better living through jason ssg. profile picture

better living through jason ssg.

I am here for Friends and Networking

About Me

Let me shorten this up- "Support Our Troops" means don't use them as terrorists- don't lie them into an invasion- don't make them hated- only use them when necessary, and when you do, pay them well, train and equip them better, and bring them home quickly. If someone thinks that there is another meaning to "support our troops" I'd like to hear them try to justify it.

Think... really think... find your outrage, speak your outrage, vote your outrage, use your outrage in place of your hate.
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Now back to your regularly scheduled MySpace page
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I am.
That's all I'm sure of.
Read on, there's plenty more.

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While we're all figuring this out- here's some stuff-

And now-
My almost never updated "Music" page:

I can't even remember the password to my deviantArt page, so I'll just pretend it no longer exists :)

My Interests

I felt like streamlining this a bit.
I create stuff. It's my primary occupation, professionally, amateur...ly, for business and leisure, I can't simply sit back and enjoy the work of others (though I also do enjoy the work of others)- I gotta get my hands dirty and sling the paint, point the camera, coax a few notes of music out, a few lines of... words of one kind or another. There's plenty of other stuff I like, and "stuff" is about as specific about all that as I'll get for the moment, but that would be my core- the need to get my fingerprints on my surroundings, and a general obsession with both beauty and ugliness.
- A quick list of "other"-
movie buff
music buff
general knowledge nerd
inept social butterfly
or merely an observer... I can never tell which

One great quote, or maybe paraphrase, from an otherwise annoying and lackluster movie- "When man is young- he aches for one woman; as he gets older- for women in general."
Here's some stuff I do, always with co-conspirators and collaborators- like Tim
and ).
And there's also this guy Travis, a long time compatriot, who I've done a fair amount of illustration work and such for, as well as a little bit of writing, so you should buy whatever he's selling.
Yes, that's streamlined.

I'd like to meet:


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Pleased to meet me, hope I guessed my name...?
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People I'd like to meet, as in famous types that I think it would be cool to meet in person, alive or dead-

In no particular order, and for varying reasons- William S. Burroughs, Stanley Kubrick, David Lynch, Seth Green, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Alyson Hannigan, Vincent Dinofrio, Willem Defoe, Jesus, Budda, PeeWee Herman (aka- Paul Ruebens), and a cast of thousands. I don't fixate on anyone in particular.

In general, People I would actually like to meet, possibly facilitated by a thing like Myspace-

People who do things. People who don't complain about the lack of things to do, and then never show up when something is going on.

Artists, writers, indie movie-makers and musicians, spoken-word types... everybody has something to bring to the table... of course, the more your willing to bring the better.
A youthful attitude is always refreshing. I don't need no "I can't be interested in anything goofy 'cause I'm too mature and responsible" types.

And, variety is nice.

Shane MacGowan... unconsciously brilliant. You
can intelligently debate any topic from
theology, history, literature and philosphy...
though only while you're out of your skull on
booze.

Which fucked-up genius composer are you?
brought to you by Quizilla
Alright- I broke my toplist rule. I saw that we could have a yet larger toplist, realized that the most wonderful, beautiful, and important women to me all happen to have MySpace profiles, and so I placed the 4 most wonderful, beautiful and important at the top... someone always has to be left out, and the more I added past 4, the more I felt I was leaving people out- so I stopped at 4. I didn't add any guys- so don't you dudes be jealous, now!
here are the rules as they used to stand:
My toplist will always consist of bands and organizations and such. And yes- many of the bands I put up I do know personally, most I have at least met- though not all. Haven't met Craig Wedren yet, haven't met Nervous Cabaret, but they're a friend of mine's neighbors. A good portion of them I have booked somewhere.

Music:


My favorite band is the sadly defunct Shudder To Think, how I miss you so.
My favorite band to see around these parts is The Saps from Chicago, who are a great band as well as a great bunch of guys and can be seen on Episode 9 of The Progrum!
Go see The Saps any chance you get.
(in no particular order) Craig Wedren, Oval, Pole, Buzzcocks, Punjabi MC, The Replacements, Fela Kuti, Fat Boy Slim, early Catherine Wheel, Frank Zappa (and The Mothers of Invention), Buffalo Tom, HotHotHeat, They Might Be Giants, White Stripes, James Brown, Joe Jackson, Parliament Funkadelic, Yes, Bollweevils, The Streets, Oblivion, Sugar, The Church, Fugazi, The Ramones, Reverand Horton Heat, Product, The Clash, Interpol, Skankin' Pickle, Trenchmouth, Cat Stevens, The Specials, Tom Waits, NIL8, The BeeGees, Madness, Primus, Radiohead, The Sundays, Barry Manilow, Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet, Giant Metal Insects, U2, The SugarCubes, Devo, Warlock Pincers, Bad Religion, Nervous Cabaret, Death From Above 1979, X, Aimee Mann, Bad Brains, Slim Cessna's Auto Club... the list goes on, but would start getting ridiculous. However, I will add that Elvis Costello is amongst the greatest song writers to ever exist.

My general tastes tend towards the generally experimental, punk, older alt-rock, funk and new wave, but I go pretty far afield. I'm no audiophile, but, I like knowing them, because they always have cool tunes to borrow that I never would have heard of, otherwise (like my bud Chris, who turned me on to the 60's and 70's era Nigerian pre-funk stylings of Fela Kuti, and brought me down to Chicago for the Intonation Music Festival- DFA1979! Wooo! And I'm going again this year).
Check these fuckers out!- www.nervouscabaret.com/media.html

Movies:


If I had no choice but to pick a favorite movie- Dr. Strangelove. I like Kubrick flicks.
I tend towards visual, so - David Lynch, with Lost Highway being my stand-out fave (get over it, the plot wasn't supposed to make complete sense, go watch Titanic or Fast and the Furious if you want a movie spoon-fed to you).
Besides Kubrick and Lynch (two of my biggest visual influences), I'm fond of the stuff I've seen by Spike Jones, Wim Wenders, Christopher Nolan, and Akira Kurosawa, to name a few, and I can't believe I left out Terry Gilliam, but I'm even more surprized I forgot to mention the Cohen Bros.
A very incomplete list-
The Graduate, Being John Malkovich, Lawrence Of Arabia, Full Metal Jacket, Adaptation, Seven Samuria, Big Trouble In Little China, Citizen Kane, Batman Begins, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, O Brother Where Art Thou, Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead, Memento, Life Is Beautiful, Wings of Desire, Dead Alive, 1984, PeeWee's Big Adventure, Hotel Rwanda, UHF, Amelie, Brazil, The Lost Skeleton of Cadavera, Bubba Ho-Tep, Blood Simple, Sideways, Barton Fink, HellBoy, Unforgiven (now, there's a combo platter)... just about any Jackie Chan flick (pay no attention to the plot... or lack thereof, just look at the human comic-book character jump around!), and I'm gonna stop, now.

Television:


I dig The Shield more than any other show on TV, during the short season that it has.
I like MythBusters.
I have the television on almost constantly, but seldom really "watch" it. It's like a mildly distracting yet comforting companion, almost like a pet. And as I tend to leave it on nature shows a lot, I suppose that fits.
From the past- Twin Peaks, my all time favorite television show.

And, remember, when TV gets old, there's always time for
Yeah, we'll get around to putting more up there one day... maybe shoot for 2 eps a year or something, heh...

Books:


I'm gonna do the partial writer list thing, because it's easier than titles-
Roger Zelazny, Frank Herbert, J.R.R.Tolkein, Douglas Adams, George Orwell, numerous others I'm forgetting, and the man who made it impossible for me to enjoy reading basic pulp fiction ever again by changing my idea of what writing can express- William S. Burroughs.
I'm gonna throw some kudos out there for Catch 22, just because it's probably the best book I've read in quite a while.
-and, even though they're comic book writers rather than the standard "hey, it's just words" kind, I'll include Jhonen Vasquez (creator of Johnny The Homicidal Maniac and Invader Zim) and Dave Sim (creator of Cerebus), and, of course, the venerable R. Crumb.
I tend to read non-fiction about history, egyptology, quantum physics, criminology, politics, and various religions, but that's mostly just for me and can sometimes get boring to talk about.
RIP, Mr. Vonnegut.

Heroes:


My seventh grade english teacher, Lenny Price, for teaching me it's not just okay to think differently than everyone else, it's preferred, and my college art professor Andy Langousis, for teaching me how to see.

My Blog

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzz!

From an interview by Jeff Arndt in Perfect Sound Forever- "Words like 'crazy,' 'possessed,' 'frenzied,' and 'demented' get thrown around quite a bit. But so do words like 'authentic,' 'visionary,' 'ge...
Posted by better living through jason ssg. on Mon, 09 Jun 2008 02:01:00 PST

I’ll take the one with sprinkles.

I can't always look back and pinpoint momentsthose times that a course shifted"that was when my life changed"So, my thought is this- there are moments that you can look back at point tono one else wou...
Posted by better living through jason ssg. on Sun, 08 Jun 2008 01:44:00 PST

there are things we’ve past but the previous achieve

(note- this time I'm posting it with no comment besides this, next post I think I might pick it apart... because I like the process)"there are things we've past but the previous achieve"if you are pas...
Posted by better living through jason ssg. on Wed, 04 Jun 2008 04:47:00 PST

Fuck who?

Car conversation-"I told him I said 'fuck all of you, and by all of you, I mean me' and he said 'that's pretty Dada.'Heh, well, I don't know if that's Dada... a bit nihilistic maybe, but Dada would be...
Posted by better living through jason ssg. on Wed, 28 May 2008 09:42:00 PST

Giant Metal Insects

Credit goes to G.M.I.- a band from the early '90s who came from and disappeared back into obscurity:I walk the streetslike a living ghostOn Memorial DayOn Memorial DayThe one that I likedI miss the mo...
Posted by better living through jason ssg. on Tue, 27 May 2008 10:46:00 PST

Holy crap...

This is... wow!I will make no other comment and leave it to you- Keith Olbermann makes comment on the administration of President BushThanks to Tim for sending me this. ...
Posted by better living through jason ssg. on Mon, 19 May 2008 08:22:00 PST

I don’t do this very often these days-

So it must be a big deal, heh!That's right- I'm cross posting about a show on my personal profile- last time I did that it was probably about The Effigies or something like that.And it's not even my s...
Posted by better living through jason ssg. on Mon, 12 May 2008 02:30:00 PST

February 2nd? Really? Damn...

I mean- I know it's been a while since I last posted something here... I barely get on this profile for more than a minute at a time a couple times a week just to check if anyone has sent a message, b...
Posted by better living through jason ssg. on Sun, 04 May 2008 02:22:00 PST

You thought it was a bad hair day, in the morning there’ll be hell toupee.

I think I just started writing a song- that heading will be a line it it somewhere.This one is gonna go kinda general. Catch-allish...Every time I start to say something to the effect of "it's been a ...
Posted by better living through jason ssg. on Sat, 02 Feb 2008 12:41:00 PST

Too young for Disco, too old for Goosebumps.

This will begin with what appears to be a pretty standard MySpace rant- stick with me...Seriously, to those who it applies to, stop filling out the same tired old surveys- especially the ones that are...
Posted by better living through jason ssg. on Fri, 25 Jan 2008 09:18:00 PST