dedleg.com

Thought I’d share this preview from Dedleg’s upcoming Fall/Winter 2010 lookbook.

And big ups to my man Justin for helping us out with the shoot — you’re a natural on that board, homie!

After yesterday’s reading of A Portrait of The Artist as a Young Hermit, I figured this illustration would be more than appropriate.

It’s not quite the hard, fast and dirty lifestyle that’s so cool with the kids these days, but sometimes — and this is far from a hard, fast and dirty rule — safe is smart. Sometimes! Like when dogs, sometimes, try to eat you on while you’re riding your skateboard. Or when you’re sometimes not sure if the random guy offering you a joint just dipped it in PCP. Or how sometimes the special somebody you drag home from the bar on Friday has gonorrhea. These things happen, you know, sometimes.

Nevertheless, speaking of popularity, anybody else remember this jam back from back in like the 7^th grade?

And speaking of living in a bubble, that high school was so white I practically had to shield my eyes. You might be a quarterback, but I’m going to wager your basketball team isn’t making it to the finals this year, guy.

You know, for a second there, I actually thought BP might fix this whole oil geyser problem before my shirts came in. But then they were all like,

Photo via Yahoo! News

And the Gulf shore was all like,

Photo via Associated Press

And then I was like

Seriously though, with hurricane season practically busting the front door down, we’ve really got nothing to look forward to except a whole bunch of poisonous oil and Corexit getting kicked into our atmosphere. And then, say, decades of recovery. And even then, the ecosystem of the Gulf of Mexico will be forever changed. No biggie. At least we’ve got some t-shirts for you in honor of this most apocalyptic occasion. Hey mang, it’s the end of the world, do you want to greet Armageddon looking like a scrub?

Both asphalt and a very limited number of black tie-dye shirts, for the weedies in attendance, are available in Dedleg’s fledgling store. Support the site you’ve grown to potentially love, or at least kind of like whenever nobody’s updating their Twitter, by supporting the National Wildlife Federation’s recovery efforts in the Gulf, since that’s where I’m donating all the profits. Every little bit counts — when it comes to your growing master collection of cool guy apparel. Oh, yeah, and I guess with the oil spill, too.

Previously on The Young and The Ded:

I shared a design for a t-shirt I was planning on selling, so I could donate the proceeds to legitimate organizations involved in the Gulf Oil Armageddon clean-up effort (sorry, but BP didn’t quite make the cut). Several days later, I decided I didn’t like the design and announced that I would be redoing it… Weeks passed and everybody forgot about the whole thing, until… (dramatic music building…)

Cut to:

A colorway that might not look like the final design at all!

So yeah. It’s 2 AM as I write this, which is my official cut off point for giving a shit about anything on any given day. I’ve been working on color combinations for hours and can’t settle on one. With the aid of my trusted team of trend-forecasters and psychics, I’ll make up my mind in the next day or so and send these fuckers off to the printer. Gosh, I sure hope I can make them available before everything’s back to normal!

Sorry kids, no new nonsensical scrawls today — it’s going to take me a couple days to recover from my well-deserved escape into the wilderness. This also happens to me my last merciless week at the dreaded salt mines where I routinely debase myself for my wages. And I’ve simultaneously become swarmed with freelance projects — apparently mentioning availability to take on some side work is like cutting yourself in a pool of ravenous sharks. Which unfortunately leaves very little room this week for the d-leg, indeed. But make like a sweat-stained hat from the late nineties with eyeballs on it and have no fear, the extra cash will be put towards dedleg’s impending expansion and subsequent world universe takeover… and also towards some herbal art fuel.

Oh, and then I got like a thousand of these made…

You may remember the original illustration this design was based off of, and if you don’t know, now you know. The sticker is actually on clear vinyl, so the bonedaddy looks like he’s emerging from whatever surface the sticker is on. I’ll have an online shop up in a couple weeks where you’ll be able to purchase a pack of stickers (and I’ll also throw a couple in with every oil spill t-shirt order), but for now if you want some, you can Paypal d[at]dedleg.com and I’ll mail a few out.

I probably should have tried harder to avoid those creases as much as possible, but it’s past 2 AM and my capacity for giving a shit is incredibly low.

On that note, Papa Leg is ded tired. I have many delightful stories and photographs from my vacation to share in the coming days — which I hope isn’t as torturous as being forced to watch slides of family vacations is told to be in outdated television programming. The new design for the oil spill t-shirt is also underway. Busy days in the shop, boys and girls… oh to be human with only these two insufficient hands. If I had four arms like The Grimace did back when McDonald’s seemed less deadly, I wouldn’t be grimacing at all. I’d be psyched. Mostly just because then I could design without having to stop typing to eat Combos.

Oh, and speaking of Grimace, this piece of Internuts detritus was just too stupid to pass up.

Sexy thang on my arm, cup of drank in my palm
And that crazy shit, I’m tripping on some skinny bitches
Something that’s wholesome, Florida to Folsom
And for the most I’m steady sippin’ on some sizzurp

WITCH. Scale of dragon; tooth of wolf;
Witches’ mummy; maw and gulf
Of the ravin’d salt-sea shark;
Root of hemlock digg’d i the dark;
Liver of blaspheming Jew;
Gall of goat, and slips of yew
Sliver’d in the moon’s eclipse;
Nose of Turk, and Tartar’s lips;
Finger of birth-strangled babe
Ditch-deliver’d by a drab,—
Make the gruel thick and slab:
Add thereto a tiger’s chaudron,
For the ingrediants of our caldron.
ALL. Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and caldron bubble. 

Dedleg’s first run of t-shirts will be coming soon — certainly well before the oil geyser is done wreaking havoc on the ocean, so you can still feel timely and relevant while simultaneously joining the dishonorable ranks of devious dedlegs. All proceeds will be donated to legitimate organizations participating in the Gulf clean-up effort. If you’d rather send me compensation in the form of photos of BP executives’ families with the faces cut out, I’ll be sure to forward those on to the appropriate parties.

If you’re interested in one of these, and can spare several minutes of time you’d waste somewhere else on the Internet anyway, I’d appreciate it if you left a comment so I can get a better idea of how many of these shits to order. Either way, it’s going to be a very limited release — tell your boys, you might want to start lining up now… just sayin’.

Monkey see, monkey do.

Paul Rand’s logo for Westinghouse —

CREATURE-IZED —

Yeah, so this is a total bite. But if you’re going to bite somebody’s shit, you might as well bite from the best. Why would you want to put garbage in your mouth anyway?

I had to cheat, too. Boy, I really suck.

Also, I realize that while I’m being a literalist here, the term “shit” carries a rather foul connotation. Fortunately, in art/design/whatevs, not all shit stinks. Let’s just say, Paul Rand didn’t need to gas the bathroom with Oust when he was done with his doodoo.

Westinghouse ad designed by Paul Rand

So I had a pretty cool new drawing I was going to post up today, but it was going to take me well into the small hours of the night to finish it in time for today’s post. And considering none of the spam bots who regularly check my blog really give a shit, I decided I’d put it up some other time. I sure hope this doesn’t change your mind about leaving me 30 comments on how I can get Cialis over the Internet. Because, Lord knows, I need that shit.

Anyway, in light of yesterday’s post… I figured enough time had passed that I could get away with this parody without invoking any kind of ugly Tanya Harding insinuations.

Got a hell of an itch on the inner thigh there, and the whole area’s really starting to stink. Anybody wanna be a friend?

Lighthearted little rip-offs are a veritable staple in the world of skateboard graphics — as far as I’m concerned, this is step one to becoming a successful mega brand. I’m thinking snowboard goggles, I’m thinking reality show on MTV, I’m thinking giant, hazy sweatshop in one of those Asian jungle countries. Oh, and Tek Decks! Duh. All we need now are some actual skateboards! And, I guess, like, the respect of the community. And maybe some legs that aren’t totally fucked.

I’m willing to mix and match. Two out of three? One for the price of two? Anything?

So who caught the biggest typo in the world last week? Let me refresh your memory, in case you missed it.

Nobody said a fucking thing! Thank you for sparing my feelings — you’re good friends.

Or perhaps somehow… you all believed it was intentional, that it was all a joke… which would, uh, be very astute of you! That was my plan all along! Oh, how I love games!

Say… here’s a game, let’s guess who looks like a dumb stoner

Stickers coming soon. I’m sure you could find a place for some to live happily ever after.

And no, that’s not a joke or anything. I’m one of those straight-to-business types, couldn’t you tell?

This post was begging for the inclusion of this Elliott Smith track from Figure 8:

Listening to Elliott Smith is probably the worst choice possible for somebody searching for happiness — the man is practically The Anti-Joy. Almost every song he wrote is dripping in melancholy. Look at it this way, the man committed suicide by stabbing himself in the chest. TWICE. That’s not just a case of a blues, folks. Nonetheless, this is actually one of his more upbeat tracks… not that that’s saying much.

Oh, speaking of suicide — the quote is Ernest Hemingway’s — perhaps just a little bit biographical considering most of his work focuses on death and then, yeah, there was that whole thing where he killed himself, too. Anyway, a bit of a grim start to the day. Cheer up, Charlie. After all, it’s…

Ignorance really is bliss. I wish a Playstation 3 and an HD plasma screen television were all I needed for a content existence. But no, you need games for it, too.

This line from Saul Williams’ incredible verse in “Release” by Blackalicious always struck me — judging from the amount of time I spend taking photos of garbage or things that are otherwise destroyed and useless, I suppose you could say I have a bit of a fascination with imperfection. Which is weird, because I consider myself a pretty hard-line perfectionist. But perhaps it’s that dichotomy which fuels the inner chaos I pour out onto the page, day after day, for you ungrateful masses. Or maybe that’s just what I would say if I was a pretentious asshole.

If you missed the song the first time I posted it, make sure to check yourself, lest ye wreck yourself:

Easily one of the greatest hip hop masterpieces ever recorded, falling maybe just below Mr. T’s “Mother.”