Purple Hairy Elephants!

Awhile ago, I wrote about Amherst College, and their recently solved dilemma regarding their problematic namesake, Lord Jeffery Amherst. The college had publicly severed ties with the unofficial mascot, and adopted their first official mascot, the mammoth.

On October 20, 2017, they announced their official mascot design/logo. It's pretty cool. I posted it below. This is a follow up to this blog post right here.

Poetry Slam: What Was is Again

The current state of things in the United States can seem overwhelming. It's election season. The country is reeling from a number of mass shootings, a water crisis in crumbling urban sprawls, protests for racial equality, and rallies for the underrepresented working class. There is an unpopular president in the White House, a tense relationship with Russia, and international terrorism. The country is wrestling with it's identity, progressing towards a more accepting diverse culture, but still attempting to cling to it's predominantly white, Christian roots.

Allen Ginsberg wrote a poem in 1975 about American involvement in nefarious acts foreign and domestic. The poem critiques capitalism, calling it's competitive nature fuel for anger. The themes of privilege, money and power, and inequality echo the present day and could just have easily been written in 2016. Themes from Black Lives Matter, I am the 99%, and the threat of the Islamic State fit right into the narrative. We still have drug problems. We still have a prison problem. We still have a rich banker problem. We still have a police brutality problem. After reading this, the parallels are very interesting. Those garbage cities are Detroit and Chicago. Those gangsters and goons and strong arm squads are the GOP, the militarized police, the lobbyists and SuperPacs that "got rich on wanting protection for the status quo". You could even swap out Kennedy for Obama in the line "Kennedy stretched and smiled and got double crossed by lowlife goons and agents" and it would make sense.

I've added the whole poem below. Enjoy.

Hadda Be Playing on the Jukebox

It had to be flashin' like the daily double
It had to be playin' on TV
It had to be loud mouthed on the comedy hour
It had to be announced over loud speakers

The CIA and Mafia are in cahoots

It had to be said in old ladies' language
It had to be said in American headlines

Kennedy stretched and smiled and got double crossed by lowlife goons and agents

Rich bankers with criminal connections

Dope pushers in CIA working with dope pushers from Cuba working with a big time
syndicate from Tampa, Florida

And it had to be said with a big mouth

It had to be moaned over factory foghorns
It had to be chattered on car radio news broadcasts
It had to be screamed in the kitchen
It had to be yelled in the basement where uncles were fighting

It had to be howled on the streets by newsboys to bus conductors
It had to be foghorned into New York harbor
It had to echo onto hard hats
It had to turn up the volume in university ballrooms

It had to be written in library books, footnoted
It had to be in the headlines of the Times and the mind
It had to be barked on TV
It had to be heard in alleys through ballroom doors

It had to be played on wire services
It had to be bells ringing
Comedians stopped dead in the middle of a joke in Las Vegas

It had to be FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover and Frank Costello syndicate
mouthpiece meeting in Central Park, New York weekends,
reported Time magazine

It had to be the Mafia and the CIA together starting war on Cuba,
Bay of Pigs and poison assassination headlines

It had to be dope cops in the Mafia
Who sold all their heroin in America

It had to be the FBI and organized crime working together
in cahoots against the commies

It had to be ringing on multinational cash registers
World-wide laundry for organized criminal money

It had to be the CIA and the Mafia and the FBI together
They were bigger than Nixon
And they were bigger than war

It had to be a large room full of murder
It had to be a mounted ass- a solid mass of rage
A red hot pen
A scream in the back of the throat

It had to be a kid that can breathe
It had to be in Rockefellers' mouth
It had to be central intelligence, the family, allofthis, the agency Mafia
It had to be organized crime

One big set of gangs working together in cahoots

Hitmen
Murderers everywhere

The secret
The drunk
The brutal
The dirty rich

On top of a slag heap of prisons
Industrial cancer
Plutonium smog
Garbage cities

Grandmas' bed soft from fathers' resentment

It had to be the rulers
They wanted law and order
And they got rich on wanting protection for the status quo

They wanted junkies
They wanted Attica
They wanted Kent State
They wanted war in Indochina

It had to be the CIA and the Mafia and the FBI

Multinational capitalists
Strong armed squads
Private detective agencies for the rich
And their armies and navies and their air force bombing planes

It had to be capitalism
The vortex of this rage
This competition
Man to man

The horses head in a capitalists' bed
The Cuban turf
It rumbles in hitmen
And gang wars across oceans

Bombing Cambodia settled the score when Soviet pilots
manned Egyptian fighter planes

Chiles' red democracy
Bumped off with White House pots and pans

A warning to Mediterranean governments

The secret police have been embraced for decades

The NKVD and CIA keep each other's secrets
The OGBU and DIA never hit their own
The KGB and the FBI are one mind

Brute force and full of money
Brute force, world-wide, and full of money
Brute force, world-wide, and full of money
Brute force, world-wide, and full of money
Brute force, world-wide, and full of money

It had to be rich and it had to be powerful
They had to murder in Indonesia 500000
They had to murder in Indochina 2000000
They had to murder in Czechoslovakia
They had to murder in Chile
They had to murder in Russia

And they had to murder in America

New York, May 30, 1975, 3 A.M.

The Mighty Mighty Arabs

I have become invested in mascot name changes for a while now. I've posted about this before a few times, mostly in reference to The Washington Football Team. Recently, a high school in upstate New York has decided to change their 68 year old Redskins name to the Legends (apparently, a legend is a Knight). 

Good for them. It's always nice to see a group of people choose to do the right thing, even though moving away from tradition is difficult. Al Jazeera reported on this in their article here. An eighth grade girl chose the new logo and name and unveiled her winning designs at a town meeting. 

Of course there are opponents of the name change. Nothing is ever easy, apparently. And of course these people oppose the new mascot for the same old and tired reasons. Why should they turn their backs on 68 years of tradition? They apparently had no problems turning their backs quite literally on the 13 year old designer during the town meeting. The president of the town council was interviewed by local television and expressed his disappointment with these people. The news coverage is below. 

Apparently these proud Lancaster people who just want to hold on to their heritage turned the meeting into an ugly display, as reported by the Buffalo News. Some of them thought it appropriate to yell "Heil Hitler", which I don't understand. Are they being supportive of Nazis, or calling the council Nazis? Either way I don't get it. Nazis were all about using offensive and demeaning iconography, but why would you want to bring that up? It doesn't help your argument. And calling the council Nazis makes no sense. They are changing the mascot to be more inclusive and neutral, not because they are fascists who believe in a super race.  



 
In other name changing news, my favorite "accidentally racist" mascot received a makeover the other day. Coachella Valley has officially changed their name from the Arabs to the Mighty Arabs, and updated their logo from cartoonishly offensive to slightly more dignified. Al Jazeera reported about this too. The logo has been replaced, and the mascot and similar iconography removed. However, it's a pity they will no longer be belly dancing on sidelines. 

As an aside, the State of California has declared the Redskins mascot to be banned in the state as of 2017. I'm sure opponents of this are declaring that their state is targeting the four schools in the entire state that use the mascot. But... that's exactly what's going on. 

The superintendent of Coachella Valley said something truly important about his mascot change, something that opponents don't seem to realize or care about. He said the decision was easy for his school district because communities need to "forever keep our eyes, ears, and hearts open to the feelings of others even when no disrespect or harm is intended."

Did it Eat the Basketball? Charlotte Part two

The Charlotte NBA basketball team recently petitioned to rename their team the Hornets, after a team that played there in the '90s but had since moved to New Orleans.  The New Orleans club abandoned the Hornets name and colors before this season.  Since the Hornet mascot is unused, and far more suited for a team in the famous Hornets Nest of the American Revolution, the club was granted the requested rebranding.

Next of course came debates about what the new rebrand would look like.  The club chose to use colors from the past (teal and purple), but there had been no consensus as to the logo.  I wrote about concepts in an earlier post, which took research of the highest caliber.  I came out of that surprised to discover how many people were fond of (truly loved) the old "Hugo" logo.  In my opinion it may actually be the worst logo in modern sports (the last 30 years).  It is a minor league mascot at best, a cartoon worthy of the Kid's Corner fan club, and yet it was the primary logo of two major sports clubs.  So, I am happy to see it (finally) retired, and relegated to throwback nights and nostalgic fans.

The other day, the Charlotte Bobcat/Hornets released their new primary logo, which is below.  While it is definitely an improvement over Hugo, it is still pretty frustrating.  I'm sure seeing it for yourself will tell you why.  Also, the title of this post is a pretty good clue.  According to press releases that accompanied the release of the logos, the club seemed pretty committed to not only including a basketball into the logo, but making said basketball part of the insect.

primary

secondary logo

mascot logo

Back to Charlotte

 To expand on my other logo design posts, the Charlotte Bobcats (i.e. worst expansion team in the history of the NBA) will be allowed to change their name to the Hornets after this season, as that name was abandoned by the New Orleans club.  This makes perfect sense for a team that has struggled for identity since it's debut in 2004.  The original Hornets franchise left Charlotte in 2002 for New Orleans, and although the city of Charlotte was awarded a new franchise, the fan base hasn't been the same.

So, the Hornets will return to Charlotte next year.  The club has already pledged to bring back the original teal and purple colors.  The question I have is whether the club will use a new logo, or just bring back the old cartoon logo used by the original Charlotte Hornets, and then by the New Orleans Hornets.  Just in case everyone forgot... the old logo looks like this:

The hornet's name is Hugo, and he looks a little jittery.  Too many sodas, perhaps?  I hate logos like this for professional teams.  It's the mascot.  The Red Sox don't have a picture of Wally the Green Monster as a primary logo.  Minor league teams have cartoony logos like this.  Worst logo in NBA history?  probably.  I'm glad it's currently retired.  

Here are some concepts that I consider far more respectable and professional for a major league club: 

vote here

a more abstract hornet that has more of an insect-like vibe as opposed to a saturday morning disney cartoon from thje '90s feel.  This one also alludes to a representation of the basketball without actually showing a basketball.

source

This is part of a concept that promotes the use of the old logo as a primary, and this logo as a secondary, and patch.  However, I think it would do nicely as a primary.  It bridges the old Bobcats identity with the new Hornets rename and colors.  

full concept

Hornets are pretty difficult for designers to do without looking like comic books, apparently.  But if the club really felt it necessary to have a logo that sells to children, then I'd rather go with this modernized and toughened up hornet.  He's sleeker and dangerous looking, and not as minor league as Hugo.

original

This is another one from a bigger concept that focuses on the Hugo logo.  Also pitched as a secondary and patch, the honey comb shape idea is intriguing, even though hornets don't make honey.  But it is a departure from the circle logos used by everyone else.  

99 Designs submission

99 Designs showcases design contests.  This one is from designer Eren G.  Also submitted was the same design with an orange basketball replacing the purple one above.  The design concept incorporates the Queen City and Hornets Nest nicknames for Charlotte and puts to rest the ridiculous Hugo logo, replacing it with an elegant insect design that can be taken seriously, and still appeal to children.  Best design so far, sure.

Of course, they could revert back to the true original logo, used only for the 1988 draft.  It is similar to the Canadien's red and white Canadian Hockey logo, but I think it is different enough to not have to worry about copyright infringement or brand confusion.  The original original logo looked like this: 

Whats in a Name Change Part Two: Dead by Racism

I like graphic design, specifically logo design, and especially the concepts that didn't make it.  I posted some designs before when the New Orleans Hornets changed their name and image to the New Orleans Pelicans at the end of the last NBA season.  Sports teams seem to lend themselves easily to reimaginings and redesigns.

The Washington football team is taking heat from many places recently, aside from the usual disgruntled American Indians.  recently the 99designs community held a contest for Washington football team designs.  Please go to the linky link to see them all, below are my favorites.  

Pelicans: a Follow Up

Apparently, about a week after I posted about the New Orleans Hornets proposed name change, the New Orleans franchise released this press release showing their new logo and colors.

They look like this:

Nicely done, New Orleans.  Nicely done.

Also, they have an alternate logo that looks like this:

Mascots and Design: part two

I am a big fan of design. I flirted with the idea of being a graphic designer back in college, but chickened out after convincing myself that I'd never be as talented as every other graphic designer who had ever made money at it. However, it has remained a curious hobby. Sports logos are an interesting thing, to me. And not just professional sports either. There is great potential to brand and market a team, organization, or school around a particular icon or theme. Sometimes I feel like this potential is wasted by schools and teams that just borrow from other more famous professional logos. I digress though.

Chris Creamer's Sports Logos is a huge internet database and online community devoted to logo design. They do a good job researching and categorizing sports logos, offering a pretty comprehensive history of sports iconography. I was pretty disheartened then, when I read this article about the Atlanta Braves decision to change the design of the BP baseball cap they were going to offer.

click me

That is the Screaming Indian, or Laughing Brave. In case you aren't up on your classic Major League Baseball mascots, it was retired and replaced by a tomahawk logo in 1966. For more about the Indian mascot issue, see a post I wrote earlier Mascots: Is the Name The Fighting Hitlers Already Taken?

The writer of this article about the Atlanta Braves design choice is not only insensitive to the issue of Indian iconography in sports, but isn't very eloquent in how he frames his disagreement with the franchise's decision to not be racist.

He states: 

The Atlanta Braves have cowered in the corner, yielding to a tiny minority of voices and have made a last-minute change to their BP cap design. But they don’t even have the nerve to issue a press release saying that they chickened out and didn’t want to step on anyone’s toes. They didn’t say that they decided that honoring their past wasn’t worth offending the white guilt of some writers. They didn’t say that they wanted to be in the news one more time for bowing the the infinitesimal pressure they might have read in the comments section of some article about their new BP hats.

The article sounds like a kid whining because his parents didn't show up to his baseball game like they promised. Halfway through the article, I half expected to hear Will Smith start singing, "Parents just don't understand!" Reading this article, and a few of the comments underneath, crushed my optimism that this nation has made great strides in the racism department. In fact, I was amazed at the selfishness. Really, this is all about a disgruntled consumer that won't be able to buy the hat he wanted. In fact, nostalgic fans clinging to the Braves racial identity are truly in the minority, which makes his whole statement that much sillier and ironic. The loudest voices are not necessarily the majority of voices.

I encourage reading the rest of the article, linked right here. It is also worth reading comments. To be fair, from a design perspective, the laughing Indian is a much better design than the Atlanta A crossed with a tomahawk. However, that is a pretty poor argument to have when faced with the racially insensitive implications of both designs. At least the tomahawk isn't an actual Indian doing a characteristically Indian thing (he is presumably screaming a war-cry).

A comment from the comment section gave me hope that not every sports fan is an insensitive, shallow racist. It reads as such:

Does this article have a point, or did you just feel the need to incoherently rant about some related subjects? Seriously, there's no sense of organization to this piece at all. You go from attacking the Braves organization for (wisely) backing down from the use of a potentially offensive design to criticizing them for using something simple, and then somehow you get to needlessly attacking the "self-entitled, unintelligent, hipster wannabes" who you perceive to be the root of the problem? Pick a subject and stick to that, don't just jump around from idea to idea without any sort of rhyme or reason. I'm not saying that I completely disagree with you - I think the logo, in this day and age, is a bit much, but there are certainly worse depictions of Native Americans that need to be stamped out first (looking at you, Washington Redskins). However, the way you go about constructing your argument makes you sound like an angry high schooler. Also, this all seems like a thinly veiled attack at Paul Lukas, who's been very vocal about his opposition of these sorts of caricatures. Maybe it's just me, though.

The writer of the article missed the point that the organization made an effort to be familiar with the feedback presented regarding their choice of icon and theme that they identify with. They made a choice to not aggravate a sensitive topic for a group of people in this country. Instead of understanding the issue, the writer of the article attacks what he considers to be a group too small to be taken seriously, thereby dismissing the entire civil rights stance.

Personally, I believe the Braves made a good decision to retire a culturally insensitive icon over 30 years ago, and then decide it was probably a bad idea to resurrect that icon. Hopefully soon we will arrive at a time when the Indian sports mascot is seen in the same light as minstrel shows, and there won't be a tomahawk, or laughing brave, or Chief Wahoo, or arrow head to be seen representing any sports franchise.

What's in a Name Change?

Recently, the new owner of the New Orleans Hornets had decided he wanted to change the name of his franchise to something more New Orleansy.  This, of course, makes sense.  A sports team ought to identify itself with the city it resides in, and the fans it wants to connect with.  I'm sure there are hornets and other wasp-like insects in the bayou, but they aren't what anyone would think of when trying to picture the city of New Orleans.

If I was going to change the name of the New Orleans franchise, and the Utah Jazz was too stingy to part with the name that ought to be in the Big Easy, I'd have a few good ideas.  The Brass was a name that was thrown around as a possibility.  Not only does it allude to the horn section of the jazz bands that make the city famous, but allows the team to take advantage of brass balls jokes.  Also on the short list are the Bull Sharks (not bad, but hybrid names like Mud Hens, Jethawks, Mighty Ducks, or River Monsters just make me think of minor league teams and their cartoon logos), Rougarou (it's a cajun word for werewolf...), Swamp Dogs (also a good name for a minor league baseball team... and also makes me think of body odor, for some reason).

The favorite name, and the one most likely to be chosen (nothing "official" has been submitted yet) is the Pelicans.  Speaking of minor league baseball, the Pelicans is also the name of a long defunct New Orleans minor league franchise.  Apparently the brown pelican is the Louisiana state bird.  I'm sure Louisianans all know this and are very proud.  I don't know the state bird of the state I live in, so...  I'm assuming people in Louisiana who like sports don't know or care either.

I was pretty doubtful that this name would be able to capture what the new ownership is hoping for, a new stronger connection to the community of New Orleans.  Like many other commentators and reporters in the sports community, my first thought was choosing the pelican as a mascot for a professional sports team in one of the biggest leagues in the world is a huge laughable mistake.

Then I saw these fan generated logos and designs and decided this may actually work out.  One can only hope the official design team takes some pointers from these, and also from Jay-Z 's successful redesign of the Nets franchise logo and colors.

This circular design makes me think of university.  It also makes the bird far less goofy.  The color scheme doesn't match up, however.  There are rumors that red/navy/gold are proposed instead of the blue/purple used now.  Also, mardi gras colors (yellow/green/purple) are used by the Hornets now as alternate colors.  

The XFL called.  They say this one is awesome.  It is a pretty badass design, but seems more suited for lacrosse or roller derby than the NBA.  Also, I'm not sure how well a jesters hat will go over if you're trying to be taken seriously.  

Simplicity.  This reminds me of the new Nets look.  Not overly complicated, but still clever, incorporating the mascot, and the importance of music to the city.  It does look like a logo for an automobile company though.  

This one also makes the pelican seem less goofy.  Incorporating the NOLA logo used as an alternate now is a good idea to bridge the new with the old identities.  The top hat is pretty cool too.  Once again, the color scheme would change...

This one seems more appropriate for the minor leagues.  The bird looks smushed.  However, I do like circular designs.  

Note how it incorporates the fleur di lis design seen in the old Hornets patch.  the color scheme is able to be changed easily.  It's simple, easily recognizable, and not silly.  

I've used the term minor league a lot in this post.  This one fits into that category too.  The floating bird head looks stupid.  I'm betting the real logo, when revealed, will look more like this than any of the others.  Because I'm a pessimist.  

Drawing in Miniature

When people ask me if I have any hobbies, I usually hem and haw and end up saying things like, "I read a lot", or "not really, but I play softball".  What I don't say is probably closer to the truth, that I really don't have any hobbies, and I'm pretty boring.  The real truth is that I like to draw, but I don't believe I'm good or talented enough for this interest to qualify as a hobby, or even a very good skill.

I like to draw things small scale.  Some call this thumbnail sketching, which is a practice used by real artists to conceptualize for larger scale drawings, designs, and compositions.  I haven't really ever expanded my thumbnails into bigger things, because I don't have any real talent, and the smaller scale hides this fact pretty well.

Mythologies have always fascinated me.  Greek mythology specifically, because there is so much recorded information that has been retained over the centuries.  Compared to Norse and Egyptian, and Assyrian mythologies, the Greek mythologies much more depth because of all of these preserved sources.

I put many hours of time and research into a project meant to creating an illustrated genealogy for Greek myth.  It turned out to be a bigger project than I had intended.  The website Theoi.com proved to be invaluable.  Below are some photos.

three 30"x20" panels equal a 90"x20" tree. it's long

left panel

center panel

these pictures give pretty good, clear detail. I tried so hard to get a clear detailed picture of all three panels today, but its so long that I couldn't get a clear, clean shot. All illustrations are done in pencil and ink, colored with pencils and ink, on inch and half circles cut out of bristol. They are mounted on black presentation board. I put too much detail into these to completely describe it here and do it justice, if I don't say so myself.  But here is are a few close up examples: 

 The first picture is from the central pane. I used silver and gold ink to display the names of each character, which are all done with the Greek spellings. As you can see, there are symbols also which denote certain types of deities. Gaia and Ouranos both have a symbol for the Protogenoi, the first gods. I used an Alpha/Omega combo. Next to Kronos is the symbol I used for the Titans, which is a symbol used in astrology for the planet Uranus, the father of the Titans. The Olympians are wreathed in a representation of an olive branch.

After this project, I started to put together similar trees for Norse mythologies, and recently, Egyptian mythologies. These have proven to be more difficult, as there is less information compiled that makes any discernible sense. Below is my smaller Egyptian tree, extrapolated from several sources of Egyptian mythology, some of it creative fill in the blanks, and connections that may not be fact. But I did my best to organize the missing pieces.

Best... Album... Ever...

Neutral Milk Hotel

In the Aeroplane Over the Sea.  

1998, Merge  

produced by Robert Schneider

Jeff Magnum - guitars, organ, vocals

Jeremy Barnes - drums, organ

Julian Koster - organ, banjo, accordion, saw,

Scott Spillane - horns

Many have declared this album to be the best album ever heard. Win Butler of Arcade Fire cites it as a major influence and the reason the band signed to Merge records. Mark Richardson of Pitchfork gave the album a 10.0 rating and stated:

"A guy in a rock band saying he was emotionally devastated by a book everyone else in America read for a middle-school assignment? I felt embarrassed for him at first, but then, the more I thought about it and the more I heard the record, I was awed. Mangum's honesty on this point, translated directly to his music, turned out to be a source of great power." 

Richardson is referring to Mangum's reading of Anne Frank's diary and the influence that had on him while writing In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. When listening to this album its apparent that this is not a conventional rock album. It defies genre to begin with, and when actually trying to categorize this is often placed within the section of "indie alternative" much like Radiohead, Pavement, Blur, even Jeff Buckley. I suppose this is a good classification, as the other bands defy genres, sometimes from album to album. There is nothing like In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, and then again... everything is like In the Aeroplane Over the Sea.  

I wrote a paper once about William Carlos Williams. For those of you who have no perception of actual American culture, Williams is a poet famous for creating masterpieces from the everyday mundane. One of his most well known poems is as follows: 


So much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens


Williams has been criticized for writing simple poetry that anyone could write. This is true. A wheel barrow in the rain and white chickens have been seen before, however, Williams makes one see these things in a new way and it becomes art.

Henry Sayre helps to give credence to the thought that “anyone can do this” by posing this phrase a different way. It is not that anyone can write how Williams writes, its more that he writes about what anyone else could write about. Sayre states, “Williams places his material in an equally strange environment--the poem--and the wheelbarrow's accidental but very material presence in this new context invests it with a new dignity. It is crucial that Williams's material is banal, trivial: by placing this material in the poem, Williams underscores the distance the material has traveled, and the poem defines a radical split between the world of art and the world of barnyards, between a world which crystallizes the imagination and a world which is a mere exposition of the facts”.


And for all of you who are wondering what my point is, this can also be said of In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. Mangum read a book that most American middle school students read, and yet saw and felt something that not everyone bothers to confront. Perhaps there are emotions that 12 year old students can not grasp, that a more mature person can not walk away from. Perhaps it takes a musical genius to show the beauty behind something everyone is familiar with. Whatever the reason, Mangum was able to do what Williams already perfected, dreams, adolescence, love, life, everyday comedy and tragedy spun into a beautiful work of art. Its the human experience, plain and simple. Its chickens in the rain, and letters about plums, and red wheel barrows, and the rooms of your house, and that weird specimen in your high school science class.

In conclusion, this album is beautiful, unlike anything I've heard, and yet like everything I've ever heard. It is able to grab onto and hold emotion, and speak to what it means to be human in simple ways while being complex musically and lyrically. Humanity once again creates something powerful.