Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

If you cannot answer whether trump lost the 2020 election, you are unfit for office.

Innocent people do not delay justice.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.

If you are still in the gop, you are either an extremist yourself, or in bed with those who are.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

“Loving your country does not mean lying about its history.”

You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.

Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson is the bland and smiling face of evil.

If ‘weird’ was the finish line, they ran through the tape and kept running.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

I might just take the rest of the day off and do even more nothing than usual.

“But what about the lurkers?”

Not all heroes wear capes.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

We can show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

“The defense has a certain level of trust in defendant that the government does not.”

The fight for our country is always worth it. ~Kamala Harris

The revolution will be supervised.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

Museums are not America’s attic for its racist shit.

The willow is too close to the house.

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Oops

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In the last post, I forgot (it is there now) to include the Dead piece that commenter and fucking brilliant artist Spatula (that is his name for now, he’s had several others) has been working on for the past year. Long story short, I liked the look of a lot of his work, and I approached him and said make me a fucking MASTERPIECE. So I sent him the money, and then we spent the better part of six months working out details, what we wanted, what our mutual vision was. We went through a lot of preliminary drafts, and a lot of arguments, and we came up with something masterful.

Click to embiggen. The scrawling text around the heads are lyrics from Dead songs I love that I chose and had him write in by hand. The frame is an antique he found at a yard sale and repainted, so it is going to have cracks and cuts but a nice clean black finish, and will be perfect. I seriously can not wait to hang this in my living room, and I am thrilled to know it will be in my living room until the day I die. Or get married. Or is that redundant?

At any rate, I’m 42 years old, and this is now my prized possession. It’s perfect, and if you want a talented artist who will do what you want, get in touch with me. I know the guy. And yeah, like me, he’s kind of a dick. But he’s a fucking pleasure to work with when it comes to his art.

I’m already working with him on another piece, this time for Little Feat. I need a couple months to conceptualize what I want, just like I did with this Dead piece, but I am sure we can make something awesome.

BTW- this is why we do our artists in our midst posts.

*** Update ***

Oddly relevant:

Reader Interactions

32Comments

  1. 1.

    WaterGirl

    Okay, stupid question, but surely this can’t be the Spatula that trolls here, is it?

    Edit: in my shock that the awful Spatula troll could be an artist, I forgot to say how awesome the picture is. I can see why you’re so excited about it, especially since you helped create it.

  3. 3.

    ? Martin

    Wait, Speculum did that? Kind of a dick is an understatement, but that’s damn nice work he does. My hat’s off to you.

  4. 4.

    Jerzy Russian

    That is mighty fine looking. I was never into the Dead myself, but I know several people who are. They would give their left nuts for that masterpiece.

  10. 10.

    BGinCHI

    Cole, you are a generous dude to reach out to him and have him do that. You have a big heart.

    I do think the guy on the far left looks a little like John Astin in Evil Roy Slade though.

  11. 11.

    YellowJournalism

    You should get him to do one of Obama.

    But really, that’s nice work. It has a great energy to it.

  12. 12.

    eemom

    I still say you gotta ban yourself for outing him.

    Or are Teh Rulez here only for the LITTLE people?

  13. 13.

    Mike E

    Just so you know: My daughter was born on August 9th, 1995. Her middle name is an anagramic nod to somebody who left the building that morning…Grace.

  14. 14.

    Another Halocene Human

    So, did anybody else try to visit Balloon Juice a little after ten and find a smoking ruin where a server used to be?

    Good to see you are now up and running again, Cole.

    And no, the server didn’t just hang… it spat out errors first. Then it hung. :)

  15. 15.

    PurpleGirl

    When John forgot to include the Dead art in the other post, I went over to his twitter site and it was in his picture gallery.

  16. 16.

    Another Halocene Human

    @? Martin: Smart about art, dumb about politics, posting, trolling, basic human interaction–did I miss any?

    He is talented, that is clear.

    And to think I compared him to my layabout brother!

  17. 17.

    MikeJ

    Just saw that TCM is showing I Walked With a Zombie tonight. Now I not only have the song stuck in my head, I’m hearing, “I Walked With Mitt Romney”.

  18. 18.

    Spatula

    I’m just going to tiptoe in here to drop off my web site address, and then leave before being stoned to death: http://www.timotte.com

    There are more complete albums of my work on my Facebook page.

    Also too: Everything John wrote about how the Grateful Dead piece developed is absolutely true. He approached me out of the blue, and I was really shocked that he did, given my reputation as a pariah here. But John Cole is one of a kind, and I have learned many things from working with him. Among them, a lesson I keep having to learn over and over again, that assumptions and preconceptions, especially about people, are pretty useless.

    Thank you, John, for everything. You are a gentleman and a Dead Head.

  20. 20.

    ruemara

    Artists are assholes. It does not reflect anything in regards to talent, but they are all narcissistic assholes. and if this rocks your socks, good on you. That’s what art should do.

  21. 21.

    Andy G.

    Beautiful art piece, John. Thanks for sharing, and thanks to Spatula for creating it. Music is my passion as well and I’ve had portraits created of some of my favorite singers/musicians by my artistically gifted friends. (Oh, and in reply to the earlier snap poll, NO, Donna should not have been included. Brent rules!!)

  24. 24.

    wrb

    @hhex65:

    I have mixed feeling about Donna. I don’t hate her but she added less to the Dead than she did during her brief time w JGB. The tour w Donna & Maria Muldaur was wonderful.

    I much preferred the dead with Keith. A lot of it is sonic. The spare, percussive, piano sound made it possible to follow Bobby and Phil’s parts. Brent’s organ and synth filled the middle register and the individual parts vanished,

  25. 25.

    Arclite

    You know, the Dead never spoke to me. I never got into the scene, and never really liked their music. Same for the Stones, although now that I’m older, I do like them much better. I was always more of a Zep/Who/Floyd guy. Oh, yeah, Boston and Rush as well.

    Little Feat is fucking awesome though. My parents taught me that.

  26. 26.

    Central Planning

    I recognize Jerry. Who’s the guy on the left? Did John Cleese play with the Dead?

  27. 27.

    Thlayli

    @wrb:

    Who is the fuzzy guy between Phil and Mickey?

    Brent Mydland would be my guess.

    L-R: Kreutzmann, Weir, Garcia, Lesh, Mydland, Hart.

  30. 30.

    The Moar You Know

    @Spatula: You do very good work, and I mean that sincerely. I wrote you off as a loon with no redeeming qualities. Looks like I just learned a lesson about that.

    You really need to take some care in making sure that your online trolling persona doesn’t get associated with your website or real name, I’ve had that come back and bite me in the ass more than once, take it from someone who has been there. Be careful. You’ve got a really good thing going.

  31. 31.

    Spatula

    @The Moar You Know:

    Moar, first of all, thank you for the kudos on my work. I appreciate that and it means a lot to me.

    But I don’t have an ‘online trolling personae,’ thank you.

    I don’t “troll,” first of all, I post what I think and believe and those who disagree call it trolling because that’s the best they can do. :)

    Secondly, this is the only blog or site on the entire collection of Intertubes on which I comment. There is no massive, overarching internet presence. :)

    Thirdly, as Ruemara helpfully reminded us above, ALL ARTISTS ARE NARCISSISTIC ASSHOLES, so my artistic career can only be furthered by controversy and hatred and weirdness, yes?

    Fourthly, if ABL can forge ahead with a public presence given some of the stuff she’s put in print, I think I’ll be ok as a narcissistic asshole artist. We are expected to act that way. :D

  32. 32.

    Cassidy

    I have zero appreciation for art, not in the “art sucks” way but more in that when I hear people talk about art or review it, etc. I’m constantly feeling a combination of “WTF are you talking about” and “Are we looking at the same thing? Is there something that epitomizes my soul behind me? WTF?”. So maybe I just don’t get it.

    That being said, you have fine collection of pictures and I would even consider getting something done.

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