Vote Justin For Pope

It's time I focused on the hotseat issue that's occupying everyone's free time as of late... Who the hell is going to be the next Pope? The one the Catholics currently have has been kept around well past his papal expiration date, and probably only has a good week or two of blessings and damnations left in him before he gets to find out if all this worshipping God was worth it. Well, for all of you who are on the edge of your seats, the list of 9 archbishops up for the gig have been announced, and the race looks to be a close one. I could tell you their names, but you won't give a shit about them after the bomb I'm about to drop on you- I am now running for Pope.

I would make a badass Pope, folks. Did you know that each sitting Pope gets to change whatever rules concerning his office that he likes? Well, my campaign is going to kick total ass, 'cause I'm going to shake things up in the Catholic Church. Here's what's up:

1. For the eucharist, bread and wine are out. If you drop 5 dollars in the offering plate, you get Sprite and a Triscuit. Drop 10 dollars and you get tequila and a lime. 20 bucks gets you Courvoisier and a slice of pizza. 50 bucks and you can eat a piece of Jesus cake off a hot nun's butt.

2. "Get out of Hell Free Cards." I'm gonna issue a coupon book to all Catholics. When you accidentally screw your neighbor's wife, murder someone, or break Lent, just tear out the appropriate Absolution Card and mail it in to your local priest. He'll stamp it and let God know everything's cool.

3. I'm gonna get Easter back to its roots. This rabbit bullshit has nothing whatsoever to do with Easter. From now on there will be little cartoon resurrected men in caves that roll away giant stones to bring YOU candy!

4. Hymns are wicked old school. From now on the love of God will be decided in freestyle rap battle form. And everyone has to participate. Bone up on your rhymes, bitches!

5. Public executions of heretics are coming back in a big way. Any greasy son of a bitch that spouts off about human cloning, abortion rights, or the sun being the center of the solar system is going to get his ass tied to a flagpole, and then summarily torched for Pay Per View. In fact, we will encourage impromptu burnings by fervent Catholics anywhere on the globe. You are the eyes - and arms- of the Catholic Church! Help clean up!

6. Every good and true Catholic will be issued a stick to help beat the gays and herd them into the ocean.

I could tell you more but I know you've already wet yourselves in delight. Here's what you need to do:

Call (39 6) 698 87254. This is some number in the Vatican. Ask about ballot write-ins, and let them know that if you don't see my name on the ballot you are going to convert to Islam and bomb them.

Together we can rock the Vatican, and make the next few decades Popalicious.

Vote Justin I.

Dachshund Secrets Revealed!

Learn the secrets of THIS dachshund. Right now.


Check this link out and make sure you have the audio up. When you have heard the main message, be sure to listen to the others offered below it.
http://www.dachshund-tips.com/googleb.html


One of many public services we offer here at the Art Gallery Blog. Thank you.

Why I Love Retail.

Last weekend we got a royal hell of a lot of snow. It was awesome. I made snow angels on top of the bushes in the foreground, which hurt like a bitch.


It's really, truly, honestly difficult to LOVE retail. Your job essentially consists of monkeyposing, jumping around and telling everyone who falls within earshot how unbelievably badass the thing you are pointing at is. Over and over... and over and over and over and over... and over again. Eventually you don't even open your mouth to talk to people. Your lips flap a bit and some air escapes. Your sales pitch degenerates over the months from a psychologically crafted, carefully worded, amphetamine-excitement ball of Wow into "That's from Spain". And you don't give a fuck. But once in a while someone comes in with entirely way too much money and decides that whatever it is that you are selling is quite possibly the most amazing thing they have ever seen, and out comes the credit card. Ten thousand dollars later, you are calculating a fat commission check in your head and absolutely loving retail.

My favorite part, though, is the constant stream of people. I see, on average, 1,500 people a month visiting my gallery nowadays. This kind of volume occasionally provides me with unbelievable entertainment opportunities via wildly interesting types and wildly retarded dipshits. Also, through sheer numbers I am mathematically inclined to see all sorts of entertaining situations pop up, and I am going to share some of them with you now.


3. Backstory: We have a large stone sculpture in our front window. The front side has been meticulously carved, and the back side was left totally untouched, save for a hole through the entire piece.

A group came in the gallery, led by a woman whom I could immediately tell was artsy pretentious. As the herd made their way around the gallery, she would say things like, "See here how the artist communicates their sense of loss with their fading lines and liberal use of blues, contrasted by the heavy yellows up here which represent that which is frustratingly out of reach." (I happen to know the artists, and that particular one was stoned out of her mind when she painted it and wasn't thinking about a goddamn thing.) She made her way to the sculpture in the front window, except she had situated herself squarely behind it, looking at raw rock. "Oh! Come see this! Look how the artist let the bare rock speak for itself! The hole in the middle is all about a pathway through the stone, representing what is most difficult in our lives." I said, "Yeah, and it gets even better if you look at it from the front side..." She took a cursory look at the front, the part Mr. Sahondo spent months on, and in a snotty tone commented, "Well, it's obvious that he intended for this to be seen from all sides." She took her group and tore out to some place that would be more accomodating to her ridiculous bullshit.

2. At my previous gig here, working for a gallery that specialized in fossils, I was explaining to a gentleman that a certain type of ammonite was approximately 270 million years old. "How dare you spread these secular lies!" He said. "It states in the Bible that the earth is only 6000 years old. Satan planted these fossils in order to throw us off the path of righteousness! Do you know you are doing the work of the devil by peddling this evil?" My manager came up to us, and in an apologetic tone, said, "Sir, we are merely going off of what research has been provided us." "Research? Why don't you research the Bible instead of that ignorant crap you call science!" He stormed out and went to report us to the nearest frothing group of fundamentalists.

1. An elderly woman in a wheelchair made her way into our gallery with her dog tied to the armrest. She cruised over to our jewelry case and as I helped her look at a few pieces, her dog began to make coughing noises. I kept looking down and the dog and finally asked, "Is your doing going to be alright?" "Oh, yes, he's fine... he does this all the time." To which the dog replied, "Hgarflgl", and a gallon of dog vomit was blown forth. The woman smiled, handed me the jewelry she was looking at, and said, "I guess it's time to move on...", and wheelchaired right through the pile of barf. The result of this was that for every revolution of her wheel she would leave a little vomit treadmark, all the way to the door. This was totally awesome.


That's it for now, kids. I'm off to have dinner with a super fun couple and their super fun dog.

The Best Fast Food in Sedona.

I am now going to undertake a scientific analysis of the fast food restaurants in the immediate vicinity. Hopefully by the time I'm done one of them will have emerged as a clear winner.


In order of proximity:

Burger King. Right up the damn street. Like, one minute away.

Burger King has become tolerable due to how freaking close it is. When it comes to fast food, this is not a situation where you change into nice clothes and enjoy the atmosphere. You want to get fatter, and you need it to happen immediately. Sometimes when I'm in the mood for a fat sandwich I find myself going to Burger King because I can be there and back in about five minutes. This makes up for their sad little burgers and onion rings that blew out of Satan's ass. Those things completely suck. But you have to get the onion rings in order to be eligible for their onion ring sauce, which is the best thing on their menu. Their drink selection is completely Puritanical. Coke, Sprite, Dr. Pepper. I didn't mention Diet Coke for obvious reasons. On the plus side, it is two stories, sitting right at the Y (where 89a and 179 meet), so you can choke down their dog biscuits while watching rocks do nothing at all. Also, this is car accident central. I have witnessed a number of wrecks occur here, so there is built-in entertainment value.

Now, I'm not a racist. But I do have to say that I have yet to have a conversation in English with an employee at Burger King. It's a Mexican man who owns it, and helps the Mexican youth out with jobs. I think this is great. It's hard enough to find a job in this town when you're white and have a decent resume. Hispanic? Forget it. Hope you know how to shovel. Anyway, these folks, ranging from high school age to I'd say fifties, really don't grasp english in any discernable format. I go in there expecting to get the wrong order and the wrong change. If, God forbids, anything out of the norm happens, you under no circumstances attempt to engage the employee in a verbal exchange. You just let it go and remind yourself that you are at Burger King.

(out of 10 possible)

closeitude:10
tastiness: 5
selection: 6
car wrecks: 10
total: 31

KFC. 89a, West Sedona

I guess we're not supposed to call it Kentucky Fried Chicken anymore. I understand they changed the name in order to avoid an association with fried foods. The ploy totally worked- I eat there now. This is a nice place to go, mainly because they have Mountain Dew on tap. The staff here never fuck up an order. Last time I was there they were out of whatever it was that I wanted, and they compensated by giving me double my order of chicken strips. That's the sign of quality people.

Trying to eat their barbeque sandwich is like trying to put rubber shorts on a cat in a hot tub. One squeeze and brown meat stuff squirts out everywhere, and even though it doesn't make a farting noise, it would be so perfect for the moment that you hear one in your head. That's why I never get the barbeque sandwich.

They have a buffet, which is totally old school. It has all sorts of things on it, like green beans, corn, and biscuits, that make me think of when I was young and my mom wanted me to eat healthy. This is a total turnoff. I don't go to fast food restaurants for a healthy home-cooked meal. I really only go for one thing here - the tender roast sandwich. With a Mountain Dew. By default the meal comes with potato wedges. I don't know how they prepare these things but a number of them have been fried so long that they have a crunchy shell, in the same way that you would describe a clam as having a crunchy shell. But it's a challenge so I always eat them.

One note: KFC makes the best damn macaroni and cheese ever. If you've ever been hanging out with your hippie friends, and need something to commemorate the resulting hunger pangs, there is little better in this world that KFC mac and cheese. Trust me.

closeness: 7
entertainment value: 3
frying skills: 10
macaroni: 10
total: 30

Subway. 89a, Bashas shopping center.

Ron Subway was very smart to put one of his restaurants right next door to the only laundromat in town. As I have made a habit of waiting until every article of clothing I own to get dirty before heading to wash them, I invariably have to make a serious time investment to get the clothes clean. It turns into a good couple of hours to get everything Bounty fresh, so I bring a book with me and always get hooked up at Subway. Build your own sandwich. Talk about empowerment. I'm like, I'll take that, a little bit of that, a lot of that, and squirt some sauce down the middle. And these grown men obey me implicitly. Going to Subway is a serious boost to the ego. They have salt and pepper chips there, which for those of you who haven't had them is like watching two hot lesbians making out for your mouth. They also have Mr. Pibb. Now, I don't know who remembers this stuff... it seems the last holdout was in the movie theatres in 1985, but now I get the stuff fresh as driven snow. You just FEEL better eating a Subway sandwich. You know what went into it. You watched it carefully crafted and lovingly prepared just for you. This is a quality that is hard to beat.

As far as the food goes, I have no complaints. But the quality of their staff does waver considerably depending on what day you go. Last month I was waiting in a hefty line, scoping out all that fresh bread and crisp lettuce, when the manager started chatting it up with one of the customers. This guy, who was there with his two young daughters, was telling the manager about his daughter being sick and he didn't want her to give it to her friends. Taking full advantage of his considerable wit and tact, the manager responded with, "What? Your daughter is having sex and you're giving her to your friends? Ha har blarhg ha flarp!" For real, seriously. This is one of those moments where the needle gets dragged across the top of the record. Everyone in that place when dead silent, and you could tell that we were all simultaneously thinking, "What the fuck just happened?", and we were all mentally volunteering to kick this guy in the balls.

closeness: 8
social retard quotient: 10
tastiness: 10
Pibb factor: 11
total: 39

For this round, Subway wins hands down.

It's Thursday night and I've got an engagement to attend to... This engagement happens to be blonde and wants to play pool. I hope I wind up being late for work tomorrow. And if that engagement happens to read this, that was pure humor and I wasn't trying to say anything about anything.

This one's for the crew of the '99-'00 Westward Migration Lizard Head Lounge Dance Party. This was from about two weeks ago.


Here is a free sample of my gallery. I'm going to issue one wall with each post until you have the complete set, whereupon you may print these out, affix them to cardboard, and build your own 1:16" scale model of the place.


Here's the text from a brochure I was handed yesterday.

Dolphin healing energy is the frequency of JOY, of MOVEMENT, of CREATING FLOW... flow of LOVE, flow of ABUNDANCE, an OPENING OF THE HEART, as NEVER BEFORE! Linda Offers individual Dolphin Energy Healing Sessions, in person in Sedona or by telephone -or- Dolphin Readings...Dolphins share their perspective to our human questions...in person or by telephone.

This is what we call perfectly awesome. I'm totally Pro-dolphin energy. Dolphins are cleaner burning and more abundant than any fossil fuel. Oh, and also the majority of the people in this town are fucking nuts.

It's amazing how wacky this place is. An extraordinarily cute girl came in my gallery a few months ago, and we hit it off. I was on the verge of letting her know that we should eventually have sex when she mentioned that her current employment involved psychic communication with pets. Owners would hire her to come talk to their beagles, canaries, guinea pigs, and what have you, and she would let them know where the pet stood on all sorts of issues, so that they could work their problems out and strengthen the owner/pet bond. Cue drooping noise.

Don't get me wrong; this is what I love about this place. It's so surreal. Who am I to say that dolphins aren't, at this very moment, blasting telepathic communication toward our fair little town with instructions on how to transform our DNA into a spiritual light body capable of healing the planet? These people are probably on to something. I'm going to be the only dumb son of a bitch left behind when they all blast off for Antares 6 to discover the Godmind from the Greys.


An Example of a Dolphin.
Spiritual Advisor of Lemurian/Atlantean Bullshit

I have given birth to a blog. There is a certain satisfaction in knowing that I am unique and original in my desire to post random things to the internet. Here we go.

I really don't like the word "Blog". It has suggested connotations that don't sit well with me. It makes me think of some slang that describes fat people eating, or the sound one makes when evicting a bellyful of broiling vomit. But it has wormed its way into the wired generation lexicon, and no doubt Merriam and Webster will agree that shortly it should join its brethren in their nice little book. Slang in the dictionary... no one else fights this good fight, so I guess I'll take it up. Oh, that chicken sandwich isn't settling well... blog.

I wondered if I could ever be popular enough to wind up in the dictionary... For kicks I looked my name up and found this:

Justin - (jstn), Saint. A.D. 100?-165. Greek theologian who founded a school of Christian philosophy at Rome and wrote the Apology and the Dialogue.

This is not me. I've never even been to Rome.

I was apprehensive at the amount of toiling that one must undertake in order to be famous enough to get their name in the dictionary. Now that I've found that I'm already in there, I feel a great weight lifted from me. Now I can focus on maintaining perpetual obscurity.

Richard Buckminster Fuller invented the geodesic dome and got a goddamn MOLECULE named after him (FYI, buckminsterfullerene). This is exponentially more preferable than getting a street named after you. Sorry, Garth Brooks, but you know in your heart that it's true. No matter how many country songs you write, there will never be a Garthiton tearing around the neighborhood cyclotron.

The one thing I'm banking on is that eventually I will say something witty enough, and in a prominent enough outlet for words, that my cleverness will be immortalized in Bartlett's. Mathematically, there is a decent chance that said cleverness will appear buried within my compulsive spewing of words here, which is all the more reason to become a loyal follower. It's going to be something so witty and brilliant, once you learn it you'll be waiting impatiently for whatever situation that would be supremely ideal for its utterance to finally occur. And when it does, and you drop this bomb in their proverbial laps, holy crap will everyone within earshot find you to be just as witty as I found myself when I thought it up. That's a promise.

It's what we call "closing time" in America. Time to wipe down the soda machine, lead the ponies into their stalls, and let those two German kids out of the oven. Just kidding, I don't have any ponies.