I am the sunshine of your lives

Yeah, that's right I got awarded that sweet award for being my awesome self. And you know what? I totally deserved it because I'm good looking, a great writer, funny, politically astute, and so very very humble. And the only thing better than getting a sweet award for my blogging prowess is getting a sweet award for my blogging prowess from this hot chick:
I know! Right? That's McGriddle Pants and she's the one who gave me the award. She gave me another award but every time I go back to her blog to find out which one it was I end up stopping and staring respectfully at the above photo because, holy cats, how could you not love a picture of a cute gal in a bikini top drinking a beer at 10:30 in the morning?

Anyhoo, we could sit around and bask in her and my awesomeness all day long but where would that get us? I'm not sure either so let's get right onto passing this award along. I didn't bother to read the rules and regs that accompany this award because I'm a bad ass like that so I'm gonna give it to who I please and they can do the same or not, whatever. So I hereby bestow this award to:

• My blog and real life friend Southern Female Lawyer. She's smart, cute, a fine singer, a heck of a mother, and she's twitchy live wire gangster goon in my graphic novel project. I'm lucky to live just a few blocks from her and her husband local music legend Rob Russell of Rob Russell and the Sore Losers.
• Libby of Libby Logic. She's a funny working gal who lives in Utah and isn't a Mormon. She's married and has the cutest baby ever. And she likes wine. What's not to love?
• Pe Nolan of Menopausal Stoners. She and I share roughly the same age and almost the exact same politics. I love her take on life, the universe, and everything. She's also graciously agreed to be in my graphic novel project as a boozy MILF.
• The gal over at Pure Klass. I've only been reading her for a week now and I only started doing it because she left a comment here on a post I did. I'm glad she did and I'm glad I found her kick ass blog. Her slice of life blog posts are funny, wistful, and worth reading.
  
• Kirby at I make no promises. I've been blog buds with Kirby for a few years now and I have nothing but love for her short pithy blog posts and her comments here.
  

Congrats to all the women I re-gifted this award to and to the rest of you I say, step up your blogging and one day you might get an award from me as well. And know that I lurve you all, each and every one of you.

And the award goes to...

...me!

Hells yeah! I totally deserve this award that Samurai Frog gave me.:
There's no need to be humble when you wear the hat of genius as well as I do. And you know what else? Those who didn't get this award from Samurai Frog can suck it. That's right, I said, "Suck it!," you jealous bitches. You'll have to get up early and blog better than you're doing now if you want to be as great a blogger as I am.

(Seriously, I'm honored to have been chosen to receive this award. And I'm grateful for all the people who read this blog.)

I'd like to give this award to the following seven bloggers:

CDP because she sent me a kick ass drawing she did once and because she also makes me laugh with her stories about her husband and her kids.

K-Line because she's amazingly creative. She's a seamstress with the mostess and she's into all manner of design as well.

Lisa Golden because she's really getting creative on our asses, she's working on a novel in addition to her regular blogging and job hunting.

Blueberry because she's all about the music and movies and politics and family history and cats and Austin and...well you get the picture.

Godless Liberal Homo because he says the stuff most of us are too afraid to say.

if i didn't have a sense of humor because no one is funnier or cheekier about vintage stuff and retro ads than Barbara is.

Pictorial Arts because I'm in love with that blog.

You also must post seven random facts about yourself if you win this award. So here you go:

1. I wasn't always an atheist. I used to go to church, as I grew up I outgrew religion. I saw it for what it was, a method for a few people to control the actions and thoughts of many people.
2. I loved my old neighborhood in Roanoke, Virginia. It had two grocery stores, an art-house movie theater, three bars, and a bus stop from which I could access the rest of the city.
   
3. I was at one time a Future Farmer of America. If you took agriculture in my high school, which I did when I was in the 8th grade, you had to join the FFA. I never bought one of those stupid looking jackets though.
4. I was in Oakland, CA for only a few days but I really liked it.
   
5. Before I went to Oakland the furthest west I had ever been was Conway, Arkansas.
6. I really hated being in Conway, Arkansas. No shit, I really hated it. HATED IT. No wonder Bill Clinton worked so hard to get the hell out of that hellish state.
   
7. I've really liked every one I have ever met from Maine. Sure, the only ones I remember are the cute women but in my defense, they were all really nice.
   

These happy days are yours and mine

The Queen of Halloween costumes who is a smokin' hottie all year 'round, Miss Alex, who writes the blog Fonzie Sox seems to like the stuff I churn out here every day. Miss Thang likes it so much that she gave me this award last week:
I'm always honored to be honored by my fellow bloggers and it's especially nice to be honored by one so smokin' as she is. From the bottom of my heart, thank you Miss Alex.

The deal is I'm supposed to post the rules about this award but I'm not going to. I may be a stickler when it comes to playing games by the rules but blog memes not so much. However I will go ahead and pass this one to five other bloggers. I hereby award this award to:

1. Samurai Frog for his incisive and well reasoned political posts and for his posts of hot starlets.
2. The Washington DC party animal and ape who's blog inspired me to start this blog, Dr. Zaius, gets this award also.
3. Johnny Yen gets this award for having the good sense to have the Evil Dictator as his son and for marrying Kim.
4. Bubs gets one for being hillbilly adrift in a world that he never made.
5. And finally Katie Schwartz gets one because when she's "on," no one makes me laugh harder.

Thanks again Alex for my award!

Look what the coolest chick in Indiana sent me!

I've always loved the fez and vest wearing cymbal playing monkey, and now I have one! Many thanks go out to my blog friend the uber cool and uber hot Liberality! Monkey Jr. will sit atop my PC tower for the foreseeable future. Yay blog friends! Yay swag!

TCB baby, TCB

First off, I need to thank the smokin' hot Diva Jood and the hotter than a 1000 suns K Line for the lovely awards they bestowed on me.

Aparrently these crazysexycool chicks dig the crap I churn out here day after day. I'm humbled that they not only read me, but also because they take the time to comment and because they saw fit to honor me with these nice awards. Thank you ladies, I mean it.

My second order of business is a pesky meme my little west coast latke, Katie Schwartz, tagged me with the other day. Sorry it took so long to get to Katie, here you go my dear:

1. Clothes: Since I have a bit of a belly...oh ok, shut up laughing, seriously, I'm not fat I just have a big belly damn it, I now have to shop at the Mr. Lard Ass section of the department stores (aka the Big and Tall Men's area). Lately, I've been buying my XXXL polo shirts at the Big and Tall Men's section at JC Penny's.

2. Furniture: I mostly just agree when Sparky asks if I like this or that chair or sofa. Occasionally I'll spot a table or an odd piece in a thrift store and I'll bring it home to refinish it but mostly Sparky chooses our furniture. And that's okay because we have the same taste in retro modern and contemporary stuff.

3. Sweet: Brownies, fruit cobblers, apple crumbles, and low fat ice cream. Alas, no more candy bars and the like for me, they are riddled with too much bad fat.

4. City: Knoxville, Roanoke, Detroit, Johnson City.

5. Drink: Beers-mostly Heineken, Moosehead, Rolling Rock, and some of the new wheat beers. Soda-Blue Sky organic soda (Black Cherry Cherish and White Tea Pomegranate) and Dr. Enuf. Cold water with two wedges of lime, mmmm.

6. Music: Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe, The Pipettes, The Motor Primitives, Lilly Allen, Corner Shop, and many many more.

7. TV Series: Lost, The Daily Show, Life on Mars (American version), Little Britain, Father Ted, Monty Python, Sportscenter, my local on the 8's, Countdown, The Rachel Maddow Show, My Name is Earl, The Office, 70's schlock like Night Gallery.

8. Film: Airplane, Godfather, Godfather 2, Fight Club, Down and Out in Beverly Hills, About a Boy, I Heart Huckabees, Stranger Than Fiction, the Harry Potter movies, the Planet of the Apes movies, Baron Munchhausen, all the Monty Python films, Art School Confidential, shit I could go on but I'll stop now.

9. Workout: Disc golf, walking, yard work, going up and down the stairs in our new house.

10: Pastries: There was a time when if a pastry had creme in it and chocolate on it, it was in my belly. But no more of that. I hardly ever eat pastries anymore since my heart attack. If Sparky bakes something along those lines I'll eat it but that's about it.

11. Coffee: Nope. Never drink it. I never acquired the taste for it. I prefer cold water with lime, or a Blue Sky brand soda (they're made without High Fructose Corn Syrup), or if I want something hot to drink, then tea or hot chocolate.

I'm due to do a meme for the lovely Helenwheels and I'll get to it soon, I promise. But right now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to get the sand out of my ass.

Please accept my thanks and my apology

I've been a bad monkey. I forgot to thank all the generous, wise, smart and great looking people who named me a "Kick Ass Blogger." So please accept my apology for not thanking you sooner and please join

this Ann Murray single,

Bristol Palin's body double,

Mr. Pipe,
Delta Dawn,

and the late Huey Newtonin expressing my undying gratitude to all those who gave me this award:
I especially want to single out the lovely Fredia Bee for her "kick assedness" in giving me this kick ass award.

Thank you for singling me out the way you did Ms. Bee. You kick ass.

I am doubly honored

My good friends Blueberry and Delia Guzman have seen fit to award me the fine award you see here. This award means the world to me especially since it's coming from two blogging women who I admire and respect so much. It's always nice to be recognized for one's work and it's even nicer when people as intelligent and progressive as these two gals do it. Thanks ladies for your kind words about me and my blog, it's a pleasure to write this stuff when I know that people like you are reading it.

I get to pass this along to others who I think are worthy. Delia already gave one to one of my blogging idols, Vikkitikkitavi, but there's a slew of others out there who need one of these as well. But before I give it away I need to post the rules, so here they are:

1) Pick 5 blogs that you consider deserve this award for their creativity, design, interesting material, and also for contributing to the blogging community, no matter what language.
2) Each award has to have the name of the author and also a link to his or her blog to be visited by everyone.
3) Each award winner has to show the award and put the name and link to the blog that has given her or him the award itself.
4) Award-winner and the one who has given the prize have to show the link of “Arte y Pico” blog, so everyone will know the origin of this award which is here: Arte y Pico.

Okay, now that we got that out of the way let's get on with the glittering award giving:

1) Rev. John Shuck of Shuck and Jive gets one for his creative use of religion and his work on behalf of teh gays and teh peace. Organized religion is not my bag at all but if there were more people like John in it then I might change my mind, maybe.
2) Chris of Some Guy's Blog gets one for his creative use of poop jokes and all the other stuff he does that makes me laugh.
3) The couplets alone qualify Splotchy for one of these awards so he gets one too.
4) No one is more creative than Becca, she draws, she blogs, and she's quite the cutie as well, so I'm proud to award one of these to her.
5) My friend Snad doesn't blog much but she has us over to her house all the time, she got us involved in local activism, and she introduced us to our other friends Brian and June so for all that and much more I'm awarding her one of these thingys as well.

Thanks for all your great blogging you five who I chose, and thanks again to Blueberry and Delia for giving me one of these.

Endorsement city

I am pleased to announce that I have picked up the endorsements of

Ruby Delmarvawitz,

the League of Mullets,

this hot alien gal from Star Trek,

this Boxer, 

this white trash family,

and from noted rabble rouser, advocate for progressive issues, and all around good guy, Rev. John Shuck.  

Stars in my eyes again

That amphibian genius and the guy who I think of as my little brother, Samurai Frog, has awarded me this Blogging Star honor. While it is my second one, PJ gave me the first one, it still means the world to me since I am getting it from someone who I admire so much and who's blog I love to death. I love getting any awards and recognition and I especially love getting an award from someone so intelligent, funny, and so damned entertaining.

When PJ gave me this award I in turn awarded it to five female bloggers who I really liked. Now since Samurai Frog has given it to me this time I'm going to give it to five males who's blogs I really like. My only problem with that though is that since he gave it to me I can't turn around and award it to Samurai Frog, but if I could I would because his blog is one I check several times a day for new content. He also gave this to a couple of guys who I admire, Splotchy and Johnny Yen, so I can't give it to them again, but guys if you read this, I totally would have given this to you if he had not beat me to it. So lets get on with the list of guys who do get this award then:

1) Bubs over at Sprawling Ramshackle Campground gets one for his great blog. I love the vintage stuff he posts, the exotic drink recipes, the sex offenders in his spotlight, and the bits of family ephemera that he posts from time to time. Plus he went so far as to send me photos of him and his lovely daughter holding Crunky bars. How cool is that?
2) Distributor Cap gets one for being one of the funniest, angriest, and most outrageous bloggers in the world. His puking pumpkins made me laugh, his righteously angry political posts make me think, and the fact that no matter how old I get, he'll always be a few years older than me makes me smile wistfully.
3) Darkblack gets one of these too. His skills in photo shop and snark will be spoken about in hushed and reverent tones around campfires far into the future. I am in awe of his genius.
4) Speaking of photoshop geniuses, the next one goes to the ape who makes all the great pictures of Dr. Monkey that I use on this blog, the ape who writes and photoshops like no other, yes, I'm talking about the ape who inspired me to start blogging, Dr. Zaius. He may be my rival in the Presidential race but he'll always be my blog hero for all he does on his blog and for mine.
5) Lastly I'm going to go outside the box and pick an up and comer for the last spot on this award list. Since I can't give one to Johnny Yen, I'm going to give one to his son, The Evil Dictator. The kid just started blogging not too long ago but if he sticks with it he'll be huge in the blogoshpere some day. He's got wit, smarts, and the good sense to be a fan of mine, the kid's got game I tells ya.

*******

Thanks once again to my blog brother Samurai Frog for giving me this award. And I want to thank all the guys who I in turn gave this award to, you guys make blog reading fun and rewarding.