Fan of The Last Supper

Title: Personal Fan depicting The Last Supper
Date: I have no idea
Category: Promotional Items
Current Status: Keeping it cool

I have no idea where or when I got this. No... freakin'... clue. In case you can't tell, it's a hand held fan, made of thin cardboard and popsicle stick type wood. On the front, it features a half-assed recreation of Leonardo's "The Last Supper." I say half-assed because it changes some aspects and has nowhere near the artistic skill of the Old Master.

For example, Jesus looks kinda annoyed here. Not really divine, or angelic, distressed or even really emotional. He really just looks like he doesn't want to be in the company of these noisy people.
And then there's the image of John to Jesus' right (viewer left) has been changed. In the original, John has long straight brown hair and here, John has short curly blond hair. Now, I'm not going to get all Da Vinci Code here, but to what purpose could this change have been made? Is somebody trying to pass along secret information via this goofy promotional item? Is this part of the church's cover-up scheme to whitewash the evidence of some crazy conspiracy? Or is it just a shitty artist who can't paint worth a damn?

I'd be more inclined to go with option "C"... I mean... why else would this guy have put Bevis in a picture with Jesus?
This, according to the back of the thing, was produced by the NBA. No, it was not given away at Mavericks' games or handed out to Lakers' fans... it's a DIFFERENT NBA. This one is The National Benevolent Association from St. Louis, Missouri. The NBA doesn't seem to thoroughly exist anymore but does still exist as a part of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and is now the DBS which carries on the traditions of the NBA.

Oh yeah, and this was "Made In U.S.A." Aren't you proud?

Cow Art

Title: Framed Picture of a Cow
Date: Unknown
Category: Sweet Ass Art
Current Status: Prominently displayed in my backyard tool shed

Look out Leonardo! Move over Monet! Piss off Picasso! Ya'll have been Art Slapped by this fine piece of homey bovine goodness.
Cows rock... I mean, let's face it... they are a goofy animal. They produce tasty milk and tasty meat and other than that, they just kinda stand around looking bored. And yet, there is something truly awesome about cows. Perhaps it was Gary Larson's use of these mammals that injected their image with some badassedness... who knows.
Maybe it was that stupid "It's a Cow Christmas" tape, but for whatever reason, Ray and I liked cows. Not as much as ducks, of course, but they were a close second. I have a bunch of cow junk... a cookie jar, a terracotta shelf decoration, a bandanna... at one point I even had a small stuffed toy cow (named "Cow") that would "moo" three times if you squeezed it. Cow used to hang out with me in High School. Once, during an Academic Decathlon training session led by the infamous Mr. Danielson, that bum Will Chesser reached over and squeezed Cow and so everybody in the room looked at me like I was a freak. Jerk.

Anyway, I'm not entirely sure where this came from, but I believe it was yet another "gift" from Ray for our annual "Terrible Gift Exchange" for Christmas. It was really more of a competition than a meaningful gift swap. See who could get the other the most useless stuff for $10. Quantity was obviously more important than quality.

Take a look at the back...

doesn't that just scream "masterpiece"?!!? I mean, I bet Rembrandt never had the brilliant idea to paint on cardboard and add a bar code to make selling his work easier. Loser.