disjointed to say the least

“disjointed to say the least” – sharpie on paper (January 25, 2010)

I started in the San Diego area and gradually worked towards Maine while listening to Wonderwall Music and before “Singing Om” had wrapped up I was done. I didn’t do it on purpose but if you look closely you’ll see that as you move towards the Northeast the borders get less and less defined. I’d like to think of it was an unconscious reference to Boswash and/or The Sprawl. (If I were to do this piece over and with a more specific idea in mind I probably would’ve included a more overt reference to Boswash as well as references to Sansan and Chipitts as well but that’s just because I’m a huge nerd.)

Taco Recruiters?

Taco Recruiters?, originally uploaded by runfromfire.

I found this in a Taco Bell the other night and it struck as so mind-bogglingly stupid that I had to say something about it.

First off, there’s way too much purple going on here. I understand the concept of using bright colors to lure the eye but this is going too far. It looks like this would be from the ad firm of Harold & Murple. (If you get either of those references without clicking the links it’s because you’re a parent and you have good taste in children’s books.)

Secondly, the girl in this picture is ridiculous. Typical marketing bullshit. Cast someone who’s ethnic but not so ethnic as to be threatening to white people. Don’t believe me? There were 3 other posters styled this way littered around the place: a light-skinned black guy and a white guy who looks like he’d be named Tyler, a he-might-be-Hispanic-or-maybe-Italian guy, twin ginger girls.

Read that last one again. Twin. Gingers. Who the fuck are they fooling with this shit? I understand wanting to project an air of inclusion but this seems like a very narrow demographic to be targeting.

On top of all that our struggling actress/model here looks like she was dressed by a 55 year-old ad exec who put her in what he thinks ‘the kids are wearing.’ The results are just sad and she ends up looking like the ‘cool mom’ who’s trying too hard to relate to her 14 year-old daughter.

Plus, what in the skullfuckery does the Eiffel Tower have to do with Taco Bell? If you want to subliminally make teenagers think this’ll be a cool place to work then go with a guitar or a mastodon or something. Not the Eiffel-fucking-tower.

And what the fuck is with the random grape-flavored silhouette on the left falling to her death? What is that trying to convey exactly? She lost her real estate job because of the economic collapse and now she’s been reduced to working at Taco Bell alongside kids younger than her own children so she’s decided that the only logical way out is to take a header off of a bridge? I’m just speculating here…

Suicide or poorly-planned-skydiving-trip, she’s clearly falling headfirst into this purple Taco Bell building that seems to be under attack from Jubilee. After having her spin-off series canceled, she’s distraught at where her life has ended up but rather than dive off a bridge like the Grape Shadow up there she decides it makes more sense to burn the building down go out in a blaze of her shitty sparklers… and mass murder.

i can see forever

i can see forever, originally uploaded by runfromfire.

Sharpie on paper (November 2009).

This started with my 3 year-old asking me to “draw brains” (she’s a weird-ass kid) and it just spiraled out of control from there. I toyed with the possibility of coloring it but felt like, ultimately, that might have weakened it, left it with ‘too much going on’.