Hmmmmm....

I found this on the internet today:



Obviously the joke is 'Hur, hur, that dog's in the fridge!"...but does anyone else think this dog looks almost scarily like a slightly annoyed Donald Sutherland?

The Great eBay Experiment – Part Deux

Well, unfortunately my awesome sexy artwork didn't sell, and I don't really understand why not. An hour before the auction ended I was showing no less than ten people watching the auction. I was expecting a last second bid from someone, but it never came.

So, I decided to do it again, but properly this time. Last time I had a quick scan, a few lines describing it and that was about it. This time I've included a scan, a photo of the framed picture and gone to a little bit of trouble to sell the piece in the description instead of just a few lines explaining what it is.

I think the biggest problem is coming up with a title. It's what people will search for and searching for any variation of 'Erotic Art' on eBay is like looking up 'porn' on google.

Anyway, I've relisted it, so if anyone who'd good at eBay feels like taking a look and giving me some pointers, I'd appreciate it. The biggest problem I'm having is the gallery pictures are way too small, and trying to link to a hosted image doesn't work…I've had to just put in the web address of the hosted pic, so does anyone know how to include a bigger picture?

In defense of ‘Old Bond’

The other morning Sunny and I were sitting in the living room looking for something to watch on TV when I spotted 'Moonraker', a Roger Moore era Bond movie.

Sunny didn't even bother to verbalize her displeasure. She just made a strangled grunting noise and reached for her laptop.

Here's the thing. People who don't like the older bond movies always quote one thing: That the older Bond movies are stupidly unrealistic and are all about over the top gadgets.

Now, don't get me wrong, I loved Casino Royale, but to me it was just a really good action movie. It wasn't a Bond film. As a kid growing up in England in the 80's a Bond film means four things: Gadgets, cheesy one-liners, enough vodka martinis to float a cruise ship and Bond having sex with women he only met three seconds ago. It's okay that Bond movies are unrealistic and over the top…because they're Bond movies.

Today, however, I had an interesting thought.

It was only really the last two Pierce Brosnan movies where people started to get sick of the gadgets and I think I've figured out why.

The funny thing is that a lot of the gadgets from the 60's era Bond are actually real today. For example, I remember Sean Connery pressing a button on the dash of his Aston Martin, exposing a screen that had a map with a moving red spot on it representing the bad guy. In 2009, you can get a more sophisticated GPS system on a mobile phone.

Now, here's my point. In 1962 the idea of an in car GPS tracking system was absolutely unthinkable. At that time even something as simple as a pocket calculator was still a decade away.

So here's the thing. Even though an in-car GPS system was totally implausible for 1960's era technology, it still didn't seem all that over the top because all the audience was really seeing was a screen in a car. In the 60's, GPS was science fiction, but it didn't seem sci-fi, even to the audiences at the time.

However, if you want to show some futuristic gadgetry in 2009 you have to go really over the top otherwise you'd simply be showing Bond running around with an iPhone. That's why we ended up with things like Bond's infamous invisible car in 'Die Another Day'.

Now, the funny thing is, Bond's invisible car is actually based on research that's going on right now. Given that in the last fifty years we went from typewriters to laptops, who can say that active camouflage that we can make work in a lab today won't be standard-issue military equipment in 2059?

Basically, in 1962 you could show something in a Bond movie that was science-fiction for the time, but it could still appear plausible. In 2009, it's pretty hard to show a futuristic gadget without wandering into Star Trek territory.

What do you think?

…but I know what I like.

About a week ago, my head almost exploded when the stumble button took me to an 'artist's' website where the aforementioned 'artist' was attempting to sell what can only be described as 'phone-pad quality doodles' for ridiculous amounts of money.

My head actually exploded when I saw that someone had actually parted with seventy-five dollars for a 4" by "5" sketch card of a nude female figure that looked like the artist had created it by shoving a ballpoint up his asshole then squatting over the paper.

Just to be clear here, this wasn't a famous artist. This wasn't someone parting with seventy-five smackers to buy a napkin sketch by Picasso. This was someone parting with seventy-five smackers for a shit doodle drawn by a nobody (and I know it's a nobody, because I googled the crap out of him and found nothing except his website and an eBay auction).

This left only one course of action… I had to try to sell some artwork of my own.

There are two reasons for this. Firstly, I want to prove to myself that I haven't actually gone batshit insane. I know art is subjective, but the only way I would have paid for any of the art from that website is if I'd been caught short in a public bathroom and it was offered to me under the stall door.

Secondly, if people are willing to spend Seventy-Five Smackers
for a sketch card that looks like it's been drawn by a 'special' four year old, I gotta get me some of that sweet, sweet moolah.

So I decided to play it clever, come up with a plan… and I think I covered all the bases.

Two kinds of art sell really well on eBay. Comic art and erotic art. So I drew a Venn Diagram and put myself right in the overlap.

You see, men like pictures of butts 'n' boobs, but what they really like is pictures of boobs and butts that they don't have to feel ashamed about buying. So I wanted to draw something kinda sexy that would allow the buyer to look at his wife/girlfriend/mom and say:

"No Dear, this isn't porn this is art! It represents how women can be powerful yet remain feminine, how a woman can be totally in control in a patriarchal society."

Or completely lie and say:

"Yeah, Mom, I know it's inappropriate and I know it nearly gave Nana a heart attack but it's by this totally famous comicbook artist and it's going to be worth thousands! Don't think of it as a dirty picture, think of it as an investment for college."

Or if they don't care, say:

"Dude, check it out! You can totally see that chick's butt!"

So I pulled out my sketchbook and went for it. I decided to draw something that in internet terms would be considered very mildly 'not safe for work', with a touch of fetishism to help sell the 'arty' side of it. (It's like photography. Put a woman in a leather bustier and take a brightly lit color picture of her waving her boobs at the camera and you have porn…have her reclining on a chaise longue and make the photo slightly too dark, black and white and taken from a weird angle and you have 'art').

A couple hours later I'd come up with this. (I've linked to the pic just in case you are reading this at work and your boss frowns on employees looking at drawing that includes a female butt in a thong…you see worse on cable TV in the middle of the afternoon, but I don't wanna get anyone fired.)

Anyway, once the ink had dried I slapped the drawing in a frame, took a photo and put it on eBay.

That was a week ago. The auction ends the day after tomorrow and while there are no bids yet, there are currently five people watching the auction…so I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a last minute bidding war (No one bids until there's less than an hour left anyway).

The only thing I'm starting to regret is setting the starting price so low (comparatively speaking). After checking out the competition on eBay, it appears that quality doesn't have much to do with whether a piece sells or not. The critical price appears to be somewhere between fifty and a hundred dollars… less and people assume it's not 'good art' because it's cheap, and more than a hundred appears to be overpriced if you're not already a famous artist.

The auction ends on Monday…I'll let you know how it goes.

Let Me Clear This Up…

Kelly posted a comment about the 'Fat Bastard' post I wrote a few days ago, and I found my response was a whole new post in itself…so here goes.

Let me start by saying I think Kelly made my point for me.

The problem with writing about weight is that it's a real hot-button topic for a lot of people and most people automatically jump to he conclusion that I'm saying that losing weight is easy and that ANYONE who is overweight is greedy or lazy. I've got to be honest here, me calling someone else fat would be like a fat-assed pot calling the kettle black

No, what I have a problem with are the people who eat literally ridiculous types and quantities of food (The guy on Oprah ate ten whole fried chickens every single day), get zero exercise…and then refuse to take any responsibility for the way they end up.

Yes, I understand how difficult it is to eat healthy and get regular exercise, and that's why I'm overweight and why we don't all look like models...but I have a VERY hard time looking at the extreme cases like this guy and his enabler mother and seeing 'victims'. Like I said in the post, this guy cries into the camera about how he doesn't want to die and how hard life is for him…and he eats ten whole fried chickens every day.

Forget the 'Go eat a salad' thing, but are you telling me it would be impossible or even unreasonable for this guy to make an effort by eating nine fried chickens a day, or swapping fried chicken for broiled or grilled instead?

Kelly asked in her comment whether I'd tell someone suffering from depression to just 'cheer the fuck up'. The answer is no, I wouldn't. However, I also wouldn't offer any sympathy to someone complaining of terrible headaches while they continually bang their head against a wall.

Let me end by asking an honest question.

Exactly how much sympathy do you think would I get if I went on TV and cried into the camera about how terrified I was of getting lung cancer and dying if I chain smoked through the whole interview? If I was on TV sobbing about how I wanted to see my kids grow up while smoking five cigarettes at once?

The answer is very little.

That's my point. Just because diet and exercise is difficult does not automatically absolve you from responsibility and make you a victim. You choose what you put into your mouth and, therefore, that guy chose to be 800lbs. I'm not saying he should have the self control to only eat green salads and water, but he should have the self control not to eat ten whole fried chickens every single day.

To close, let me clear something up:

People take offense when I talk like this because, as I said earlier, they assume that I'm calling anyone who's overweight greedy or lazy. I know how hard it is to lose weight. I know how hard it is to exercise and eat right…but the thing those people miss is that they're complaining about what I say because they've made the effort themselves and know how hard it is. Here's the bit you need to understand: The people I'm actually talking about and have a problem with are the people who refuse to make any effort at all.