a little bit of a lot

This past weekend, as far as weekends go, was a pretty good one. I had some friends over to the ol' homestead and we partied like it was on sale for $19.99. You can see a photo album for the party and Halloween here.

I'm not really a party fan but it's nice that as people get older their parties get to be more my style. I can't help it if I'm an old man in a young studs body. Anyway everyone that came over brought over food...which makes me want to throw a party everyday. The last couple weeks I've been eating some pretty lame food as I haven't found the will to cook anything decent. Also the grocery store here is so big I get a headache going in it. One day I ate 2 lbs of lean hamburger. All I did was cook it in a big pan and then dump spaghetti sauce on it...I didn't eat any noodles...just the hamburger and sauce. Another day I really wanted a sandwich but I didn't want to go get bread so I just rolled up a pound of lunch meat and dipped it in mustard. Anyway, when a bunch of people came over with homemade treats I knew it was going to be a good time. I spent the first two hours of the party eating. I also spent the last two hours eating. And there was an hour in the middle I was eating too. Rockband was also a big hit. They've been giving me grief because I said I liked it but I just knew it was because they were old and out of touch.

The next day I just sat on the couch eating pie and other sugary desserts. There wasn't much on television so I watched some old Sherlock Holmes movies on Netflix. I also watched two documentaries. One was called "Who the %&$ is Jackson Pollock?" and the other one is about steroids called "Bigger, Stronger, Faster." May be I'm easily influenced but they both made me a little angry. In the first one a lady finds a painting in a thrift store and eventually someone tells her it might be worth money if it is by Jackson Pollock. His "style" of painting was pretty much him laying down a canvas and splashing paint on it with a paint stick. If you don't know who he is look up a painting and you'll see. I'm not an art critic. I have no expertise in the area. And I'm probably an ignorant idiot...but his paintings just look like a bunch of crap to me. I guess they are kind of cool in a messed up way but when you hear the art people on the movie talk about them you would think Jackson Pollock planned each splash...as if he can somehow manipulate the way gravity and physics effect paint. It truly is ridiculous. To me it sounds like a bunch of pretentious people who really know nothing but don't want to sound like they know nothing so they just go with the group. I feel the same way about people who try to tell me Mulholland Drive is a masterpiece of a movie. Anyway in the movie some big shot tells her it's not a Jackson Pollock. His reasoning is basically, "If it was a Jackson Pollock...she would not have it. She is a truck driver. Truck drivers do not have Jackson Pollock paintings." They guy is a real smug jerk about it too. Like he can tell...and obviously he can't because it turns out that they find Jackson Pollocks fingerprint on the painting. They find the same fingerprint on another Jackson Pollock painting, and on a paint can in his studio. What do the smug art critics say then? They say that art isn't determined by science...it's determined by them. They even say something like, "asking the art community to take fingerprints or DNA as proof isn't fair as they don't understand the science." So if I ever murder someone I'm going to make sure that the jury is full of art critics. So then they find that the paint from the painting matches paint found at his studio. The art critics responds: "Jackson Pollock didn't use Acrylic Paint, therefor it's not a Jackson Pollock." Never mind that they then prove that he did in deed use that type of paint by looking at other confirmed paintings...They basically respond by saying, "no he didn't." So then they find another painting that is another confirmed painting...when you hold the two up next to each other you can see that the paint overlaps. It's like if I took a photo graph and ripped it in two, and one side they said was part of the photograph and even though the other half lines up, they claim it's not the same. So really what is art and what is not art is decided by a bunch of asses. What really blows my mind is that either the painting is worth at least 50 million dollars, or worth nothing. It's still the same painting...it all depends on who did it. People are stupid...this is why I'm not surprised when a bunch of idiots kill themselves to catch a ride on a comet that's going to bring them to the promised land. So to combat these idiots she hires some guy to help her. He at least realizes the scientific evidence or at least claims he does to make a quick buck. His idea is that if he can get a group of people to buy this painting from the lady for millions of dollars, then that is what this painting will be worth. So if I sell you a bag of garbage and I tell you it's from a time when Elvis, Jesus, Oprah, and Michal Jordan were roommates, then you will buy it for millions of dollars. Never mind that if the garbage was just garbage then it's worth nothing...but if I get you to buy it for a million dollars, then that becomes the value of that product...

OK I went on a little tangent there...You should watch the movie, and the one about steroids in America...The steroids one really made me think differently about the situation...The Jackson Pollock one made me sad.