Dear Fat Girl Standing beside me at the Day to Remember show.
Hello there. It’s been awhile hasn’t it? It was very nice standing beside you at the show a few weeks ago. Thank you so much for singing every effing word of every damn song as loud as you could and off key. I am sitting here torn miss… you see, I can’t decide which I enjoyed more. You’re miserable attempt of trying to sing the screaming parts in between bites of your cheddar cheese pretzel, or your giant flabby sweat soaked arm pressing against my side. It shows real character to keep singing, even though every single person near us was glaring at you.
I don’t know what I’d do without people like you at shows. I mean, sure I went to see the band perform, but hearing you instead was totally better. I have been contimplating fronting the money for alittle studio time for you. That way I could get you in there to sing overtop the vocals so I could enjoy it again and again. If only there was a way to make the disc smell like cheddar cheese and cigarettes. Do you have any suggestions?
In closing, it was my pleasure to spend 40 minutes standing beside you. I hope I can meet you again sometime so that you can ruin another experience for me.
Oh boy what a year it’s been huh? I keep a calendar at work, and each day I write down what I did the day before. I guess it’s my way of keeping a journal. Anyways, no one’s going to care at all about this, but I’m going to write about my year, so I can read this in the future and reflect about all the good times I had in ’07. So, in closing, don’t read this then complain that I wasted your time, because I wrote it for myself.
January:
I started off this year on my computer making a logo for Shinyfire.com. It was a squid lying on top of an Ipod, which was used to glorify our weekly pod cast. I also did two tiny paintings… one of King Hippo from Nintendo’s Punch Out!, and one of a drunk elephant. One Saturday night, I went over to my pal Gary’s house to play a fine game of Bastard ball, which is two teams each standing on opposite ends of a racquetball court. You get points by nailing the other team with the balls that are thrown at them. I also went to Southside w/ my pal Roadie and Mosley’s ex girlfriend Emily. This turned out to be a pretty awkward evening due to a drunken horny Roadie and Emily wanting nothing at all to do w/ him. I also made a disco dancing zombie in Illustrator which would later be used for a hoodie design. I also made a custom Valentines Day card for the upcoming holiday. I acquired an old painting at a thrift store in a big golden frame, so I painted a big blue guarding angel gangster on it. The painting is currently on display at Pack Rat in Southside Pittsburgh.
February:
The band “The Mikeys” contacted me to do a T Shirt and Sticker design for them, so I worked on those. I also did a tiny little painting of a boxer with a cityscape behind him. I also did my first public art show at the Creative Treehouse in
Bellevue. The trick was, all the artists had 24 hours to create a piece to be shown in the reception the next day. I painted a blue elephant with a tree growing out of the mouth on its back. The painting is now in California somewhere in some girl’s house that bought it off myspace. I also discovered an amazing drink, Volcanos, when KP, Tim, Benny, and I went out for a night on the town. Tim was testing out his new beard, which didn’t seem to go over well since he doesn’t have it any more. I also did a painting called “Husky Diver” which was a boy octopus sad over a lady pus.
March:
I cut out a big monster face with a word bubble saying MattGondek.com to hang at my art shows. I also bought a new slick computer monitor that is all flat, big, and sexy. I picked up a good book called “The Road” by Cormack McCarthy. It tells the story about a boy and his father walking south after the “end of the world”, which you are lead to believe is from some sort of nuclear attack. I did my first T Shirt for someone else this month too. I made it for Captive Clothing, which turned out to kind of suck in the end. I also designed a skate deck that is collecting dust in my bedroom. Since it was getting warmer out, I picked up a grill and had a cookout which was a nice way to relax after my art show at Peter’s Pub in
Oakland. For the show, I did two new pieces.. One was of Ronald McDonald squeezing his nipple milk to feed some crows, and the other was of God calling a bunch of stone statues “EskiSluts”. I also got stickers made!
April:
My friend Mosley and I organized our first art show this month. Called “Doughnuts and Art”, it was a collection of artists and bands and took place at the Creative Treehouse in Bellview. My band “Doughnuts in November” played there, and I also brought along some new pieces I made for the show. The first was of a confused octopus that some DJ in
California bought. Secondly, I did a piece called Swallows, which is now in France somewhere. It’s of a little angel baby getting attacked by an alligator. Lastly, I did a doughnut themed piece of monsters and elephants. On 4/20, four of my friends celebrated a birthday, so we all took a limo downtown to Buckheads to celebrate. The night ended w/ me losing my cell phone forever, Sean falling off a giant speaker, and an entire leg of lamb which was bought at at a little gyro shop. We ate the lamb that entire weekend, during the birthday party / Beer Olympics. I also started a now nine foot long drawing called Super Husky World, and began work on a painting of zombies fighting robots fighting dinosaurs for the cover of “A Rein of Haven’s” CD. Lastly, my friends and I all went to Flux, which was a big Artitst event downtown somewhere. Most of it was outside, so it was mega cold.
May:
In may this blog was started. I also did a shirt for Shipshape clothing of an elephant and did an Illustrator design of a portion of the nine foot drawing. This piece would later become a flier for the creative treehouse. My friends and I also went to a Girl Talk show and danced our faces off.
June:
The band “Girl in the Closet” from
Texas commissioned me to create a logo for them. After I finished that, I began painting a drunken tattooed pink hippo on an old table I found in the neighbor’s trash. The table was unique because it had about 100 or so tiny little photos glued on it of different people. I also made an arcade machine printout that for my myspace that people could print out and construct. I had an art show at the
RexTheatre in Southside which was a pretty good time because I got to show my new piece of a grub tied to an octopus. Debris Magazine contacted me to do a banner for their site, and did a feature on my work, as did the website Lost at E Minor. My band played in Monaca PA at “SuperFriends 5” and crushed it hard. Everyone was real into it and dancing around which was good because their wasn’t a great turnout for the event. KP and I also went downtown to the Pittsburgh Art’s Festival and to another Flux event which took place right in the heart of Pittsburgh. We had seen a motorcycle get hit by a car that day, which in the end was still pretty crazy to see. No one got hurt. I also went to
WashingtonDC to all the museums and everything which was cool.
July:
I seen Transformers in the theatre and got super excited by the amazing visuals. I also bough a new Ipod, and seen the new Harry Potter and Simpsons movie. My buddy Aaron took me to see Interpol downtown too. I didn’t do much art this month. Only to the Southside works to do chalk drawings during their annual artist festival thing.
August:
Rob Larson from Destroy/ Destroyer and I got together to do a colab piece called Rampage. It uses his signature style of a cityscape in the background, along w/ the Ninteno Rampage characters I painted in the front. I also painted another monster on a aerosol can, which caused allot more problems than it was worth with my friend. A great movie, Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theatres came out on DVD and was a great purchase. I did another shirt for Shipshape Clothing as well as a new painting of some roses. The local paper ran an interview of me talking about Mosley and I’s event, Doughnuts and Art 2.0 which happened this month. The lead singer of Doughnuts in November was also in the interview. I also bought a new car, and ’07 Hyundai Elantra.
September: Like every resident of
Pittsburgh at some point in the summer, I went to
KennywoodPark and later on, a Pirates Game. I was commissioned by Phoenix Entertainment to design a custom pair of Air Force Ones, and commissioned by a clothing company called With Open Eyes to design two shirts. I also went to the Improv at the waterfront for the first time ever, and to the Penguins Open House. When my Birthday rolled around, we took a Limo downtown and almost got in a fight with a racist DJ. We also had a party at my house, and a cookout and wiffleball game the next day. I did a painting of a crying face called “A young Good Looking American” and went to my friends art show, Conceived Bully”, at the Digging Pit.
October:
The band “The Devil Wears Prada” commissioned me to do two shirt designs for them. I also did another pair of custom slip on shoes for a kid in
Jersey named John.My pal Sean and I went to Sonics and ate like kings since Pittsburgh finally got one. I hastily got the tater tots as my side, but secretly wished I had gotten the fries. KP and I went to our pal Wamsley’s house to do a photo shoot for a piece he was working on. It involved me dressed like a killer clown and I had KP tied up about to do some killin’ on her. Our friend had a Halloween party, and in the afternoon that day we all went to watch Saw 4, which is now a Halloween tradition. Fresh Clothing commissioned me to do a shirt for them, and I also did a mural at “Your Moms” store in Bellevue. (Yes I know I’m spelling it different each time)
November:
Wamley’s photo piece of KP and I was entered into the Halloween art show at the Creative Treehouse. My band also played the event and I had some artwork on display as well. KP and I won the pumpkin carving contest and were rewarded handsomely w/ some candy, a free pizza, and a gift certificate for a fancy restaurant. The band “The Announced” commissioned me to do a shirt design for them. A friend of mine commissioned me to do a painting for his wife for Christmas. I also took some time for myself and did a painting of some badgers hanging out in a rose garden in the clouds. I also made a limited edition book called Husky Diver to give away with art purchases from my site. Lastly, I was contacted to include a piece in a “Vice’s” show in
San Francisco. My biggest vice is my bad mouth, so I painted and submitted a piece, called “Smartmouth that’s deece”. The show started today, the 2nd.
December:
I once again went to
WashingtonDC for the weekend with KP. My roommates started talk about making a clothing company called “I Shirt Myself”, which I did two designs for. I also created a logo for Chest Laser, Mosleys new online store which should be out early this year. I also did two different paintings of a purple bird, which I’ve named Morgan Freeman. He is currently having a comic drawn of him by yours truly. Lastly, I bought myself some new toys. An Ipod Touch and a new TV.
Here are some things you can do to your computer at work to make everyone think your weird.
Go on the company hard drive and hunt for the photos for the most recent holiday christmas party. Save a photo of the fattest co-worker you can find, then crop out everything but their head in microsoft paint. Save
Re-set your recycle bin icon to your saved image, so that every time you go to delete a file you can imagine them eating it.
Go back in those holiday photos and now snag the pic of yourself. Open up microsoft paint again and get the pic of just your head again. Save.
Right click and open up your screen saver options. Go to that stupid annoying maze one and set your face so that it’s the walls, floors, and ceiling. Set your screensaver to one minute. Save.
In other news, if you’re a shameless self promoter like I am, you’d probably tell people about a new Interview up about yourself. Then you’d tell people where they can read it.. http://theoddnotes.blogspot.com/2007/12/gondek.html
The more and more I learn about the art world and how people percieve art, it seems the more and more I get confused.
When I was younger, I usually liked bands and certain songs because they “sounded cool” or I liked the hook of a certain song. As I get older though I’ve began to appreciate the meaning behind lyrics more so than the music itself.
There are alot of artists.. big names like Shepard Farley and Ron English whose paintings have a purpose and general themes. This back story on their work seems to entice people to follow their work and purchase it. They have something to talk about when they show off their piece.
On the other hand, alot of artists just make art that looks good. I don’t mean them any disrepect, but unless they outright told you it had a meaning, you would never know. Big names include Alex Pardee and Crayola. Then again, their art is so good that the wow factor is decent enough that no back stroy is needed.
Here’s where I get confused. Up to this point, alot of work I made is just made because some random thing popped in my head and I decided to let it out somehow. People will look at it and sometimes ask me about it, only for me to have no response as to why I made it. Sometimes I think that if I only created work that had meaning, that it would be more accessable to people.
Then again, if I or anyone were to begin anew w/ one purpose to their art, there is always the fear of feeling pigeon-holed. In the future I (they) might feel that some ideas will have to go on the way-side due to that it doens’t follow the theme. The argument to this is that with all your work following your theme, when you present yourself to others, you immediately have a jumping off point to the conversation when they ask about your work.
As I go about my week, alot of different ideas for blog posts pop into my head. Unfortunately, not all of them can be fleshed out into a complete post. Therefore, I just mushed them all together, and got away with not having an actual decent post today. Hooray!
Scientists found this new breed of delicious looking Jelly Fish 3 miles under the ocean! I’m no oceanologist, but it looks comprised of an upper level of grape jelly. From there, we see the body, which is most likely some sort of orange glazed crab meat flavor, with just a hint of butter. Add that whole taste sensation, coupled with those crazy chinese noodle things dangling off of it, and you got yourself on hell of a dinner! There is a store in my hometown that sells diving equipment… I plan to go this weekend.
On my drive to work today, there was a blind man walking down the street with a seeing eye dog. He was dressed in a full suit… but his tie was crooked. It was so sad and funny at the same time.
This is one of the two new shirt designs I did for the band “The Devil Wears Prada”. You can pick one up on their current tour with Chiodos… if you’re into that sort of thing.
All carrots were purple until the 17th century. Look it up
I have been working at my current job for 8 months, and every Thursday this one guy says to me “Is it Friday yet?”. Then he LAUGHS. Not conversational courtesy laugh like I have to do when he says it. This ol’ boy LAUGHS and LAUGHS and LAUGHS. He loves it. I want to be him.
Studies show the leading cause of pedophilia is sexy kids
The other day I was combing over some old stuff and came upon all these games that I used to make. If you’re bored, try some of them out.
The Mexican Taco Nightmare - In this INTENSE fighting game, join Doug Dickens (the Lead singer of the INTENSE band Doughnuts in November) as he fights his way to El Diablo. Is his taco powers strong enough to defeat the lord of the underworld? Play and find out!
Black Friday - in the INTENSE action game, lead your shopper through crowded mall on the day after thanksgiving. Will he be able to complete all his shopping? Or will be trampled by fellow shoppers looking for a discount?
Excite Bike II - in the INTENSE sequal to the popular game, Excite Bike, try to break the world record for the longest wheelie in existance! But be careful! Aliens and falling meteors want you dead!
Wisconsin Zombie Babies - in the INTENSE action / fighting / shooting / puzzle game, you must fight survive the hoards of zombie babies that have overtaken your town and figure out a way to get rid of them. More action than you can shake a stick at! The toughest fighting this side of the Mississippi! White knuckle shooting! If you can find harder puzzles in a game I’ll eat my hat!
Gary Yukon: Freestyle Walker - in this INTENSE sports game, lead Gary Yukon, professional freestyle walker around town busting out the SICKEST tricks anyone has ever seen! Don’t get to crazy though or Gary will biff it so hard!
Alien Massacre VII - in this INTENSE high score shooting game, guide your ship through the hordes of alien invaders. Take out as many as you can before your ship gets gobbled up by the onslaught!
John Wamsley: Flying Beer Boogaloo - in this INTENSE action game, guide the drunk John through the clouds in his flying car while he bites the heads of beer bats. Carefull though, or that no talent assclown Kelly Osbourne will ruin everything!
This weekend, September 28-29, check out the 24 Hour Creative Marathon. Artists can register for FREE online by following the link provided or on Friday at the door (maximum 150 artists) to create a work of art around-the-clock following the theme “Lost and Found.” A gallery show will then start at 8:00pm Saturday to showcase and sell the artwork.
All artists including painters, illustrators, cartoonists and sculptors - from amateurs to professionals - basically, if you create art in Pittsburgh, we encourage you to register for this event!
For art admirers, there will be artwork, food, drinks, and live music to enjoy at the gallery show Saturday night. And your chance to purchase an original piece created by Matt Gondek!
Being really new to this whole blog scene, I feel like that early 30’s something guy who just recently started shopping at Hot Topic and listens to the new Good Charlotte record. He’s just trying to fit in and be cool like everyone else, but at the same time, he has absolutely no idea what he is doing. That said, I have sort of been doing research on how to drive people to our new blog here, and how to make that oh so sweet cash flow come in too.
What I realized is that to make money online, you need people to come to your website, and one way to do that is to talk to other people who have blogs and trade links and whatnot. This is where my problem came in.
Everyone and their mother’s blog is about how to make money online. One guy does it right and now 70,000 people copy him. If all I wanted to do with a blog was learn how to make money online, why wouldn’t I just go to the ONLY guy who is doing it right? Not the 70,000 other bloggers who are trying their damndest and not getting anywhere near what they had hoped for.
Do I want to make money on this blog? YES OF COURSE I DO. Is my blog about making money? NO OF COURSE NOT. I hate when people bite off someone else’s style. Especially when those people are un-interesting, talentless jerks who have nothing decent at all to write about. They spend their time writing about ways to make money on their blog and it isn’t even working for them. I am getting to angry. I need something to calm me down. Where is my “magic eye” poster?
Sweet! A dinosaur!
Those who can, do. Those who can’t, blog.
With all that said.. the new Good Charlotte cd is pretty decent actually.
