Seasons Greetings from the S.A.G.!

As I sit here next to a gently crackling wood fire, I realize that this site has been all but dead for the past few weeks. Not to worry, fine friends. There is a heartbeat. The Starving Artist's Guide is merely hibernating...gaining strength for the coming year, which will prove to be a watershed year by no stretch of the imagination. Plenty of ideas have been perculating and an upcoming podcast is in the works-have no fear. On this momentous "Blue-Moon New Year," I promise to come back with a fire and passion that has yet to be seen from this little site. This includes fresh interviews, new tips and tricks, how-to videos, live show recordings and the freshest new music from the underground artists that make this site so unique.
I hope everyone has had an incredible Holiday season, I know I have, and thanks for sticking around and seeing what this idea is all about. Without you, the people, this wouldn't be worth the pixels it was written on.
Stay tuned.

much love, and a happy new years!

Johnny S.

ConC.E.R.Ning Blackhole formed above Norway

Hey folks,
Some of you might not even be aware of the story I'm about to unfold for y'all. It took place around a week ago, one day before President Barack Obama accepted his "peace" prize, partially because of the work he does exploding the unstable ground in Afghanistan and Iraq for poor people to then plant crops. It's true! He's not escalating two wars, he's helping natives grow crops! Talk about promoting peace. But I digress...this story trumps it.
I was reading an article about three or four days ago about the super collider known as C.E.R.N. on npr.org, and how it was broken for a year and a half. The basic story is that the thing cost about a gagillion dollars, and it super accelerates protons around a 16 mile underground track and has them collide. It was broken for a year and a half. On November 30th, it went back online.
So, you might be thinking this is just a really expensive science project, right? The real question is what does this thing actually do? According to the npr article, it does the following:

The "real thing," in this case, is the chance to find something new. For decades, physicists have had the same view of the universe. They call it the Standard Model, and it's just what the name suggests: sturdy, dependable, but a little boring. Scientists want a change, and if their calculations are right, the energy released by the LHC’s collisions should detect something new. That something might be a particle that helps give everything mass. Or maybe dark matter, which makes up much of the universe but hasn't ever been directly detected. Some people even think that the LHC will discover extra dimensions of space. The truth is that nobody knows.

John Ellis, a theorist at CERN, says whatever is revealed will be very exciting. "It'll be a little bit like watching somebody appear out of the fog. You're walking along through the fog, and then somebody comes out of the fog and you start picking out various aspects of them. And eventually you come face to face with the new physics. It's going to be very exciting."

"
Link to article from NPR.

But still, I have my doubts. I think it's far more challenging to our current world view than they lead us to believe in this article. For example, earlier this year, in an article from earlier this year, CERN scientists say that nature will "ripple backward through time" to stop the LHC before it can create the God particle... Link to article from news.com.au

Other scientists have claimed that one of the byproducts of the CERN subatomic particle accelerator is the creation of "mini black holes" as seen here. In fact, some groups tried to shut down C.E.R.N after they admitted to being able to create black holes.

Legal bids to stop CERN atom smasher from 'destroying the world'
The world's biggest and most expensive scientific experiment has been hit by a last minute legal challenge, amid claims that the research could bring about the end of the world.

Critics of the Large Hadron Collider - a £4.4 billion machine due to be switched on in ten days time - have lodged a lawsuit at the European Court for Human Rights against the 20 countries, including the UK, that fund the project.

The device is designed to replicate conditions that existed just a fraction of a second after the Big Bang, and its creators hope it will unlock the secrets of how the universe began.

Link to article from Telegraph.co.uk

Well folks, the machine is back in operation, and this is what occurred in Norway less than one week ago:


What I love is how blatant the lies come from chipper news anchors who seem perplexed enough to want to move on...

For a more in depth look into the Norway Spiral, check the next video out, which isn't cut into four second clips and some intensely interesting information by researcher David Wilcock.



My own assumption is that it is somehow a black hole created by our friends at C.E.R.N.
Think what you want, its the movie of your life and you're the star. Just know that "The times, they are a changin'..."

The 2009 Fork the Mainstream Awards!

The 2009 Fork The Mainstream Awards

Here you have it, folks, the first Annual "Fork The Mainstream" Awards show. Over the past year, hundreds of musicians and artists alike have submitted their work to the Starving Artist's Guide. The results are in! Take a listen to this episode to see who the winners are....enjoy!

Santa Con, Stress Free Shopping, and a few Updates

Hey folks,

Congratulations on making it this far into the holiday season without strangling an elf. Only 14 more days until we all get to sit around our christmakwanzakka bush and sing songs about 8 tiny reindeer and how they kept a candle going for eight days while under siege, only to realize the 7 principles of life, as dictated by the Koran. Did I mention Feats of Strength?
While shopping for me will be easy this year, (I just received 25 copies of my new book, The Starving Artist's Guide to New York City, available on the link to the side) it might not be so easy for y'all. Here's my suggestion: If you're an artist, get rid of some of the works you are less than fond of to your parents. They love stuff like that. If your a musician, do a live performance, record it, and give it away as stocking stuffers. Sure, your siblings probably don't listen to your music, but what the heck? They won't say anything 'cause it's Christmas.
This year, I'm doing a lot of my holiday shopping on Amazon. The newest Harry Potter is selling for just $10! If you get your order over $25, you get free shipping and they are prompt. I also plan on hittin' up a Goodwill at some point in the near future to see what kinda crazy stuff I can get for my fam. No one needs to know that you got mom that pair of electric socks at the Goodwill.
I've also been experimenting with some homemade gifts this year. The whole thing started a week ago when I got a few bottles of Three-Buck Chuck at Trader Joe's. I've always wanted to make a Wine Bottle Guitar Slide, but I've never had the right tools. Until now...
Last week, my bathroom had what I call a perfect storm. First, the toilet stopped flushing. Then, the tiles on one of the walls began falling down. I pulled the top of the toilet off and fooled around with the hoozey-whatzit, and WHAM! An eight-foot gush of toilet water sprung from the depths of it's poopy den. After being immediately rained down upon by god-knows-what, I managed to shake loose some Calcium deposits that had accumulated. After 10 seconds of chaos, I managed to get the pump back on and order was restored.
Johnny-1, Bathroom, 0. Well, maybe the bathroom tied it up with the poop geyser.
After fixing that glitch, I had to head down to the local hardware store and get some materials, one of which was a ceramic-cutting hacksaw blade. Upon reading what it could do, I realized I had created a perfect storm of my own--I now had the materials to finally make a wine-bottle guitar slide. It was also the same materials to get glass all up in my hands in a very bloody fashion. These things cost upwards of $10, like the one here.
I read the directions for making the slide, which are as follows:

1. Buy and drink a bottle of wine. ( Approx. $3) Check.
2. Buy and attach a Tungson-Carbonide Gritted hacksaw blade (Approx. $5) Check.
3. Start sawing a circle around the neck of the bottle, about three-four inches below the bottle opening. Do this for about 10-15 minutes.
4. Take a candle and start going around the line that you've made with the hacksaw. Do this for 2-3 minutes.
5. Place the bottle neck under cold running water.
At this point, the bottle should "pop," releasing the two parts of the bottle right on the line that you sawed.
The next step needs gloves! Learn from my mistake and you won't have to get stitches.
6. Go outside and grind the fresh cut on the cement outside of your house. Be gentle and remember that it is glass--It can break if you aren't careful.
TADA! You now have your very own glass bottle guitar slide, and you can give them to all of your musician friends.

So those are a few of the holiday ideas/endeavors/occurrences of this 2009 holiday season. My hope is to get a podcast up at some point, but as all of you know I've gotten fairly lazy at creating them and putting them up. I think I've gotten on a one-per-month schedule.

To all of you, a merry christmas and a happy new year!

Oh, and tomorrow is Santa Con at Washington Square Park, which is basically thousands of people dressed up as Santa converging on one place at 10am. Quite the sight to see. Only in New York.