Sunday, January 31, 2010

maniac, brainiac, fanatic for that....



Class is in session...Reading this blog right now means you are checking in via a PC or laptop with internet connections. Everyday words that this generation take for granite. With the privy convenience to log on and look up just about anything known to mankind, email, communicate and broadcast to others. I am a fanatic of this fast pace data processed world that we have become, however it is fascinating to think of the technological advances in such a short time that got us to the present. The other day I dropped by my firends work to say what's up, and we got to jibber jabbin about the new ipad, WOW was the word! Later that day I was thinking about how impressive the new computers are and how much we rely on them, and how they have and will be integrated in to our everyday lives. I daydreamed back to 2 specific times in my life that stood out in my hazey memory that have to do with my first encounters of sorts with the computer. The first being my best friend growing up Ronnie's house, and a commodore 64! We were tranqued by this thing, it wasn't quite as cool as our ataris but it still had this mystique about it. I think the thing that was so peculiar about it was the fact that we had no clue what we were supposed to do with it, I think his dad stumbled upon it somewhere and brought it home, and we just stared at the DOS screen and typed our little hearts away, and nothing happened( remember this was before A windows operating system and before the internet), there were a few games that came with it but the computer end of it was a big doozy! To this day I still remember the frustrated looks on our faces like what the hell is the point of this thing! The next vivid memory that comes to mind is My dad and uncles harping on the fact that I needed to get into these computers because it's going to be the future. Looking back they were right, and they had the best motives for pushing me to get familiar and partake in this new computer horizon, they were all blue collar guys with no education beyond high school, and some of them if that, that came from a family of 8 brothers, so times were usually tough and hard work was the only way they knew to make a buck, so to help avoid seeing their nephew take the same path, they always stressed getting in to computers at a young age, and learning about them. Well, I sorta took their advice freshman year of high school I signed up for computer something or other I don't remember the name the course name specifically. The only thing I remember from that class is pretty much the first computer was invented here in Philadelphia, and it was about the size of a building. It took a bunch of people to operate and service. The class project was a forerunner to graphic design, in the sense we had top layout our own newspaper pages and write about topics.blah blah blah. I lost interest soon after and didn't really establish a relationship with computers till AOL hit big, Internet, and all the chat rooms and AIM. I knew a kid in high school that was way ahead of the time he was on prodigy and used to get credit card numbers from the old manual machines were he worked and use the numbers online to buy super nintendos and segas and sell them at school. Well, I am certainly no computer scientist, I just wanted to stroll down memory lane and maybe even edutain a few folks about the history of these machines that we all love so much.


ENIAC (pronounced [ˈɛniæk]),
short for Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer,[1][2] was the first general-purpose electronic computer. It was a Turing-complete, digital computer capable of being reprogrammed to solve a full range of computing problems.[3] ENIAC was designed to calculate artillery firing tables for the United States Army's Ballistic Research Laboratory, but its first use was in calculations for the hydrogen bomb.[4][5] When ENIAC was announced in 1946 it was heralded in the press as a "Giant Brain". It boasted speeds one thousand times faster than electro-mechanical machines, a leap in computing power that no single machine has since matched. This mathematical power, coupled with general-purpose programmability, excited scientists and industrialists. The inventors promoted the spread of these new ideas by teaching a series of lectures on computer architecture.
The ENIAC's design and construction were financed by the United States Army during World War II. The construction contract was signed on June 5, 1943, and work on the computer was begun in secret by the University of Pennsylvania's Moore School of Electrical Engineering starting the following month under the code name "Project PX". The completed machine was unveiled on February 14, 1946 at the University of Pennsylvania, having cost almost $500,000 (nearly $6 m in 2008, adjusted for inflation). It was formally accepted by the U.S. Army Ordnance Corps in July 1946. ENIAC was shut down on November 9, 1946 for a refurbishment and a memory upgrade, and was transferred to Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland in 1947. There, on July 29, 1947, it was turned on and was in continuous operation until 11:45 p.m. on October 2, 1955.
ENIAC was conceived and designed by John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert of the University of Pennsylvania.[6] The team of design engineers assisting the development included Robert F. Shaw (function tables), Chuan Chu (divider/square-rooter), Thomas Kite Sharpless (master programmer), Arthur Burks (multiplier), Harry Huskey (reader/printer), Jack Davis (accumulators) and Iredell Eachus Jr.[






















Itune youtube we all tune for itube...Mac get at me for those royalties!

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Red, white, blue rumblers in black & white...

Vintage American traditions...Cool guys drove hot rods...



Monday, January 25, 2010

united colors of Ralph Lauren...

The 90's called and said they want their LO back?

young monkeys going bannanas..

Tommy rebel sent me these last week he was cleaning out the brooklyn basement and came across a bunch of rolls of film that were not developed, he got them developed and these were a few that he thought I would get a kick out of...Indeed I did.

Heavy Rotations:
Television-Adventure
Smif n Wessun-Da Shinin'
Ashes-wisconsin ave tour

Saturday, January 23, 2010

Tatterday...ol' time young dudes

It doesn't get any better than this... NY tattoo icons telling tales of the ol' hard nose days of tattoo culture, a time long before the television glitz and glam, a time when the blood on the tattoo flash hanging on the wall, was real blood and not just painted in water color to look tough and grimey. Press play and enjoy a time that has went to the wayside, only to be relived by the stories of those who were there to see them.







Sunday, January 17, 2010

Sunday Funnies....revisited!

Nothing like a glass of OJ full of Ice Cubes...


Bumped into these awesome cartoons while taking a stroll through the internet forrest. They are really funny and imaginative, take a few and view.




Early 9d's throwback...

Friday, January 15, 2010

freedom friday!

As we slide into the weekend, and the work week comes to A coasting halt, we all make plans to do what it is in our time of leisure that makes oneself happy. I feel blessed to have been born in America and to have been able to live with choices of my own expression, and practice. Seeing what happened in Haiti this week, was a reassurance of the privy life that we live in the good ol' USA. It is good to be able to help out a less fortunate country in such a time of need, even though things on the home front aren't all that well. We all have our tiffs and disbeliefs with some of the US policies and choices, but one thing is for certain I wouldn't want to have been born any where else in the world besides here. I often spend weekends in the country sides of the East coast, and I always point out to my wife that almost all the homes fly a flag in their yard. It always makes me smile when we drive by 5, 6 , 7 houses all in a row with flags flying high and mighty. It's a sense of patriotism that we all should share when we venture through life, not forgetting the past and being proud in moving forward to a better tomorrow in the melting pot we call home, and when it comes down to it I like to lean on the tougher of mottos...Love it or leave it!
Peace!
Heres A few pics that were sitting restless on my computer they all portray the visuals for the wordage I was trying to capture.
Viva Americana!
















Soundage...
Sleepy sun- Embrace
Blues magoos- psychedelic lollipop
Siouxsie and the banshees-peepshow

Sunday, January 10, 2010

SURFS UPtown...Urban surfin'

Over the weekend A friend and I were busting it up about local legends, and the conversation weaved in and around various parts of the city, various young gangs, and kids that remain infamous amongst a subculture that is enriched in urban myths, and war tales of friendship, thrill seeking, ball busting, law taunting, fame collecting, and even death. One of the deaths that we were talking about was A young Philadelphia man who went by the name Hawkski or (HS), and how he had been killed train surfing an El train. I had known that HS died in a train related accident, but I had never heard that he had been surfing trains, and that was ultimately the cause of his death.( R.I.P) It seemed like the ultimate form of thrill seeking and walking the edge of life's uncertainty , so I decided to see if there were any videos on the tube of vintage train surfing, didnt find any but did find some other vids that blew my brainials. WATCH THIS ITS AWESOME!


Psychedelic relics...Far out!

As soldiers returned home from WW2 they found the motorcycles being made at home to be heavy and unsatisfactory, The big Harleys and Indians were much bigger, and bulkier then the bikes they had ridden in Europe. Those bikes were sleek, light and fun to ride. As returning veterans began to hang out to relive some of that old war camaraderie they had experienced while on tour in Europe, they realized that the bikes needed to be modified in ways that Harley, nor Indian were going to do. Thus starting biker clubs and the beginning of the chopper(bobber) mods. The goal was to remove all uneccessery parts and fenders that added weight and didn't serve a reasonable purpose. As the removal and modification started as did the creativity, and ideology of customizing a motorcycle. That ideology was of genius, not to abandon these american companies and buy over seas brands, they just stuck with American bikes and streamlined the factory design and played with the motors, while finishing with a personal touch or flare. Backyard builders and mechanics were taking to the task, learning how to strip down and rebuild bikes, weld and put back together a new finished product. Well, what better to top off a custom product that portrays to the passer by's who you are or just your little bit of individualism amongst all the other factory bikes or custom bikes alike then a fresh paint job. I was hipped to this cool art by my friend Den(the peace maker;), who is so entrenched in learning the history and technique that these early guys were doing. Here we are some 40 years later still in awe as to the trippy, or bad a$$ style tanks that were being made during those days, and trying to keep the spirit alive of, in a bland cookie cut world of chrome ad on parts to a 30 thousand dollar factory bike. These tanks are old & new, and new meant to look old, and vary in theme but they all were the cherry on top finish to a custom build. I titled this post with groovy intent, but chose not to harp on the late 60's and 70's daytripper psychedelic inspired stuff, because it wasn't for everyone, but it was definitely neato. Here are some of the tanks that I find way cool.












































Heavy Rotation:
The Doors-Waiting for the sun
Dead Meadow-Dead Meadow
Ian Brown-My way