When someone pays someone else the compliment of having “good taste” they actually mean one of two things:

He or she likes the same things I like.

He or she likes things that are expensive.

Apple has no problem with throwing the word genius around. At 55, founder Steve Jobs continues to be touted as a “boy genius”.  The Apple Store unapologetically bills a collection of four stools and a T-shirt clad techie, as the “Genius Bar”. Following form, this week Apple released version 8.0 of their flagship software application, iTunes, complete with its own built in “Genius”. Being an inhabitant of the venn diagram overlap between music geek and tech nerd, I was thrilled. (more…)

Someone who performs magic tricks = Illusionist
Someone who speaks convincingly = Orator
Someone who performs magic tricks and speaks convincingly = Messiah

I’m often asked, “Todd, what cool art related things would you recommend checking out in Philadelphia?” to which I typically reply, “Don’t call me when I’m at work, mom.” Well, I finally got around to writing the definitive insider’s guide to the Philadelphia art scene. (more…)

I’m often discouraged by people who refer to my art ability as a gift or blessing. In the last 34 years, I’ve spent many hours looking at, thinking about, talking about, reading about and, above all, making art. It’s not a gift, it’s not a blessing, it’s a decision.

I don’t make this proclamation in an effort to garner more credit for myself, I say it in an effort to empower others. If you want to be an artist, stop hoping, wishing and praying and start doodling.

I’m fairly certain that Scooby Doo and Shaggy have a complete lack of inductive reasoning. How many old men do a hippy and his Great Dane have to unmask until they’re not afraid of monsters anymore?

I have an utter distaste for the word, evil. In addition to the concept being simplistic and completely subjective, it’s an intellectual dead end.

Stephen Hawking once typed, “The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge”. The moment we define an act or perpetrator as evil, we cease our examination. But evil is not a motivation, it is an interpretation. If we don’t work to understand the true motivation of the offender, we can never hope to change the behavior.

Now I’ll climb off of my soapbox and get back to doodling.

One is a musician who talks about politics and saving trees and the other is a musician who ran for political office and into a tree. But seriously…

Embrace your artistic failures and rejections, they are Purple Hearts of Creativity.

I’m not too keen of urinals that flush automatically. I tend to wander away with no real sense of closure.