so far it's not been
working. I guess the likelihood of a hot
spot so near my house is pretty slim, but for this thing
to work I need to know I can log in anywhere. Which brings
me to the commercial services like Boingo
or T-Mobil's
WiFi. If it will guarantee me access in most of the Lower
48, I'll pay for the privilege, I guess. But who knows, maybe
by the time Motico hits the road for our first tour, everybody
will have wireless access points in their homes and connecting
will be no problem. But then I suspect I highly overestimate
the rest of the country's need for wireless broadband access.
Frankly, I don't know how you dial-up people do it, but I
suppose your lives probably have some sort of benefit to which
I'm not privy.
So is anybody out there using the commercial WiFi services?
Anybody using WiFi at all?
I also got a memory card upgraded, so now we can all enjoy
the lively antics of Mr
Bones, captured here in his usual daily routine (MPEG,
882KB).
Posted By Jimmy Legs
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Tuesday, June
15, 2004 at 14:13:53 (EDT) |
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Lazy bones
 Ah,
summer. The cats know how to appreciate it.
We sent off our first order of Motico
stickers, soon to grace every stop sign and urinal in the
city. We're hoping the oval sticker will help people learn
how to pronounce the name, as it seems to give people a hard
time. Then again, we have no real idea how it's supposed to
be pronounced, but this is how we say it anyway. The 'tube'
sticker will go a long way in further leading people to believe
that Motico is in fact an automotive parts store.
Also on the way is a batch of reportedly bitchin' posters
designed and printed by Jason of Stiff
Upper Press. Hmm, now all we gotta do is play some more
shows.
Posted By Jimmy Legs
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Monday, June
14, 2004 at 11:09:09 (EDT) |
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Someone left the cake out in the rain
 I've
realized another problem with my photography. I need to learn
to take pictures of stuff. Most of the photos I took the other
night included cats or people, or both. Rarely do I take pictures
of inanimate objects. I guess I got into this habit from taking
vacation photos. I always hate looking at other people's pictures
of things like mountains or buildings that have no context.
But this only happens when I'm actually looking at somebody's
snapshot collection in a real photo album. Online, for whatever
reason, I'm the complete opposite. I wanna see the environment
in which the pictures were shot. Even a park bench or something
helps. Yet, I never do this myself, except when showing off
new furniture I've acquired.
 Last
night was Meagan's birthday at some bar called Cellar, for
which I can find no trace on the internet. How odd.
This was one of these situations in which the only person
I really know is the Guest of Honor, and she has to run around
talking to everybody. So I am left trying to think of something
to say to her other friends besides "so did you come
from Ohio, too?"
But I did meet some cool people, some other musicians and
some guy whose unfortunate professional fate includes continually
drawing work on various reality TV shows. The real highlight
of the evening, however, was the fact that both the L and
G trains were exceptional in their timing and got me home
in record time.
Posted By Jimmy Legs
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Sunday, June
13, 2004 at 15:04:09 (EDT) |
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I'm the monster in the valley
 As
usual, my weekend hasn't turned out as planned, but one thing
is certain: I need work on my photography skills. I received
my new camera and now have no excuse for the quality of the
pictures I post here. With my previous camera I could blame
a bad photo on the machine; now I can no longer do that. At
any rate, I suspect if I actually read the manual I'll find
out what all these buttons are supposed to do.
MRK was quick to test his signature style on the new camera.
I tried taking pictures of Oneida on Friday, but as you can
see they turned out as little more than indistinct blobs in
the shadows.
Part the Second: BBQ Psychedelics
 I
got a little better yesterday, when it was announced that
a bunch of theater folk were coming over to inaugurate our
new grill that we just got. While not an Official Jimmy Legs
Party, it was a good way to see if we could successfully negotiate
outdoor cooking, considering the trouble we have had in the
past with those super-cheap grills. It looks like we did pretty
well with it, at least better than I did with the photographs.
More pictures here.
The lights are fun for a while, but I'm gonna have to get
better at this
Of course, Mr Bones moves so fast it's difficult to photograph
him
Posted By Jimmy Legs
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