~Questa Golden Sunday Post Pt.1

~Toms Shoes and Oh No Doom Presents...

ill be here live painting a canvas Toms bag and displaying my customized shoe. All on Sat the 25th..1pm-6pm

I am very excited and pleased to announce that the TOMS Shoes Vagabond Event is coming up in just a few weeks. At this event you'll be able to purchase TOMS Shoes from the touring TOMS Vagabonds that are traveling the country.

If you are still unsure what TOMS is all about let me explain. TOMS Shoes is company started by Blake Mycoskie who upon visiting Argentina realized that many children were living without shoes and since their primary mode of transportation is walking, many of them were getting cuts and scrapes that were susceptible to infection, even parasites. So Blake decided to start a company that would manufacture and sell shoes only when people bought his shoes he would donate a pair to a child in Argentina. Since the beginning over 140,000 shoes have been donated in both Argentina and Africa combined.

So at this event you'll be able to purchase TOMS Shoes, but that's not all. At the event there will be some very talented artists present that will be there to paint the shoe(s) that are purchased. There will also be free food and drinks.

Even if you do not have the money to purchase the shoes, I want to still encourage you to come out and experience this event. The gallery that it will be hosted at is one of my favorite galleries and there will be artwork for you to look at and enjoy as well as free food.

Feel free to look at the following sites for insight to the gallery and TOMS (PS - if you decide to purchase shoes online you can use the code CAMPUSCCC for $5 off!!):



tomsshoes.com
ohnodoom.com


Be Golden

~paperboy mural sketch...a teaser

Here's my sketch for a mural im doin with two cool fellas....at

PAPERBOY



Giant monster rampage an over zealous corporate cityscape...a eye beam blastin seahorse and a tyrannical owl take back the planet....sound interesting...wait for the pics...

soon.
promise

be golden

Nazon "Kep" Simmons... Life Celebration

Nazon "Kep" Simmons... Life Celebration

Akbar & Ang 13
the knomads

breakers...brickheadz & JMC Crew

deejays...word, dah v, skor, rude and fred one

tattoos by erie, bishop and frog

Saturday april 18th
2635 w grand 6p...until...

$15 donation/cover...all proceeds go to keps family..Image by Slang


...come out and show love and respect for a true Chicago Arts legend...at least in my world.


Be Golden

~Black Gate Sessions (Part2 Beat Diggers and Paint Pushers)

..ill be here, selling my new prints, two different prints available, each print comes in a protective sleeve ,signed 1/50 and numbered! Available this Sunday!!!



THIS SUNDAY at BLACK GATE SESSIONS 2313 w North Ave, the Beat Diggers and Paint Pushers SPECIAL! its a "art and music" fleamarket if you will, come and buy Vinyl records and some phat ass art from some of chicagos illest producers, djays, artists and designers! different genres of music and art, plus sets by Maker, Intel, Hersh and more! 12pm-8pm $2 entrance, byob...


be golden or be weak sauce =?

~Loaded: Hunting Culture in America@ Glass Curtain Gallery @Columbia College

josh winegar



jenn wilson



diana guerrero macia


The group art exhibition, Loaded: Hunting Culture in America, takes a deliberately ambivalent view toward the morality of hunting. The exhibition addresses the subject as a social, cultural, and artistic phenomenon, ideally nudging viewers to question their own preconceptions regarding hunting. In contemporary America, where people no longer need to hunt for survival, hunting culture –– with its roots in notions of American independence, the frontier spirit, dominance over nature, and rugged individualism –– has evolved to become an aesthetic and a lifestyle choice, a sport steeped in regional and family traditions. Many contemporary artists and designers have gravitated toward either the aesthetics or the cultural/social phenomena of hunting as the subject of their work, giving us objects, images, and spaces that range from kitsch to realism and hard-edged social commentary. This exhibition is timed to coincide with the college-wide Critical Encounters initiative "Human|Nature."
Curators:
Audrey Michelle Mast (freelance writer/editor, Managing Editor of Flavorpill Chicago and a web, marketing and PR associate at the Museum of Contemporary Photography)
Ann Wiens (artist, writer, Editor of DEMO magazine, and Director of Publications at Columbia College Chicago)

Artists: (confirmed so far; there will be more)
Diana Guerrero-Macia (Chicago)
Erika Larsen (New Jersey)
Brian Lesterberg (Minneapolis, MN)
Mathieu Lévesque (Montreal, Canada)
Shaun Slifer (Pittsburg, PA)

WHEN: March 18 – April 29, 2009
Opening Reception: Wednesday, March 18, 5-8pm
Dressed to Kill Fashion Show at 6pm. A student response show.
WHERE: Columbia College’s Glass Curtain Gallery
1104 S. Wabash Avenue, 1st floor
Gallery Hours: M,T,W,F 9am-5pm, TH 9am – 7pm
COST: Free and Open to the Public.
CONTACT: Mark Porter @ 312.369.6643, mporter@colum.edu


be golden

~Im officially over Kanye West...what a jerk!

(ID THINK WE AGREE THAT NOBODY LIKES THE I TOLD YOU SO GUY)


Hip-hop star Kanye West trashed Radiohead and said the public should give Chris Brown "a break," during a recent taping of VH1's "Storytellers."

But the comments will not make it to air when the episode premieres on the lifestyle cable network on Saturday.

The taping, which took place on February 13 at Sony Studios in Los Angeles, lasted three hours. The show's producers cut it to 90 minutes, after getting network approval to expand the episode from its usual one hour.

Some of West's choicer comments ended up on the cutting room floor, but there's no political conspiracy afoot, said executive producer Bill Flanagan.

"A lot of the stories that Kanye told went long," Flanagan told Reuters on Thursday. "I tried to get to the essence of his comments."

One of hip-hop's most intriguing and outspoken stars, West seems tailor-made for "Storytellers," in which artists play their songs in an intimate setting and share tidbits with audience about how they were written.

The idea behind "Storytellers" is that VH1 encourages the artist "to just keep talking," and producers in turn will "eliminate any 'gotcha' moments" that don't work, Flanagan said.

During the taping, according to a Reuters reporter, West was aggrieved that Radiohead singer Thom Yorke had allegedly snubbed him backstage at the Grammys five days earlier. That hurt, West told the audience, because he idolizes the British band, and considers it one of his few creative rivals.

"So when he performed at the Grammys, I sat the f--- down," West said.

A little later, West asked the crowd, "Can't we give Chris a break? ... I know I make mistakes in life." He was referring to R&B singer Chris Brown, who was arrested on the night of the Grammys on suspicion of beating his girlfriend Rihanna.

In the same context, West earned loud applause with his declaration: "Michael Jackson, amazing. Michael Phelps, amazing ... He's a real f---in' person; he makes mistakes," referring to the champion swimmer's recent bong pipe brouhaha.

VH1 has cleaned up those comments a bit, and it also included West's less-popular follow-up observation: "O.J. Simpson, amazing. Is he not? What he did, when he did, what he did. Was he not amazing though?"

In between his speeches, West found time to perform 14 songs. Some, such as "Go Hard" and "Street Lights," will not appear on the episode. The final set list combines older tunes like "Touch the Sky" and "Stronger," and tracks from his new album "808s and Heartbreak," including "Amazing" and "See You In My Nightmares."

Flanagan said he was "pretty delighted" with the way West opened up to the crowd and took the whole project seriously.

Next up for "Storytellers" is a taping with resurrected rock trio ZZ Top in Chicago in a couple of weeks, he said.

What a douche bag....


Be Golden

~Barack Obama Changes Color of the White House...

..Never thought of myself as a patriotic type, but awaking today after helping elect this nations first Black President Barack Obama, Im slightly happier today to call myself an American.

Be Golden

~Studs Trekel R.I.P..Goodbye to a Chicago Legend

CHICAGO — Studs Terkel, the ageless master of listening and speaking, a broadcaster, activist and Pulitzer Prize-winning author whose best-selling oral histories celebrated the common people he liked to call the "non-celebrated," died Friday. He was 96.

He was a native New Yorker who moved to Chicago as a child and came to embrace and embody his adopted town, with all its "carbuncles and warts," as he recalled in his 2007 memoir, "Touch and Go." He was a cigar and martini man, white-haired and elegantly rumpled in his trademark red-checkered shirts, an old rebel who never mellowed, never retired, never forgot, and "never met a picket line or petition I didn't like."

"A lot of people feel, 'What can I do, (it's) hopeless,"' Terkel told The Associated Press in 2003. "Well, through all these years there have been the people I'm talking about, whom we call activists ... who give us hope and through them we have hope."



respect
Be Golden

~Coolest Graffiti Ever???

Seriously...relish D30 and a Mustard MSK...that IS ridiculously good...GO Pose!

Be Golden

Wesley Willis Documentary...Saturday Oct 25th @ AMC RiverEast 21

As part of the Chicago Film Festival... A Documentary about the late wesley Willis will be shown at 2:15pm...
...it should be very interesting



Be Golden

for more info..click here

~Favorite Thangs~(the milkshake) Stone Cold Creamery

The Friggin Stone Cold Creamery "Cake n' Shake" milkshake was mind blowing,
i walked around for the next half hour spouting expletives and
confessing my life long love of yellow cake.....

...im obsessed.



What flavors of ice cream shakes are available?
Cold Stone offers the following thick and rich shakes:

Oh Fudge!™
Very Vanilla™
Savory Strawberry™
Milk & Cookies™
Cream de Menthe™
Lotta Caramel Latte™
PB&C™
Cherry Cheeseshake™
Cake ‘n Shake™
Color Me Cotton Candy™
You can choose from the list above or create your own.




What's in an ice cream shake?
Our shakes are made with only the freshest ingredients. We start with our “made fresh daily” ice cream and add mix-ins. We then blend, pour and serve. You can create your own shake choosing from a combination of your favorite ice cream and a variety of tempting mix-ins, or you can choose from the list below:

Oh Fudge!™ - Chocolate Ice Cream, Skim Milk & Fudge Syrup
Very Vanilla™ - French Vanilla Ice Cream, Skim Milk & Caramel
Savory Strawberry™ - Strawberry Ice Cream, Skim Milk & Strawberries
Milk & Cookies™ - Sweet Cream Ice Cream, Skim Milk & OREO® Cookies
Cream de Menthe™ - Mint Ice Cream, Skim Milk & Chocolate Shavings
Lotta Caramel Latte™ - Coffee Ice Cream, Skim Milk & Caramel
PB&C™ - Chocolate Ice Cream, Skim Milk & Peanut Butter
Cherry Cheeseshake™ - Cheesecake Ice Cream, Skim Milk & Cherry Pie Filling
Cake ‘n Shake™ - Cake Batter Ice Cream, Skim Milk & Yellow Cake Pieces
Color Me Cotton Candy™ - Cotton Candy Ice Cream and Rainbow Sprinkles


Cold Stone Creamery Website


Be Golden

~"They killin each other"... in Bridgeport, Chicago!

So on my way home last night from an artshow in-stall in bridgeport...not really familair with the area as a whole,but I've heard lotsa stories of racist irish mobs and more recent gang bangers willing to exact there brand of justice on the nearest L7...Which i guess is me in a nutshell...






Long Story short, Im passin a common area between some housin projects and then some kid lets off like 8 rounds...im ducking and running, you know the duck and run move, whilst kids running are whizzing by me, guess its better them than the bullets.

Apparently, the Blue light camera in full view doesnt intimidate these kids at all as 5-6 police cars at the area dunkin donuts ascend on the scene....they take side streets, dip through alleys and slow down to suspect anyone on these now blank streets....all i know is....it wasnt me...

..i thought there was enough shootin in pilsen for the whole city...guess not...
Bridgeport "community of the Future", dealing with the same problems of the recent Past...




Be Golden, Be Safe

Brooks Golden & The Grocer Get Fresh! (The Show Pics) March 28th 2008 @ NEWD

Attendance was decent, lots of friendly and familiar faces came to showsupport...

In Attendance:

Dan G.
18ac
Fotoflow
Ghetto P
Serpico
Natasha..D. King
Marco Morales =)
O.G. Fem Goddess
Eschlabach
The Sevenist
Artillery
Cyro
Solve
Swiv
Nice One
Czr
Joey Potts
Pete Nawara
Lola Desanctiis
Reanna/Vivian
Sips One
Aubrey Ski
...and many more wonderful people, thanks for making the show a fun and succesful endeavor

...special thanks to Grocer, Artillery and the lovely peepz at NEW'D...

...Photo credits:
Artillery
Aubrey Ski
Eschlabach
Iggy











Alison Rae & Grocer Collab:




More Peepz @ Newd...











Paintings will be on view thru April 28th...@ New'D
1917 w division
11a-7pm


Be Golden

Im showing 3 new portraits on March 15th @ Mustache Gallery

Presented by The Mustache Gallery

New Portraits by:

~Deuce Seven
~Brooks Golden
~Pancho
~Ted Boggs

6pm to 10pm

718 W. 18th st.

chicago, IL

..Come and support your Southside galleries...





Be Golden

I love Chicago/Mid-Western Slanguage...

swiped from a myspace fwend =)


CHICAGO SLANG



1. Grachki (grach'-key) : Chicagoese for "garage key" as in, "Yo, Theresa, waja do wit da grachki? Howmy supposta cut da grass if I don't git intada grach?"



2. Sammich: Chicagoese for sandwich. When made with sausage, it's a sassage sammich; when made with shredded beef, it's an Italian Beef sammich, a local delicacy consisting of piles of spicy meat in a perilously soggy bun.



3. Da: This article is a key part of Chicago speech, as in "Da Bears" or "Da Mare" -- the latter denoting Richard M. Daley, or Richie, as he's often called.



4. Jewels: Not family heirlooms or a tender body region, but a popular name for one of the region's dominant grocery store chains. "I'm goin' to the Jewels to pick up some sassage."



5. Field's: Marshall Field, a prominent Chicago department store. Also Carson Pirie Scott, another major department store chain, is simply called " Carson 's."



6. Tree: The number between two and four. "We were lucky dat we only got tree inches of snow da udder night."



7. Over by dere: Translates to "over by there," a way of emphasizing a site presumed familiar to the listener. As in, "I got the sassage at the Jewels down on Kedzie, over by dere."



8. Kaminski Park : The mispronounced name of the ballpark where the Chicago White Sox (da Sox) play baseball. Comiskey Park was renamed U.S. Cellular Field (da Cell)



9. Frunchroom: As in, "Get outta da frunchroom wit dose muddy shoes." It's not the "parlor." It's not the "living room." In the land of the bungalow, it's the "frunchroom, " a named derived, linguists believe, from "front room."



10. Use: Not the verb, but the plural pronoun 'you!' "Where use goin'?"



11. Downtown: Anywhere near The Lake, south of The Zoo (Lincoln Park Zoo)

and north of Soldier Field.



12. The Lake: Lake Michigan (What other lake is there?) It's often used by local weathermen, "cooler by The Lake."



14. Braht: Short for Bratwurst. "Gimme a braht wit kraut."



15. Goes: Past or present tense of the verb "say." For example, "Den he goes, 'I like this place'!"



16. Guys: Used when addressing two or more people, regardless of each individual's gender.



17. Pop: A soft drink Don't say "soda" in this town. "Do ya wanna canna pop?"



18. Sliders: Nickname for hamburgers from White Castle , a popular Midwestern burger chain. "Dose sliders I had last night gave me da runs."



19. The Taste: The Taste of Chicago Festival, a huge extravaganza in Grant Park featuring samples of Chicagoland cuisine which takes place each year around the Fourth of July holiday.



20. "Jeetyet?": Translates to, "Did you eat yet?"



21. Winter and Road Construction: Punch line to the joke, "What are the two seasons in Chicago ?"



22. Cuppa Too-Tree: is Chicagoese for "a couple, two, three" which really means "a few." For example, "Hey Mike, dere any beerz left in da cooler over by dere?"

"Yeh, a cuppa too-tree."



23. 588-2300: Everyone in Chicago knows this commercial jingle and the carpet company you'll get if you call that number -- Empire!



24. Junk Dror: You will usually find the 'junk drawer' in the kitchen filled to the brim with miscellaneous, but very important, junk.



25. Southern Illinois : Anything south of I-80. This is where Smothers' is from....



26. Expressways: The Interstates in the immediate Chicagoland area are usually known just by their 'name' and not their Interstate number: the Dan Ryan ("da Ryan"), the Stevenson, the Kennedy (da "Kennedy"), the Eisenhower (da "Ike"), and the Edens (just "Edens" but Da Edens" is acceptable).



27. Gym Shoes: The rest of the country may refer to them as sneakers or running shoes but Chicagoans will always call them gym shoes! ============ =







This is what Jeff Foxworthy has to say about Chicago .

If your local Dairy Queen is closed from September through
May, you live in Chicago


If someone in a Home Depot store offers you assistance and they don't work there, you live in Chicago


If you've worn shorts and a parka at the same time, you live in
Chicago .


If you've had a lengthy telephone conversation with someone who dialed a wrong number, you live in Chicago


If "Vacation" means going anywhere south of I-80 for the weekend, you live in Chicago .


If you measure distance in hours, you live in Chicago .


If you have switched from "heat" to "A/C" in the same day and back
again, you live in Chicago .


If you can drive 75 mph through 2 feet of snow during a raging
blizzard without flinching, you live in Chicago


If you carry jumpers in your car and your wife knows how to use them, you live in Chicago


If you design your kid's Halloween costume to fit over a snowsuit, you live in Chicago


If the speed limit on the highway is 55 mph -- you're going 80 and
everybody is passing you, you live in Chicago


If driving is better in the winter because the potholes are filled
with snow, you live in Chicago .


If you know all 4 seasons: almost winter, winter, still winter and
road construction, you live in Chicago .


If you have more miles on your snow blower than your car, you live in Chicago


If you find 10 degrees "a little chilly", you live in Chicago .


If you actually understand these jokes, and forward them to all your
Chicago friends & others, you live or have lived in Chicago.



Be Golden Dere'

The Freakin Snow!!!

Chicago Winters...enough already
i give up
(waving the white flag)








Be Golden

Get Wise In 200Hate!

Be Golden

Another R.I.P Blog...Joseph Zeman aka Pigeon man R.I.P

By Barbara Mahany | Tribune staff writer
December 20, 2007

Police didn't know who he was, the old man killed Tuesday by a van near Devon Avenue and McCormick Road.

They found newspaper clippings -- about a half-dozen laminated copies of the same story -- tucked into one of his many Jewel bags.

Cut, copied, pressed between plastic, the clipping showed the man in full color, feathered with pigeons, and told a piece of his story. And except for that clipping, the cops and the doctors who pronounced him dead at the hospital had no clue who he was.
The pigeon man's life was like that. Barely a soul had a clue who he was.

That's why the cops called me, just an hour or two after he died. They knew I knew a bit of his story. I wrote the one they found in his possession. Two years and three months had passed, and he still carried it wherever he went.

After the old man died an hour later, the cops needed someone to call, needed to know if there was a soul in the world who might care to know what happened to Joe Zeman, who most everybody called "the pigeon man of Lincoln Square."

Here's just a bit of the pigeon man's story, the one he carried:

"Except for the lips, you would think he was made out of stone, the man who sits, hours on end, on the red fire hydrant on Western Avenue, just north of Lawrence, pigeons by the dozens perched on him.

"Pigeons on his head. Pigeons on his shoulders and right down his arms. Pigeons poised on each palm. Pigeons clinging to his chest. Pigeons on his lap. Pigeons on his thighs. Pigeons, of course, perched on each foot.

"The pigeons peck and coo, occasionally flutter their wings. Sometimes even scatter. But not the man; the man is motionless. You might mistake him for a statue.

"Joseph Zeman can sit for hours, barely flinching a muscle," I wrote. "Except for those lips."

I wrote how he cooed right back to the birds. How he kissed them, right on their iridescent necks, flat on the point of their sharp little beaks. How he nuzzled them, rubbed his nose in their wings, the herringbone of feathers all black and charcoal and pewter and white. How he called them by name, his favorites. How he worried when one was missing in action.

I wrote about the attic where he lived a few blocks from the hydrant, how he kept track there, in a neat little ledger, of whatever dollar bills might have been slipped into his hand, dropped by the side of his hydrant.

How he used the money for his pigeon supplies, the unpopped popcorn, the bags of white rice, the loaves of Deerfield Farms enriched white bread, the Maurice Lenell oatmeal cookies, the plain old birdseed that comes in 50-pound sacks, which he broke down, each night, into zip-top plastic bags.

I wrote, too, because he took me up to his attic, because he was proud to show off his deeply thought method, of the old baby food jars he filled, each morning and night, with rice or popcorn, seven jars in all, and tucked in his satchel, each time he shuffled off to the hydrant.

He went there twice a day, at least, once in the morning, once in the late afternoon.

He was a couple miles north of that spot at about 2:15 p.m. Tuesday, when he was hit by the van as it pulled out of a parking lot, and he died about an hour later at St. Francis Hospital in Evanston. He had turned 77 on Sunday.

The driver, who said he didn't see Zeman, was ticketed.

After the police discovered the articles and then called me, they found he had an older sister in California and a cousin who lives not far from where he died.

"He had so much to overcome," wrote Charleen Behrschmidt, of her brother, upon learning he had died. She told how he suffered a stroke when he was 8 months old, had grand mal epileptic seizures that weren't controlled from the time he was 14 months until he was 48 years old, and of his 2-year stint at the Dixon State Hospital. She wrote that the hospital was "operating at snake-pit level" when he was there from 1944 to 1946.


But she told, too, how as a young boy he used to sing to the trolley car drivers at the trolley barn, not far from the family's North Side house. And how he shined shoes, mixed paint, delivered telegrams, but lost job after job, whenever he had a seizure at work.

There will be no funeral, the family said. Zeman will be cremated. And when the spring comes, and his sister can travel, the family will hold a memorial service.

Zeman, who for 47 years ran a newsstand downtown, told me that he considered sitting on the hydrant the most important work he had ever done.
"I'm really advertising to the public how easy it is to be good without an attitude; it's just as easy to show decency as it is to hate today."

Zeman, a man without much schooling, understood how when he took to the hydrant, raised both his arms, palms upward -- the veneration pose, really -- as thousands of cars and trucks and smoke-spewing city buses rumbled by, drivers craning their necks to take in the sight of the stooped little man covered in pigeons, he really did resemble a modern-day St. Francis of a city.

Matter of fact, up in his little attic, he had boxes and boxes of St. Francis postcards, each one printed with the peacemaker's prayer: "Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love. ..."

Zeman once grabbed a stack of the postcards, maybe a hundred or so, and gave them to me. I tucked them all in the drawer of my desk, here where I do all my typing. I keep them, right there, to remind me of the wisdom of a lost soul who found peace with pigeons.

Tuesday afternoon, before the phone rang, before any cops called to ask what I knew, I had reached in my drawer for a calculator, and my hand hit the stack, spilled and scattered it, making a mess in the old pine drawer.

I started to shove the cards back into a stack, but then, for some reason, I picked up the top one, and I read it through to the very last line, which just happens to be, "and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life."

Thinking back on Tuesday, I know that the clock ticking beside me had to have said it was just after 2 p.m.

Wednesday morning, for almost the first time in a decade, the hydrant was unocccupied. The pigeons were perched. But the pigeon man was not coming.

Not ever again, amen.


brooks

Back to School Show at Grind Cafe...Sept. 7th 2007ist

Click Here For More Pics From this Show




Golden