Chillin' like a Villain- the Disney Villain Bar

So it was recently my brothers birthday- and when it is my brother's birthday I use my artistic skills to make him something because I do not have any money. Much like those crappy picture frames with abandoned buttons glued on them that you gave your dad for Father's Day when you were a kid.
Anywho my brother works for Disney and loves Disney things (as do I) - so I thought I would make him some sort of Disney birthday card and this is what I came up with.

So there is a bar called "Chillin' like a Villain" and all the Disney Villains sit around in this bar moping about how they are not on a very large number of T-shirts, and sighing as they think about the tremendous retail value of the princes and princesses.

And the bartender can be the nefarious butler Edgar from the Aristocats.

Scar stirs his drink unhappily with a mouse instead of an olive.

The other two are sketches because I am too lazy to color them.

Hades endures some drunken lesser demons- Pain and Panic, much to his chagrin.

 King John from Robin Hood plays a game of darts with Hiss while sucking his thumb. (Hiss gets to be the dart board.)
I also wanted one with Gaston drinking a whole keg of beer- just hoisting the whole thing above his head with his massive arms and pouring it into his mouth.
And of Maleficent (my favorite Disney villain) and the Queen from Snow White and the Seven Dwarves - having a drink together.
But I am too lazy to do them now so I will just tell you about them.

Supposing Truth is a Woman - What Then?

On this Sunday morning - day of posting, I had nothing to say - (a rare occurrence for me, it is more the case that no one else can get me to shut up) and so I started to flip through my school notebooks where I occasionally write down random stuff I think of and I found the following response to Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil.

First Nietzsche: 
"Supposing truth is a woman- what then? Are there not grounds for the suspicion that all philosophers, insofar as they were dogmatists, have been very inexpert about women? that the gruesome seriousness, the clumsy obtrusiveness with which they have usually approached truth so far have been awkward and very improper methods for wining a woman's heart? What is certain that is that she has not allowed herself to be won- and today every kind of dogmatism is left standing dispirited and discouraged." - (From the preface to Beyond Good and Evil)

I wrote a response to this quote in some sort of strange faux gangster lingo:

"Supposin' truth is a woman- what den?"

If truth is a homegirl - all you philosophers be trippin' cause you ain't eva talked to a woman. All sittin around talkin' about being itself. No woman eva going ta talk to ya neither cause you ain't got no jobs. 

Ya cant get a woman sittin around in the agora talking about beauty itself- ya gotta make some sacrifices ta get a beauty in the particular.

I give it to ya straight - women like shiny rocks, but they like sittin' at starbucks tellin' you all their problems even betta.

That homie Socrates, he ain't gonna get the truth no how cause he straight up ignoring his wife. 

But then again she has a cuss ugly name - Xanthippe!? What kinda name is dat?

Anways, if truth is a woman you betta believe that she gonna side wid yo wife every single time. 

Every single time. 

Dey gon make you get rid of the Xbox.

Dey gonna turn yo man-cave into a room for the baby that is pillow-mint yella. 

Deys also goin ta paint one wall of your living room "magic palace purple". And yo are gonna take kids ta Disneyland on yo birthday.

If truth is a woman philosophers best start buying shares in chocolate like ya would buy shares in Microsoft if ya could go back in times, cause ya gonna need a boatload a that stuff."

Oh the stuff that one finds in their school notebooks!

I had always intended to write a post about Nietzsche because his writing is fascinating. I found this task a little daunting because nothing I write could be more entertaining than just quoting Nietzsche himself, (especially his aphorisms) so I never got around to it.
But the other day I was reminded how much fun Nietzsche was when my friend read some aphorisms to us at breakfast before we went to work.
How could one not start their day with some sexism for good times?
Like this one: "Women are considered deep- why? Because one can never discover any bottom to them. Women are not even shallow."
I find this hilarious. My sense of humor might be weird.

It is funny to me that I like Nietzsche so much because he would hate me.
He is all about effeminate, vapid, beautiful women.

Nietzsche: Supposing truth were a woman....she would be nothing like you.

Me: Shut-up.

I feel like there should be a radio talk show called:
 "Bright and Early with Nietzsche" 
Listeners, welcome to Bright and Early with Nietzsche. Today's Aphorisims are:
Aphorism 141, "The abdomen is the reason why man does not easily take himself for a god." and Aphorism 175, "In the end one loves one's desire and not what is desired." 
"And now we are going to take some callers that have just realized they are in fact, horrible people. Stay tuned for Mark who believes Aphorism 141 is talking about beer bellies and Jim,- who says Nietzsche's 175th  Aphorism just showed him that he actually just liked chasing his wife, and he doesn't really like her that much. Ouch! Jim is headed for some trouble!
 Remember to tune in to Nietzsche...so that you can go to work feeling like you have made a horrifying self-discovery.

Playplaces- A flashback to my childhood.

         The multicolored tubular monstrosities called "play places" found at  Chuck E Cheese, McDonald's and Kids Space were the light of my eyes and the love of my life during elementary school. I lived for those flamboyant labyrinths. They were the apple (or um macaroni and cheese) of my eye. I recall the glory of the color tinged light and the slight feeling of claustrophobia that you got when you were in them- along with a the constantly grimy feeling of those things.

         I remember what it was like to drive by one as a kid- my face was pulled flat against the minivan window pane by gravity of the play place. It freaking called to me, and glowed, and the hallelujah chorus played.  Play places were the holy grail of childhood- I would have gone on a pilgrimage to get to one, and would have fought a crusade to own one.
I would have traded my little brother to go to one. ( I would also have traded my little brother for a piece of bubblicious bubble gum, that stuff was awesome...so that might not be saying much. Love ya bro.)

Various observations about play places:
1. It is Lord of the Flies up there man. At 8 or 9 feet in the air - in small plastic tubes that adults do not fit into very well Children reign supreme. (Which is another way of saying that primitive law rules. The first and only command of which is this: "If they look like they could beat the crap out of you, then you have to get out of the way.")
Inevitably this situation would occur: The Plastic Tunnel Face-Off

The weak scoot backwards, the strong crawl forwards.
Or you can look each other in the eyes for an awkward second and then pass each other by crawling on the sides- this is the recourse of pacifists.
My little sister sister would go into one of these things and come out with ten best friends. I would go into one of these things and come out saying "Veni, Vidi, Vici. This is my kingdom."

2. It looks like a Hamster Cage, for children. This is also part of my childhood memories of these things- I was constantly plagued by the question "what is around the corner?" It could be anything. It could be a freaking hamster.

And here we have an Alice in Wonderland sort of issue: Is this hamster big? Or did that kid shrink? I have no idea.

Revisiting these experiences, my adult self has a couple of questions:
1. Does someone clean them ever?
2. Do the smallest employees have to crawl through and clean them out?
3. Wouldn't the unwashed french-fry hands of a billion elated children make the play-places ceaselessly gross? I can picture some little kid sneezing, looking down at the snot cover plastic floor and then crawling merrily on its way.
4. How many teenage McDonald's employees have made out in there?
5. What if a person found out that they were conceived after hours in a McDonald's play place? Maybe this is the well kept back story for Ronald McDonald.

This calls for a temporary digression into the origins of Ronald McDonald:
"One night Betty Ann McDonald (she had gotten a job in her father's fast food restaurant chain but was suited more to burger flipping than management) and a young country teen, Zeek, were left to close up the restaurant. Teenage passions ran high-and a red haired fast food mascot was conceived in that very plastic tube structure. McDonald's was a part of his life from his first instant- and Ronald McDonald lived on to represent the McDonald's franchise for as long as his arteries held up."

6. Do you regret that last question? You should probably feel ashamed of yourself.
Yes. However, I am not ashamed enough to remove it from this post.