Hershey's Mockolate...ewww!

Beware chocolate lovers when out shopping this coming Valentine's Day, the Hershey company has replaced cocoa butter in many of it's products with vegetable oil...yummmm (not!).

In an effort to cut costs and increase profit for shareholders the company has opted to degrade the quality of their product and add more unhealthy vegetable oils to consumers diets.

Earlier, chocolate industry lobbyist attempted to sway the FDA to change the definition of chocolate to allow them to substitute vegetable oils for cocoa butter. The FDA ruled on the side of public outcry and did not make the change.

Hershey has removed the words 'milk chocolate' and substituted words like 'chocolate candy', 'made with chocolate' or 'chocolatey'.

Ray Peat, Ph.D., a physiologist who has studied hormones and dietary fats since 1968 says, the polyunsaturated fatty acids or PUFAs in vegetable seed oils are the bane of human health — they actually cause cancer, diabetes, obesity, aging, thrombosis, arthritis, and immunodeficiencies. Their only appropriate use, he says, is as ingredients in paints and varnishes.

on the drawing board: masquerade

With an agreed upon layout for this commission, I've now started the actual piece, well I'm a little further along than just started.

The Dirty Show X

The Tenth Anniversary Dirty Show in Detroit will commence February 6th at Bert's Warehouse Theatre. Event planners promise it will be a show to remember. After a long, incredibly hard decision process, the jury has selected an amazing collection of erotica from a record number of entries. They are bringing back a few of the favorite interactive exhibits as well as creating some new treats for your eyes.

I'll have a few of my works on display as well, so if you're in the Detroit area check it out.


EXHIBITION SCHEDULE:

February 6, OPENING NIGHT
Friday Evening - 7:00pm - 2:00am

February 7,
Saturday Evening - 7:00pm - 2:00am

February 8,
Sunday DAYTIME Only - 12:00pm - 6:00pm

February 13,
Friday Evening - 7:00pm - 2:00am

February 14, Valentine's Closing Celebration
Saturday Evening - 7:00pm - 2:00am

Sebastian Tellier - " La Ritournelle"

Buh-bye...

Thursday night President George W. Bush gave his farewell address, managing to complete two full terms no thanks to a complacent and useless Congress.

Here's a quick list of the Bush Administration Legacy:

• Iraq
• No WMD's
• No Link between Saddam and Al Queada
• Failure to find Bin Laden
• Hurricane Katrina
• Torture
• Illegal Wiretapping
• Valerie Plame Outing
• Abu Grhaib
• Premature departure from Afghanistan
• Blackwater
• Haliburton
• Stock Market Collapse due to deregulation
• Patriot Act
• Loss of Habeas Corpus
• US Attorney Firings
• 9/11 Commission limitations and manipulation
• Department of Homeland Security
• Tom Delay
• Bush Tax Cuts for Wealthy
• Global Warming misinformation
• 9/11 Report Incompleteness
  
• Terry Schiavo
• 2000 Election improperly Awarded by Courts
• 2004 Election rigged by Diebold
• Alberto Gonzales
• Stem Cell research ban
• FDA Rigging
• Signing Statements
• Mistreatment at Walter Reed Hospital

etc.

Inertia Kiss - "Between Love and Goodbye"

New Release: "Farmhand"

Way out in the back field is the old abandoned barn. That’s where he found them, a stash of late ‘80’s gay porn mags. Now, whenever his chores take him back there he takes them out from under the floor boards where he’s hidden them and gets off. It’s his place and his time. If they only knew…if anyone knew…the hard bodied all-American farmhand, fantasizing about these hot pretty boys, staring back at him smiling, naked, inviting…

As with my previous work, my latest, "Farmhand", will be a part of my upcoming show The Breathtaking Blue. The original is on consignment at the Lyman-Eyer Gallery. It is available for purchase, but will remain with the gallery through the end of my show in July.

Limited edition Gallery and Studio prints, as well as open edition portfolio prints, are available for purchase. The Day of Issue Sale ends at midnight Thursday January 15th.

Prayers for Bobby

The wonderful Sigourney Weaver stars in this true story about a 1970s religious suburban housewife and mother who struggles to accept her young son Bobby being gay. What happens to Bobby is tragic and causes Mary to question her faith; ultimately this mom changes her views in ways that she never could have imagined. Premiering Saturday January 24th at 9pm/8c on Lifetime.

It's this kind of story that illustrates to me the unnecessary cruelty and pain caused by religion. Even the mantra "love the sinner, hate the sin" that some adopt to convince themselves they are a good person, invites intolerance and prejudice. Those in turn lead to violence, discrimination, the limiting or rights, then left unchallenged even criminalization and genocide. It's history's pattern. The craziest part is that homosexuality is as natural and harmless as heterosexuality. It's a long shot, but perhaps one day more people will actually use their minds and be able grasp that.

A nice little pick me up from Jerry Vile

Every so often comes one of those moments that makes you stop and look back at where you started and how all your work, and the ups and downs along the way have actually moved you along.

Most of the time it's seems like one day is just followed by another and there is not a lot of forward momentum. But then you have those moments, like the first time I had a piece of my art featured in a magazine, when Bruno Gmünder published "Summer Moved On", or Lyman-Eyer Gallery took me on full time. Sometimes it's not even the event itself, like when I had quit my day job. It wasn't the act of quitting, it was later when I had to fill out a form that asked my occupation and I wrote 'artist' for the first time.

Any way I had another one of those moments today, in the form of a little simple note. I think the timing was important. I just needed that little pick-me-up that it provided. It was in an email from Jerry Vile, the creator and director of the Dirty Show, an exhibit I was invited to participate in.

You (and a couple others) were pulled from the general submit.

It might be a little early in your career-- but we thought you were ready.

You are on your way to becoming one of the best known artists in your genre.

- That made my day.

Jerry Vile is the creator and director of the infamous Dirty Show®, considered to be the largest erotic art exhibition in the world. Now in its tenth year, the Dirty Show is expanding globally with simultaneous opening events planned for most continents. Vile and his Dirty Show® cohorts (Jeremy H and Gary A) believe that “erotica is perhaps the final frontier in the art world” and are continually seeking artists who will take the erotica to the next level.

on the drawing board: reading material

For the fella's 'reading' material I had to take a photo of a magazine at this angle so I could get the distorted perspective of the beefcake model on the page correct.