Acrylic on Canvas & Wall • The Room Down the Hall

The collaborative paintings are hung, the room is complete and the reviews are in:

“I don’t hate it.”
-Heather Hall, Wife

“I wanna go downstairs and play with toys.”
-Rocco Marrone, Son and Co-collaborator

“Ga Ga.”
-Matilda Marrone, Daughter

Acrylic on Canvas • 24″ x 24″ • Private Collection

My son and I recently collaborated on a series of paintings of the Yo Gabba Gabba clan for his Yo Gabba Gabba themed room. One of us painted the backgrounds and one of us painted the foregrounds.

Ink on Paper • 8″x6″• Private Collection

I doodled a fella waiting for someone at a bar as I waited for someone at a bar.

Guest: Colin Helb

Topics: Joys of Canned Beer, Pop Culture, Reality TV, Old Guy Section at Rock Shows, Musicians’ Day Jobs, Comic-Con, Green Super Heroes, 3-D Movies, Jeff is Not a Fan of G. Love, Local Philly Celebrities, Crying During “Annie,” and Michelob Ginger Wheat Detergent Beer

Playlist: We Are Scientists, 1000000 A.D., Adam Franklin and The Bolts of Melody, Vertinsky Dogs

Play Now: http://www.usedwigs.com/pod/podcast77.mp3

iTunes: Download, Listen and Subscribe Read the rest of this entry »

The formidable Formation Skateboard Company recently overhauled and overpopulated its online store with scores of toddmarrone.c0m-designed and custom painted skate decks. Limit 10 per customer, unless you want more.

Marker Drawing by Emily • 9″ x 12″ • Private Collection

A multitude of moons ago, I posted my contribution to the long-running international doodleography archive called The Scribble Project. Last school year, I encouraged my 7th and 8th grade art students to try their (drawing) hand at the same assignment. Seven contributors were selected by Lisa “The Curator” Currie and featured on the site this July.

Congratulations to Emma, Jesse, Emily, Mary, Nathan, Casey and Victoria for making waves in the World Wide Web!

All the World Cafe Live’s a Stage

I recently shared this case of Miss-fakin’-identity via First Person Arts’ StorySlam at World Cafe Live.

Paper Collage • 9″ x 8″ • Available

Matisse believed that collage was a lot like improvisational jazz. Audubon believed that birds couldn’t play the piano.

In 29 short years, MTV has ruined music, television, New Jersey and birthday parties. That’s literally a bold statement, allow me to build my case:

Exhibit A) Sure, image, marketing and visual appearance have always had their places in pop music… but it wasn’t until the popularization of the music video that those things completely eclipsed musicianship. Janis Joplin would NOT have a record contract in a post-MTV world, nor would Justin Bieber in a pre-MTV world.

Exhibit B) The first season of The Real World aired in 1992. Arguably, the series’s success was instrumental in America’s reality TV explosion. It is the illegitimate father of The Simple Life, Keeping Up With the Kardashians, The Hills and any number of little person, human litter-raising and/or cake decorating docu-crapperies. The majority of reality TV programs celebrate the worst of humanity and grant celebrity status to dismal people for doing dispicable things.

Exhibit C) New Jersey has long had its problems but Bon Jovi and Jersey Shore is a one-two punch from which the garden state may never recover. A conservative estimate is that 80% of all Jerseyites idolize and/or emmulate one or both.

Exhibit D) My Super Sweet Sixteen taught us that a birthday party isn’t a celebratory gathering of loved ones nor ritualistic rite of passage… it’s a pissing match for rich people.

Case closed. The floor is open for debate.