DISGUSTING DIRECTORS: John Waters

Few persons would consider the act of filming a dog pooping in the street so a fat trasvesti can eat the shit a work of art. But if this repulsive scene is done my cult director John Waters then thousands and thousands of fans would praise it and admire it as another geniality from the master of grotesque.


John Waters is a passionate censorship challenging movie maker from Baltimore, USA. You may regard his style as extremely disgusting, because it really is, but you can't deny that he can offer more than vulgarities and can cause a feeling in his audience thanks to his particular humor. Let's see some of his most important works that I've seen:

PINK FLAMINGOS (1972)
One of the most vomitive films I've ever seen. Divine (a fat transvestite, muse of Waters) lives with her mother who's always in a baby cage eating eggs. For some strange reason they try to compete against the neighbours in becoming the filthiest person in the world. The neighbours kidnap young women to artificially inseminate her (with a semen shot) and sell the babies to lesbian couples. At the end, Divine executes them, eats dog shit and wins the contest.








POLYESTER (1981)
I never saw this one but I remember very well its publicity in Mexican television when it arrived in 1988 or 1989: "First ever movie filmed in smell o vision". At the beggining of the movie the audience receives a scratch and sniff card with ten squares numbered 1 to 10. When you see No. 1 on the screen you scratch that square and smell it. The possible odors were flowers, grass, pizza, glue and shit. In 2004 Waters happily remembered the joy he felt when people paid to smell shit.








HAIRSPRAY (1988)
Colorful musical set in the 60s famous for being Waters' first movie not rated NC17 or XXX. A fatty girl (Ricki Lake) hopes she can appear on a tv dancing show but when her dream comes true she realizes the way they used to segregate the negros and ends up in jail for protesting. Divine plays the role of her ironing mother.






CRYBABY (1990)
Another musical for almost all the family that is parody of Grease and Elvis Presley movies. The film stars a young lad called Johnny Depp, Ricki Lake (Hairspray) and rock superstar Iggy Pop.













SERIAL MOM (1994)
Kathleen Turner plays a traditional housewife with the twist that if someone says something about her children she kills them. At the end she kills so many people that the police catches her but manages to get a "not guilty" veredict in her trial thanks to her "techniques". In my opinion this is Waters' most fun and "normal" movie of his filmography.






A DIRTY SHAME (2004)
Johnny Knoxville (Jackass) is a sex addict that using hits to the head turns a whole Baltimore suburb (where almost all of Waters' films occur) in his disciples. The first victim is a conservative lady (Tracey Ullman, from the show where the Simpsons first appeared) that previously had tied her exhibitionist daughter (Selma Blair) for being a sex addict too (and having giant tits). In one of the best scenes, David Hasselhoff poops from a flying plane and the shit lands of someone head making him a sex addict too. At the end, Knoxville turns into a giant penis and spits semen at everyone.






HAIRSPRAY (2007)
Remake of the original 1988 musical. Waters isn't the director but he has a cameo appeareance as a flahser. The role that Divine played in the original film is now done by John Travolta, who I personally don't like him very much for being a scientologist, but he looks funny anyway. This movies feautures great performances from Michelle Pfieffer, Christopher Walker, Queen Latifah, Zac Efron (from High School Musical), James Marsden (X-Men) and the first timer Niki Blonsky as Tracy Turnblad.






Moments later, they exploded.


And now, the final song:



Waters and Homer Simpson

John Waters has become a very important human rights defender specially against racism and homophobia. In 1997 he appeared in an episode of The Simpsons where Homer is homophobic and thinks Bart is gay. At the end he stops hating fags when Waters saves his life from a pack of reindeers.

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The newest and most sensational addition to the blogosphere has arrived: click here!

Actually, this blog is only some samples of my graphic design works for the whole world to see and admire. If you like what you see and need any kind of design please don't hesitate to request one. Economical prices!

WORLD TOUR: Edinburgh

Welcome to Edinburgh, world capital city of Scotch and even of burlesque.

The first thing you see when you get off the plane in the airport is this giant billboard saying: Welcome to Scotland, the greatest small country in the world. If you add the fact that the main street is full of Scottish flags every two meters you can realize that these guys don't like it very much to be under the rule of the British Crown (just the opposite of Northern Ireland). It's like saying "don't you even dare to confuse us with the English, huh" in their traditional almost incomprehensible accent.

And by the way, if you already didn't know, men just wear skirts when they're performing something, not on a regular basis on the street.


Standing infront of the bridge that crosses the train station with paper mind's second photographer in charge. (I'm the first one, and the third one took this picture).


St. Giles Cathedral. I bet Sean Connery, famous edimburger actor, once standed where I was.


The one and only Edinburgh Castle.


Prisioners in the castle sleeped like this.


Scott Monument (the author of Rob Roy and Ivanhoe) in Scot Land.

HOMICIDE, SUICIDE: Chris Benoit

Come on, is this the face of a killer?

Chris Benoit, one of the best technician wrestlers that the world has ever seen, was found dead after hanging himself with the weight machines in his homes. Previously, he killed his wife and his mentally retarded 7 year old boy.

What were his reasons for killing them? Who knows. Could years and years of desensibilisation to pain and suffering? A roid rage caused by all the steorids he used to take? I don't think so, taking in account the Bibles found next to his family's bodies. Certainly, it was religious fanatism mixed with some psychiatric disease. So, instead of blaming steroids or wrestling, blame religion!

The funniest thing is that he pretty much stole the "homicide, suicide, genocide, death defying" nickname that his partner Sabu had. Well, he didn't enough have time for the genocide part.


Benoit's highest point of his carreer came in WrestleMania XX, defeating Triple H for the World Heavyweight Championship. Here we see him celebrating with his long time Mexican friend the now also dead Eddie Guerrero, who had just defended successfully his WWE Championship.

The worst of all is that this has ruined the whole "Death of McMahon" storyline where the owner of the WWE died in a limo explosion and the search for the killer was just beggining. Vince McMahon had to appear on camera to express his condolences and present a tribute to Benoit and the next day had to apologize for broadcasting a tribute for a murderer.

UPDATE NOTE:
A couple of videos from Benoit's greates moments used to be here. But the bastards at youtube pulled them out of their website. So instead, here's a photo tribute to Nancy Benoit, better known in the wrestling world as "Woman".


No wonder Benoit killed her!

DO YOU HAVE A PROBLEM WITH: the London 2012 logo?

The logo for the London 2012 Olympic Games has been revealed and it’s… different. Never before has an Olympic symbol caused so much reject and discomfort in the public, a poll showed that 80% of Londoners are against the design and demand its immediate substitution. All the British newspapers have done everything at their disposition to ridicule and attack this creation. With all due respect, to all of them I said: screw you, are you a graphic designer? No, most certainly not. And if they are, well, to bad for you.

Of course, this is not the greatest design in history (the only thing that bothers me is the London typography, which I think is too thin and its location is not quite the best one), but I congratulate de brand consultancy that created it for doing something that’s not conventional and present an authentic artistic creation of our times. Graffiti has become an integral part, like it or not, of any modern city, and this symbol is based upon this concept to show us an attractive and colourful image.

The worst thing is that most of the media question the price of £400,000 paid for it, saying that anyone could have done a better “little drawing”. This is a big problem for all of the graphic design industry in general. The world cannot undervalue a profession that, based in aesthetics and technique, gives flavour to our surroundings. Only a professional designer knows what’s visually appropriate and its regrettable that anyone believes he or she has the authority to say what’s good and what’s not. One doesn’t question the decisions and ways of a doctor or a plumber (in their own fields, of course) and specially not it’s an established world brand consultancy, like the one who created this dynamic new symbol.

I REMEMBER: The Nintendo Entertainment System.

Yes, I remember it as if it was just yesterday. The most succesful videogame console ever and lord and saviour of the whole videogame industry after the awful crisis created by the dreadful Atari consoles. So lets do a trip down memory lane to the greatest decades of all time: the 1980s.
The year was 1987, I was just 6 years old and one day I went to one of my richest friend's birthday party. After leaving a pretty popular pizza parlor (with a man in a dirty giant mouse costume) we went to his home. When we arrived there some guys were already sitting in front the TV staring at it. As I watched the screen I noticed they were moving a little guy in a world full of breakable bricks, pipes, mushrooms and piranha plants. I focused then my eyes in the upper left corner of the screen to clearly see the name "MARIO" (which is my name, if you didn't know) above the score. I suddenly exclaimed in a loud imperative voice:

-"Hey, goddammit! It's my turn to play! It says Mario right there!" (In a sort of Cartman voice I assume now)
And everyone told me then,
-"No way, dude! That's the name of the game. It's not you!
That was a turning point in my life, Nintendo was calling me by my name to play it.
- "Ok then, it's my turn after Alex who is playing now, you bitches" (Remember I'm recalling it as if I were Cartman)
- "You wish! 15 other kids will play and then you".
Then I told them all, quite disappointed and sad:
-"Screw you guys, I'm going home".

But I didn't go home, I stayed there patiently waiting for my turn. Secret underground worlds, above the clouds and under the water accesible by pipes or large plants (like Jack and the Beanstalk), all thanks to hallucinations caused by ingesting orange and green mushrooms. Finally a full interactive fantasy world was available for me without having to use my own imagination. Without a shadow of a doubt, videogames are the genesis of a virtual reality world (like Matrix, of course).

That time I only played Super Mario Bros. and Burger Time, the classic game of stepping on various ingredients to make a giant hamburger. But the fire was already burning inside me.



Christmas was still 4 months away, but my list for Santa Claus was already done: a Nintendo. During all that time I only played it again with my cousin, but he only played Zelda 2 (which was good, but not what I wanted). Finally, December 25 arrived. I spent the whole morning playing until my parent ordered me to stop doing it to go to the Christmas Supper with my grandma. The temptation to play was so big that I got sick before we even began eating (ok, I faked it) and they took me back home to play.

The beggining of everything. My videoplaying days had just begun...

Now lets see some of those classic games from that era (they might not be the best, some of them aren't even good, but they're the ones who made a mark on me).


MEGAMAN 2- The best music, until, then, in a videogame in the best game about robots destroying other robots to obtain their power in history.


DUCK HUNT- The Zapper (gun) has been one of the coolest peripherals and this, the only good game done for it. The only thing I hated was not being able to shoot at the dog when he laughed at you when you missed.
Classic cheat- Putting the gun an centimeter away from the screen to never miss.


A BOY AND HIS BLOB- A blob follows a boy that gives him different jellybeans to make him turn into different things, necessary for your adventure. Pretty original for its time, I think.


YI AR KUNG FU- I think this game didn't even came out for the NES, but I used to play it alot in the arcades. It is, officially, the original 1-0n-1 fighting game which games like Street Fighter 2 were based upon later. You only controlled a karate kid that only high kicked, low kicked, high punched, low punched and jumped (and always said PPPTOOOOOO, PPTOOOO) and when you defeated the bad guys they fell on their backs with their legs pointing upwards.


TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES- This game came out before the turtles were famous, I think. Its very high difficulty and the fact that it was never clear what you had to do next made me realize not all games were good...

...until more game came out like these ones, which only reinforced that fact:


FRIDAY THE 13TH- Hours and Hours walking around a lake and thousands of rooms in thousands of cabins (which all looked the same) looking for Jason. Isn't he's supposed to be the one chasing you? How could this be scary or mildly entertaining? I realized at this point that all games based on licenced characters are complete garbage made only to make money (except Batman and DuckTales, of course).


BACK TO THE FUTURE- Another fine example of licenced games. Here you helped lil Marty McFly defeat giant bees and guys carrying big glasses using bowling balls and skateboards before the image on a picture dissapeared. It was impossible to pass the cafeteria level! The worst thing was when you died you had to repeat everything from the beggining. I played this a lot with the hope of beating it, but nothing.

HONORABLE MENTIONS: Super Mario Bros. 3, Battletoad, one about some ninjas that turn into animals, Double Dragon, Duck Tales, Batman, The Simpsons: Bart VS. Space Mutants (terrible game), Lolo.

I LIVE HERE NOW: Dublin

Christ Church Cathedral

Dublin, or Baile Atha Cliath (its official name in Irish), is the capital of Ireland (or Eire) and my brand new home town. The reasons for my stay here will remain a mystery for now for all you bloggers reading this, so keep visiting this blog for more info in a not so far future.


Vivid (oily I think) colours of the River Liffey.

If you've never been to Dublin I can tell you it's just like Main Street in Disneyland, with its nice well painted little buildings, but as if it was run by a horde of drunks. Streets are covered in cigarette butts and remains of puke. By night (3 am, when all the pubs close) the city becomes a giant street party with people throwing bottles and taking a leak on every corner. Pretty fun, indeed.

Hello ladies

The average Dubliner is an expert drinker, very sociable and talkative (if you manage to understand their accent, that's it). They normally hate the English except when it comes to Champions League football, cause everyone cheers for the iconic English teams like Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United. In an attempt to distinguish themselves from their British counterparts they use some Irish words for some key elements like Garda (police), Taoiseach (prime minister), Dail (house of representatives) and the names of most political parties.


10,000 places to park and only one city centre? That's the best the Dublin publicists could come up with?

Paris has the Eiffel Tower, New York the Statue of Liberty, Tijuana has the Monument to the Street Whore, and Dublin now has the Spire. Built in 2003, this big pointy thing stands 120m tall in the middle of a city where the tallest building only has like 10 stories (because that's how they like them, short). Originally the Nelson Pillar used to be in this place, but it was attacked and destroyed by the IRA in 1966. The Spire now has a wide array of witty phallic nicknames like "the stiffy by the Liffey" and the "erection by the intersection"

And now
ADVENTURES IN DUBLIN:
After being thrown out of a local pub (3 am), me and my pals Sergi and Kervin, were happily eating a hamburger seating on a bench on the street when suddenly this huge wild Romanian with a giant belly started yelling at us something like: "fries!, fries!" and grabbed our paper bags and started throwing everything on the floor. Luckily we were out of food, and this sweaty guy just kept staring at us until we slowly escaped.

This used to be the sea, now it's just a desert...


Fruit Street.


And now, ladies and gentlemen, Dublin is proud to present... Pearl Jem!


Who needs Johnny Rockets when you have his long lost twin brother Eddie Rockets.


St. Patrick's Cathedral under repairs.


River Liffey sometimes gets empty.


Clarence Hotel, owned by U2.


Dubliners seem to prefer Elvis, his movies are always on TV!

All images by: paper mind