Pesky Humans

Introducing the © Knives / Pesky Humans PUNC

2009-11-08T15:55:53-08:00

Now available is the PUNC, a self-defense survival tool that I designed and built here in south Texas. Enjoy!

Check the full gallery of 12 photos here.

Materials:
Steel: CPM S30V
Heat Treat: Professional heat treat w/ computer controlled zero Kelvin cryo process
Hardness: Rockwell 60

Dimensions:
Length: 3.743 in. / 95.08 mm
Width: 0.508 in. / 12.91 mm
Handle width: 1.197 in. / 30.41 mm
Thickness: 0.174 in. / 4.44 mm
Handle thickness: 0.522 in. / 13.27 mm
Spike length: 0.280 in / 7.13 mm

Designation:
Everyday carry, discreet personal survival tool

Features:
Pun©ture point
Skull impact tip
Custom 550 cord King Cobra lanyard handle (70 inches / 177.80 cm un-gutted, single continuous strand)
100% Made in the United States

Available with the following handle covers: toxic green, kelly green, forest green, steel gray, or black.

$100 shipped priority mail in the continental USA. Please contact me for shipping options outside the USA.

Thank you for your support!

Steelflame .45 Killbox

2009-07-06T23:08:06-07:00

Just scored this killer bling from Derrick at Steelflame. It's a piece of sterling silver shot through with a .45 caliber round and mounted in a silver box. Insanely cool.

Hells Angels Rally

2009-06-07T23:52:46-07:00

I went to a Hells Angels rally today with my brother and nephew today. Great time, and I took lots of pics of some serious iron. Enjoy here.

Codak / Gaslamp Killer July 4th Party 2008

2008-07-06T21:25:55-07:00

Warp Records artist Flying Lotus, live from his whip.

Codak and the Gaslamp Killer threw a sick party at their pad in Mount Washington. Appearances included Dimon D (Diggin' In the Crates) and Flying Lotus, who played live from the sound system in his car. Awesome Independence Day fun!

Check the gallery.

Enjoy! ©

Sick Work #1 - The Art of © and Cassandra Simon

2008-05-13T08:17:06-07:00

Los Angeles artists typically have two choices when it comes to exhibiting their work: the mainstream gallery circuit or huge group shows with 50+ other artists. For the artist that wants to show a lot of work, and is willing to pay a 50% gallery fee, the mainstream galleries are an option. For the artist that only wants to show a piece or two, the group shows might be the answer. Unfortunately, for the artist with talents in multiple disciplines, neither of these options is ideal.

I thought that there should be another option for talented LA artists to exhibit their work with just one or two other artists, and without having to inflate their prices to cover an exorbitant gallery commission. Instead of featuring artists who do one thing over and over, what if artists were hand selected specifically for their ability to do sick work in multiple styles and/or media? Such an artist-centered project would also definitely need a space that was as inspiring as its artwork.

Thus was born Sick Work, a gallery dedicated to providing LA's illest artists with a superb venue to really showcase what they do on a grand scale, and to providing collectors with the highest quality cutting-edge modern artwork available in Los Angeles, unencumbered by pretense and ridiculous gallery fees. The gallery itself is a never-before seen space with beautiful hardwood floors, red brick, and 50' vaulted ceilings that will literally make your jaw drop. This grandiose space is located in a stunning historical building 5 minutes north of downtown LA, a couple of blocks from exits coming off of the 5 and 110 freeways, and a two minute walk from the Cypress Gold Line station. I have been to dozens of galleries and group show locations over the last several years, and nothing I have seen comes close to touching how cool this space is.

So here we are:

Pesky Humans, in conjunction with Flyer Property, proudly presents the debut event at the Sick Work Gallery on Saturday, May 31st. Sick Work #1 features the work of © and Cassandra Simon. Paintings, photographs, and limited edition prints and apparel will be available. For details, pictures of the space, directions, and links to the artists' work, please visit www.sickwork.com.

Peace. ©

How-to: dot matrix stencil / wood block print

2008-04-22T09:45:31-07:00

I was recently working on a logo and wanted to employ a dot-matrix pattern, which made me wonder if there was a way to get clean, small holes in a piece of acetate such that it could be used as a spray paint stencil. I looked around and came up with this wacky project, which includes the making of the stencil, as well as a wood block print that is made using the backing board used in the creation of the stencil. These are just two types of hand printing, so I don't think it's too much of a stretch.

I get inspiration from really unexpected places sometimes, and I hope that this inspires somebody to get their create on in some way or another. Full step-by-step instructions and lots of images after the jump.

Step 1: Make a grid of dots

You can get a free dot-matrix font from any of the free font sites, but it's more fun to make your own letters. You also have complete control over spacing. Go to view>show grid in Illustrator and constrain to grid. Draw a circle in one of the grid squares and copy to complete the grid. I also include a bounding box for each letter so that I can keep track of the math a little easier. Experiment with different letter shapes - rectangles, wide rectangles, squares.

Step 2: fill in the dots

Make your letters by selecting dots and filling them with a color. I use black here.

Step 3: Hide the grid and print

Put your grid in a separate layer and hide it. Print onto a transparency sheet. Make sure to get transparencies that are made to go through a printer or copier. They are way thinner than write-on transparencies, which will definitely jam your printer. Trust me on this. Unwrapping melted plastic from your printer fuser sucks bigtime.

Step 4: Secure the transparency

Tape the transparency to a piece of soft wood using masking tape, which won't leave a residue but will stick to the wood. Pine is ideal. It's soft enough to accept the punch cleanly and is dirt cheap.

Home Depot carries a set of 3 pin punches for around $7 or a huge set with center punches and more pin punches for $13. The small set is fine - just make sure you get PIN punches, not center punches. You want the ones with the ROUND tips, not the pointy tips. You will also need a hammer. Home Depot carries a set of 3 pin punches for around $7 or a huge set with center punches and more pin punches for $13. The small set is fine - just make sure you get PIN punches, not center punches. You want the ones with the ROUND tips, not the pointy tips.

A small to medium ball peen hammer is much easier to control than a 24 oz. framing hammer, but as long as you don't swing for the fences, you could use just about any hammer with a metal face.

Step 5: Punch the holes

Center the pin punch on each hole and tap with a hammer. A small to medium ball peen hammer is much easier to control than a 24 oz. framing hammer. The key to getting a sweet dot-matrix effect is keeping the holes aligned. Choose a punch just smaller than your dots so that you can tell when it is properly centered.

Tap straight down onto the punch. It will remove a circle of material from the transparency and will sink into the pine about a quarter of an inch. Practice on a piece of paper so that you can get a feel for the force required before going to the transparency. At about $1 per sheet, you will be glad you tried it on paper first. Hold the punch near the bottom and you will be able to line up the dots pretty quickly after a few letters. It goes really slow at first, but once you get into a groove it actually moves pretty fast. Just remember to triple check before you swing the hammer to make sure the punch is in the middle of the dot.

Step 6: Check your work

Here is the first letter after being punched. Note the round shape of the tip of the pin punch.

Here is the finished stencil:

Step 7: Frame the stencil

There are many mays of getting a stencil to lay flat on a vertical surface. I find framing the stencil works best for me. I built a little frame out of 2x2, but stiff cardboard works just as well. Tape the transparency to the bottom of the frame and you're ready to go.

Step 8: Paint

Putting a handle of some sort on your frame will keep you from getting overspray all over your hand.

The final product:

You can go with one color or, as I did here, shift the stencil slightly and throw on a second color for some drop-shadow action. I recommend blue dots. They push enough paint without clogging the stencil with drips.

Here is another example in 2 colors. The dots are tighter on this one, but surprisingly, there were only a couple of small tears between sets of dots, the result of not centering properly. I was much more careful on the other stencil.

Here is the same stencil with some single color examples. If you're on the run, the single color pieces still look hot, but the second color kills if you have the time.

Now to the block print:

If you punched the holes with the image reversed on the wood, you can make some nice raw woodblock prints using the pine.

All you need is a brayer (get the soft rubber version) and some water soluble block printing ink. Both are made by a company called Speedball and are available at your local art supply store. You can score both items for less than $15.

Put about a nickel sized spot of ink on your pallet. Use something as flat as possible. Glass is best, but for this demo, I just used the other part of the block. Roll the brayer back and forth through the ink until it is smooth on the roller, and then roll it across the printing block over your design until you have even coverage.

Place your paper straight down onto your design. Press down with your hands to make sure it is sticking to the block evenly. Now rub over the design with your hands or the back of a spoon. On pine, I find that rubbing with my hands works better than the spoon, but some people swear by it. Try both. Sometimes the roughest looking prints are the dopest. Experiment and you will find what you like.

Peel the paper off the block and admire your print. The ink takes about 30-60 minutes to dry depending on the weather.

Enjoy! ©

The Best and Easiest Grilling Recipe Ever - Santa Maria Tri-Tip

2008-04-18T19:20:38-07:00

This was originally a post I did for LAist last year, but I thought it appropriate to re-post for summer 2008. Enjoy! ©

Labor Day has come and gone, signaling the "end of summer". But seriously, we're in Los Angeles, so what the fuck does this arbitrary marker have anything to do with altering our almost flawless grilling weather year round? In fact, I would venture to say that it will not even be ideal outdoor entertaining weather for another month or so, and if you are anything like me, you are willing to fire up the grill, drink beer, and talk shit in LA pretty much any night of the year. Maybe you will even take a bong rip, but who am I to judge. As Angelenos, this scenario is our inalienable birthright, and one of the best things about our wonderful city. Which brings me to the recipe at hand. In Santa Maria, California, there is a long tradition of grilling beef topblock over huge open pits of oak. So-called Santa Maria BBQ is certainly the most significant historical use of a grill west of the Mississippi. While not truly barbecue, which is technically a slow cooking method using indirect heat that produces smoke, a true Santa Maria pit is full of dried raw oak and features a grill that lowers and raises above the fire using a system of pullies. Using this system, the meat gets a slightly smoky flavor from the wood, but cooks in a substantially faster time than using indirect heat. By reversing this process, you can reproduce the amazing flavors of true Santa Maria BBQ in your backyard on a much smaller scale, using a 2-3 lb. tri-tip in place of a 20 lb topblock.

Looking to watch your urbane clique revert to their primal roots, forsaking knife, fork, and plate for fingers, bulged eyes, and wide smiles? Want to see your veggie and vegan friends split into groups of people either salivating because they want a taste, or are fully repulsed at such a carnivorous feast? Want to make something awesome, with $20, and at the last minute for a group of 4-5 people? This is your answer. Full step-by-step instructions with photos after the jump.

As a kid, I helped prepare this dish for thousands of people. My dad had a welder create a huge diamond-plated pit that fit neatly inside the back of a Ford F-150, and we endeavored back and forth across the southland cooking beef for several hundred people at a time. As I went into college, having my own apartment, and entertaining for a smaller group of friends, I set out to learn a method for recreating the true flavor of Santa Maria-style BBQ using a typical charcoal grill.

This is my best attempt.

Santa Maria Tri-Tip
2-3 lb. beef tri-tip roast
garlic powder
fresh course ground black pepper
kosher salt
wood chips

You may look at the above and say to yourself, "©, how could something with only five ingredients possibly live up to the extraordinary hype you ascribe to this recipe?" That's normal. The beauty of this recipe is that a trained monkey with a meat thermometer could pull this off. Deliciously, and with aplomb. If you can, use a tri-tip with the fat-cap left on. This recipe works fine with or without the cap of fat, but will be better with the fat. This isn't diet food; this is caveman food, so there is no reason to skimp at this point.

Step 1: Soak the Wood Chips
Take whatever wood chips you have, and soak them in a bowl or bucket of water for 30 minutes. I prefer mesquite or hickory, but you can use any dry, aromatic wood like maple, oak, or cherry.

Step 2: Prepare the Beef
Rub both sides of a room temperature tri-tip with kosher salt, garlic powder, and lots of course, freshly ground black pepper. Don't be stingy with the spices. The spice develops the crust that typifies the Santa Maria steezo.

This is the lean side of the tri-tip, rubbed with the spices.

This is the fat-cap side of the tri-tip, rubbed with the spices.

Step 3: Prepare the fire
I recommend using a chimney with lump charcoal instead of briquettes and lighter fluid. Lump charcoal is made of charred wood. Briquettes are made of sawdust, cardboard, and anything else that will burn. Lighter fluid is a petroleum product, and tastes like, well, a petroleum product. Get some lump charcoal and a chimney and the taste of anything you are grilling will be better. Period.

\Once your coals are ready, split them into two piles on either side of your cooking surface. Close the hood on your grill for about 5 minutes, and then brush the grill clean.

Place your soaked wood chips onto the coals, and position your tri-tip FAT SIDE UP between the piles of coals. Close the grill hood, and note the time.

Depending on the heat of your fire and your desire for doneness, total cooking time should range between 35 and 60 minutes. I typically turn at 15 minutes per side, and then 5 minutes per side for a 2.75 lb tri-tip when the crowd is mostly into medium doneness. If you have a bunch of vampires on set, you can go 15 minutes per side and be done with it. If you want to do it precisely and properly, use an instant-read meat thermometer. It takes the guesswork out of the process and will result in consistent grilling. In this case, my guests are on the medium side of the spectrum, so I grilled to around 150 degrees. A lot of purists would throw away a steak this well done, but at 150 along the edges, you will make just about everybody happy. The interior of the tri-tip will end up around 135-140 degrees, which will satisfy the medium rare peeps. If your whole crowd is the medium rare to rare variety, reduce these temperatures by 5-10 degrees.

Here is the finished tri-tip.

Medium in the house.

Step 4: Tent Roast and Sharpen Your Knife
Now it is time to let the tri-tip tent-roast. Cover the tri-tip with aluminum foil for ten minutes. The temperature will continue to rise during that time, and the juices will seal within the tri-tip. If you try to carve before letting the beef set for a minute, the meat will lose a lot of its juices, which is not a good thing.

Tent with aluminum foil for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, sharpen your carving knife. I use a Forschner that is older than I am, passed down to me from my father from the old school days. Henckels also makes an excellent carving knife. Either are available from your local downtown / Koreatown restaurant supply for about $40 each. Get one, and then throw away your shitty block of Ikea knives. It's better to spread butter with a quality knife that resembles a machete than it is to try to cut a quality piece of beef with a die-cast throwaway with a questionable edge.

Using a sharp knife makes all the difference in the world. I use a set of ceramic sticks to sharpen, and a steel to hone.

This is the final product, ready to get touched.

Step 5: Carve and Serve
You ideally want to carve across the grain of the meat, but this preparation is so tender that it doesn't matter if it is carved exactly across the grain. The way most tri-tip roasts are cut, it is going to be most natural to cut diagonally across the grain, which is fine. This preparation is so tender that even if you were to cut fully with the grain, it would still easily be able to be cut with a fork, or more apropos, using a set of human teeth. I wasn't kidding about the caveman thing.

Slice to 1/4" - 1/2".

Traditionally, Santa Maria-style tri-tip would be served with pinquito beans and grilled French bread. In this case, I kept the French bread toast and opted for a spinach salad. In my opinion, the flavors of the beef will be fully set off by a massive cabernet, but in the words of Digital Underground, drinkwhatyalike.

Serve with garlic toast, spinach salad, and an excellent cab. Enjoy! ©

Mike Tyson mural

2008-02-22T15:44:49-08:00

Full gallery here.

Enjoy! ©

Robots

2008-02-01T03:50:32-08:00

Check this new set of photos featuring robot parts procured from aerospace tape drives.

Enjoy! ©

Sunrise on the 4th St. bridge in HDR

2008-01-29T08:57:28-08:00

Check the new HDR photos of downtown from the 4th St. bridge.

Enjoy! ©

Wu-Tang spiked bat

2008-01-16T11:00:00-08:00

A recurring urban combat weapon in Wu-Tang Clan lyrics is the spiked bat. Paired with the fabled bludgeoning power of a normal bat, steel spikes add an additional aspect of lethality that send a clear message - do not fuck with the guy wielding the spiked bat.

The spiked bat has also taken on a secondary meaning as part of a metaphor for hardcore hip-hop among some of my musically inclined friends. So much so, in fact, that it is difficult to hear something like Brooklyn Zoo or Triumph without picturing myself in a goose bomber, lumbering through a cramped hallway or under a bridge, and lugging a spiked bat - a scene reminiscent of many early Wu videos.

My dad returned from a business trip to Louisville with a personalized Louisville Slugger for me. This was a very cool gift that has now taken on another dimension, as the basis for a real Wu-Tang spiked bat.

Gallery with more pictures here.

Enjoy! ©

2008-01-16T05:59:19-08:00

I just uploaded a bunch of photos of the constantly changing graffiti wall in my studio. I am also including work done on the vertical notepad going forward. Here is one of my favorite new additions.

Enjoy! ©

Macro printed circuit boards

2008-01-16T05:16:15-08:00

Check this fresh gallery of macro photos of computer components.

Enjoy! ©

New HDR photos

2008-01-15T13:25:21-08:00

Here are a couple of more HDR Los Angeles pics.

Check the full gallery here.

Enjoy! ©

Photo retrospective

2008-01-11T07:55:47-08:00

Check out this gallery featuring some of my favorite photos going back more than a decade.

Enjoy! ©

My collection

2008-01-11T07:21:43-08:00

I have been doing a lot of work lately. Here is a selection of pieces currently in the house.

Enjoy! ©

Porno Faces

2008-01-08T11:43:10-08:00

My freakishly talented girlfriend has been using really old porno pictures as source material for some killer paintings. Inspired by this idea, I decided to do some close-up portraits based on porn, zooming in on the one body part that doesn't really get as much attention as, well, the other body parts. Galleries are here and here.

Enjoy! ©

HDR Los Angeles, Part 1

2008-01-03T03:39:39-08:00

My first foray into HDR. Full gallery here.

Enjoy! ©

Microphone painting

2007-12-14T01:20:34-08:00

Happy Little Mountain

2007-12-02T12:06:11-08:00

This table was created by my father, and has since become the most loved and destroyed piece of furniture in my home. I have taken this table apart and re-assembled it more times than I care to count. Fred says I can pour gasoline on this table and then dance on it.

I believe him.

Although I have never completed its intended mission, I have painted, stood on, and covered this table with every possible art material known to modern man.

Palleting a roller on this table produced an unintentional Bob Ross-esque "happy little mountain". This is probably the most accurate representative painting I have ever made, and it was totally on accident. More pics here.

Pesky Humans

Introducing the © Knives / Pesky Humans PUNC

Steelflame .45 Killbox

Hells Angels Rally

Codak / Gaslamp Killer July 4th Party 2008

Sick Work #1 - The Art of © and Cassandra Simon

How-to: dot matrix stencil / wood block print

The Best and Easiest Grilling Recipe Ever - Santa Maria Tri-Tip

Mike Tyson mural

Robots

Sunrise on the 4th St. bridge in HDR

Wu-Tang spiked bat

The evolution of the Studio © graffiti wall

Macro printed circuit boards

New HDR photos

Photo retrospective

My collection

Porno Faces

HDR Los Angeles, Part 1

Microphone painting

Happy Little Mountain