From the back cover: “When seventeen-year-old T. J. Parsell held up the local Photo Mat with a toy gun, he was sentenced to four and a half to fifteen years in prison. The first night of his term, four older inmates drugged Parsell and took turns raping him. When they were through, they flipped a coin to decide who would “own” him. Forced to remain silent about his rape by a convict code among inmates (one in which informers are murdered), Parsell’s experience that first night haunted him throughout the rest of his sentence. In an effort to silence the guilt and pain of its victims, the issue of prisoner rape is a story that has not been told.”
I don’t know what possessed me to buy it. I guess I didn’t realize it was all about that. I’ve never read a memoir with dialogue that made me nauseous. So, fun bedtime reading ahead for me! (On a related note, I found Slumdog Millionaire to be very disturbing. I’m not into watching kids being tortured, blinded, mutilated, or auctioned. I think watching one of those Saw movies would have been easier.)
I did this in 1999 and was not paid, I had one assistant part time and a budget of $3000. It’s not really my design because the director wanted the drained swimming pool bedroom from the 1972 film “Ciao Manhattan” starring Edie Sedgwick so I just gave him exactly that. That’s my illustration below (which the record company called “too cartoony.”)
The ONE thing I did get to design was the custom neon microphone that would glow in response to her voice. I had an effects guy from Imagineering fabricate it. When unveiled on set it got an applause. I was very happy about that. I still have it in a box.
But the record company treated me horribly and referred to me as “that theme park guy.” However the singer, Ambrosia Parsley, was very sweet and has a great look. (I have a prop notebook I had her decorate while she was getting her makeup done if there’s a fan out there that wants it.)Â This song also plays over the end credits of Kill Bill Vol 2.
OMG I just watched it again and realized the black satin pillowcases on my bed came from this video. Also I’d forgotten how when I showed up the second night of the shoot, the pool was still being drained and had several feet of water in it. I waited a half hour for the pumps to drain it but then the record company started to freak out and demanded that I start placing the furniture and building her water bed IN THE WATER! I pointed out that this would ruin some of their set decorating but I guess they were fine paying the repalcement fees. So I took of my shoes, rolled up my jeans and prayed none of the electrical cords would fall in and electrocute me. The boards floated around and it was like trying to build a bed in zero G. It’s a miracle it didn’t collapse later.
Also, the director wanted to have Ambrosia spray a can of hairspray over a lighter to make that mini-flamethrower effect. I knew this was horribly dangerous (I have a scar on my nose from an aerosol can exploding when I was a kid). So, what I did was wait until all the record label people got there and then I handed the director the lighter and hairspray knowing he would immediately begin playing with it to show off to the execs. Sure enough, he did just that and they FREAKED THE SHIT OUT and said NO FUCKING WAY. So Ambrosia, you can thank me for saving you from Aqua Net exploding in your face.
 Jacob Magraw (whose work is the cover of Chuck Palahnuik’s “Rant”) – what is this awesomeness portrait by Scott Anderson? – and happy volcanoes from Pearl C. Hsiung – it’s all at Paul Kopeikin.
Wayyyyyyyy back in July 2007 I mentioned I joined a new thing called Twitter which just now got really popular so I’m reminding u again that I’m there. I was really late with Facebook tho but I’m in there now so book my face or whatever. Also I never left MySpace and still prefer it for club info and stuff and it’s nice ’cause not every past co-worker and friend’s mom is on it.
And now I Blip music (that’s like tweeting songs) and they forward to my Twitter which (when it’s working, not like today) then re-forwards to my Facebook status. Blip.fm will proably go down like Muxtape but it’s up for now. And those little pictures off to the right are from my Flickr stream, if u want to follow that too. There’s plain old EMAIL too: Justin at Justinspace dot com. You can post comments here of course but if you want a response then email is the answer. OK bye.
Here’s more of that theme park art being sold on ebay and this site. Like I said, I’d done design work for this company in the past. And then they ignored my invoice. I called for months and pursued getting a lawyer but I was owed like $3000 and a lawyer would have cost most of that. Their security quit after they stopped getting paid, so I just walked back in the building and sat in the accountant’s office and said I was there to get my check. I’d brought a book and made myself comfortable. He made a call, “I have a Justin Jorgensen here, in my office, without an appointment, and he’d like his check now.” He left and returned with my check before I finished the first chapter.
Anywho – this is all very kitschy and awesome in its generic fantasy spectacle 70’s pinball game art kind of way – also wildly inspiring.
A theme park design company I worked for years ago is now selling off all their art. I have a gajillion pictures to post from this. Lets start with costume designs from Pete Menefee for what I’m guessing was an all male revue/pirate stunt show. I shit you not, the last one is actually labeled “Tribal Bro.”
And here’s why: She makes heavy, huge, drippy painterly paintings (probably the most common, non-functional object traditionally used to decorate a room) about decorated rooms, thereby creating this endless Mobius strip of images of decorated rooms which itself will become the object used to decorate a room, all while highlighting the tackiness and forced painterly-ness of so many “over the sofa paintings,” but then celebrating and embracing those motivations for such art (in an honest, un-cynical way) to give the viewer/customer what they want. In other words, these are everything I could want in a painting. I’d love to design a room for each peice, they’re so just asking for an environment to built for them. And how much would I’d love to see a Disneyland-style dark ride done with flats painted like this. Blah blah blah. Does anyone read my art posts? Honor Fraser (where she shows) has a book of her work, Rosson Crow: Night at the Palomino but I’m poor now so I don’t have a copy yet.
