// Don’t Cry. All Things Come To An End.

By Joey Camire .
07.28.11 // Uncategorized

As most of you probably can tell from the the timespan between posts on the homepage, Blommit ceased to be after a slow petering out of commitment form everyone involved. We were all young, starting new careers, and things as they were, people had to prioritize.

But don’t cry. Blommit was a hugely important part of all of our lives. It got us through grad school. Without it, I know I’m not just speaking for myself, the lack of a creative outlet would have been excruciating.

Looking back at all the amazing things we created makes me incredibly proud of what we accomplished on our tiny little plot of the internet. I can’t believe that people posted so consistently for so very very long. Dig through the archives and you’ll see. We may not have hit it out of the park with every single post, but every week on every topic there were several pieces that were smart and insightful and dripped with humanity. I don’t think any of us set out to accomplish anything more than that.

This post was a long time coming. Almost a year in fact. But it was hard to write. To put a nail in the coffin of this project without having ever created something new seemed so final. A finite end. Blommit felt like a living breathing thing while it lasted, and to post this was to kill it. Growing up I kept stuffed animals in my room long after I had any interest in them because I believed, in some way, that to get rid of them was to kill them. That if everything has a spirit, or a haeceity, then if you cease to use it, it would just wither away and vanish. I obviously know better than this, but the sentimentality at my core couldn’t bring myself to end it.

There are still people who stumble upon this site everyday from around the world. A product of the sheer volume of people on the internet searching for incalculably random combinations of key words. To anyone of you hundred or so random voyagers of the world wide web that find yourself here today. Welcome. Take a look around. Take your time. There is a lot here to explore. I can only hope you get a fraction of the enjoyment out of every piece that we got in creating it.

So I guess that’s it. I’m sure some day we’ll all find ourselves getting involved in other projects like this. In fact, Jake Dubs is doing something great right now over at knowwhatsfuckingcrazy.tumblr.c​om. Check it out, you won’t be disappointed. If you ever want to get in touch with any of the others feel free to shoot a message to Contact@blommit.com and I’ll be happy to put you in touch.

Until then, keep making things. Maybe it will only make you happy. Maybe it will make a million peoples day. But either way, the world can always use a little more happiness.

Love your faces.
Joey

View Comments / Jul 28.11 / Uncategorized / by Joey Camire

// Like a shock.

By Ben Cheney .
11.11.10 // Inspiration

View Comments / Nov 11.10 / Inspiration / by Ben Cheney

// Get Out Of Your Head (Inspiration)

By Matt Spicer .
10.24.10 // Inspiration

View Comments / Oct 24.10 / Inspiration / by Matt Spicer

// I am Zorro

By Matt Spicer .
10.17.10 // Revolt

That’s it government institutions of Earth.
I am through dealing with your bureaucratic asses.
What? What’s that? No I’m not taking a number and sitting over there in that human hen-house, I’m leaving.
I can’t leave without a form? Watch me, I am now the Forminator! I rip that shit in half and blow it like confusion confetti.
AH! Yeah! How’s that?!
That’s how your forms make me feel! Like floating pieces of confusion.
No I do NOT have to fill one out.
I’m revolting!
No, don’t you dare start filling one out for me!
What you gonna do now?  You don’t know my emergency contact number.
HA!
Why did I even come here? I will live outside society while sill inside it like a cooler version of Zorro.
So now it is time I ride! Goodbye to you. Me running out of here will be just the same as when you ran out on the humble town of customer service!
Just, huh, give me my ID back I need that to drive home.

View Comments / Oct 17.10 / Revolt / by Matt Spicer

// Pump the Brakes on that Whole Revolution Thing

By Alex Aloise .
10.16.10 // Revolt

View Comments / Oct 16.10 / Revolt / by Alex Aloise

// Revolt! Revolt! It’s about damn time for another revolution!

By Ben Cheney .
10.15.10 // Revolt

Photo credits are in order to the Spirit of ’76 by Archibald MacNeal Willard and the album cover for John Vanderslice’s Pixel Revolt.

View Comments / Oct 15.10 / Revolt / by Ben Cheney

// Auf Wiedersehen!

By M. Martin .
10.15.10 // Revolt

I’m leaving Blommit… Why?

View Comments / Oct 15.10 / Revolt / by M. Martin

// Viva La Blob

By Wheatstraw Worley .
10.15.10 // Revolt

View Comments / Oct 15.10 / Revolt / by Wheatstraw Worley

// It’s all about the Monet!

By M. Martin .
10.09.10 // Passive Aggressive

She: Good morning!
Me: Hi!
She: What a night! Those neighbors did party all night long! I didn’t get a wink of sleep. Did you sleep well?
Me: Yes.
She: How could you sleep with all that noise? Boy, I feel absolutely whacked! Any coffee left?
Me: Maybe, I don’t know.
She: What are we gonna do today? Look at that amazing weather outside! There is not a single cloud in the sky! Should we go for a walk?
Me: Dunno.
She: We could also go to the Monet exhibition in the Albertina, I heard that it’s really impressive!
Me: Dunno.
She: Did you get it?
Me: Get what?
She: Monet – impressive… Monet was an impressionist.. that was a joke!
Me: Funny, yeah.
She: You are not exactly talkative today, are you?
Me: I don’t know what you mean.
She: Everything OK with you?
Me: Yes, why’ you askin’?
She: I don’t know, maybe it’s because I’m expecting replies in form of full sentences instead of ‘YES’, ‘NO’, ‘DUNNO’!
Me: Aha!
She: Heard anything interesting on the news today?
Me: Nope!
She: So, again, what are we gonna do today?
Me: I’m a bit tired… you know, the neighbors…
She: Two seconds ago, you said that you slept well…
Me: Did I?
She: YES, YOU DID!
Me: Whatever. I think I’m going back to bed… why don’t you go for a walk or go and see your Picasso on your own?
She: Monet!
Me: What money?
She: MONET – not MONEY! The painter’s name is Monet not Picasso!
Me: What money? What Picasso? What are you talking about?
She: Have I said or done anything wrong lately or why else are you acting like a dork?
Me: Do I?
She: YES YOU DO!
Me: Why are you yelling at me? I can’t see what your probelm is. Is it P.M.S.?
She: You know what? FUCK YOU!
Me: Harsh words at 8am in the morning! Anything wrong?
She: Boy, sometimes you are such an ASSHOLE!
Me: Could we discuss this later? I really have to go to bed now! See you later – and please tell me how the Picasso exhibition was…

View Comments / Oct 09.10 / Passive Aggressive / by M. Martin

// God’s Cruel Contradiction

By Alex Aloise .
09.30.10 // Contradictions

View Comments / Sep 30.10 / Contradictions / by Alex Aloise

// The 12 Steps of Celebrity

By Alex Aloise .
09.23.10 // Overnight Celebrity

View Comments / Sep 23.10 / Overnight Celebrity / by Alex Aloise

// Now we’re together.

By Tristan Smith .
09.22.10 // Overnight Celebrity, Uncategorized

Up until recently, what we did online did not remind us of how many other people are living in parallel, sitting down in front of a computer, eating chips, clicking on websites.
That’s because the bank does not tell us 3,122,932 other people banked today. Web MD does give us statistics on the others worrying.
We were alone.
I don’t know if that’s better or worse.

View Comments / Sep 22.10 / Overnight Celebrity, Uncategorized / by Tristan Smith

// Subtlety, That’s My Bag

By Wheatstraw Worley .
09.20.10 // Overnight Celebrity

View Comments / Sep 20.10 / Overnight Celebrity / by Wheatstraw Worley

// what is a tattoo?

By M. Martin .
09.18.10 // Tattoos

I already had a posting in mind, a quite funny one (I guess) but after reading the last entry I thought, that I’ll try something different.

Arthur Shopenhauer wrote in his masterpiece “Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung” that objects affects one’s mind as perception and can only be recognized as something meaningful (= something that is distinguishable from its environment) when they match an idea, which has to be already present within the observer / the subject.

The whole tragedy of human life lies in this rather simple thought: two people looking at the same thing might have the same perception but most likely they will “see” different things because they don’t share the same mindset. Two people growing up in the same city may see the same pictures, even may share the same standard of living, live in the same street, visit the same schools and experience the same things but nevertheless will end up with a worldview that makes them individual, that separates them from each other. The more ideas people have in common, the more they can identify with each other. Life gets easier if you don’t have to argue about every little thing. Or in other words: the more individual thoughts you have – the less acceptance you will experience from your environment. Life gets tiresome if you have to argue about every little thing.

Unfortunately there is not a single idea that I’ve in common with my environment. No mather what people are saying – it simply doesn’t make sense to me. I hear the words, I realize what they are saying but I simply can’t understand WHY they are saying it. There was a time when I tried to discuss the difference between my ideas and their ideas – but I recognized very soon that it is absolutely useless. This made me very silent. I never start a conversation. I reply to questions and say things like “thank you” and “good afternoon” but I’ll never ask you or somebody else about whether one should have children, or whether it makes sense to say “I love my family” while spending the most of the day at work. I won’t tell you that it is ridiculous to trade lifetime for money in order to satisfy artificial needs and I won’t tell you that your hobbies are a complete waste of time because they don’t contribute to anything meaningful nor will I tell you that your jobs are meaningless too because nobody really needs the goods that you are producing and nobody needs the services that you are offering. But in this posting I’ll be honest. In this posting I’ll tell you my honest opinion about tattoos:

What is a tattoo?

People go to work where they spend a significant amount of their limited lifetime to do useless things for money so that they can pay a service where a stranger takes a needle and injects color under their skin.

What is a tattoo?

A tattoo is a mixture of colored ink that gets injected under your skin so that it forms something distinguishable / recognizable. Although one could do it by oneself most of the people visit a tattoo studio where they trade money for this service.

Why are people having tattoos?

They want to make a statement. I understand this but I can’t understand why it has to be in the form of ink under the skin when a T-Shirt with a print on it would fulfill the same function. This only makes sense, when the process itself – the process of getting ink injected under the skin – is considered as a significant part of the statement. Ok, but in which relation stands the value of the process to the value of the content? If I let someone inject ink under my skin so that it forms an arbitrary object – the process might be of greater value than the content of the tattoo. So, is there any content whose meaning outweighs the “value” of the process itself? NO – THERE IS NONE! Because if there were one there wouldn’t be a reason for a tattoo: if the meaning of the statement would outweigh the “value” of the process a T-Shirt with a print on it would be as sufficient as the ink under the skin. This means: the process of getting a tattoo always makes the bigger contribution to the statement than the actual content of the tattoo. In other words: No matter how smart the content of a tattoo might be – the content is not the motivation for getting a tattoo. The content only represents the legitimation of the process.

It makes no difference whether you have “Winnie the pooh holding a honey pot where the black hole of the honey pot is around your butt hole” or the names of your parents on your chest, because in both cases we are talking about tattoos and there is no such thing as an intellectual tattoo. The content may cover the motivation, but even in Joey’s posting (no matter whether it is true or not) he admits that “for as long as he can remember he’d wanted tattoos”. He didn’t say “for as long as I can remember I wanted to say my parents how grateful I am” because if he had said so he might have come up with a different idea. If I had kids I wouldn’t appreciate the fact that they have my name injected under their skin. As a parent I would care about them. Throughout my whole life I would try to protect them from every possible harm, would feel the pain of every little scratch they might get, no matter whether they are 6 years old or 60. It would make me sad, if they should ever put their health on risk and stigmatize themselves just to get a tattoo. I would want them to treat themselves with respect and to take as much care about themselves as I did and do for them. If they want to make a statement they should give me a call and ask me how I’m doing!

But that are only thoughts… I would never SAY something like this… not anymore…

View Comments / Sep 18.10 / Tattoos / by M. Martin

// A Personal Approach

By Joey Camire .
09.17.10 // Tattoos

Slow and steady has never been my style.  Inherent in my constitution is a lack of inhibitions and a bit of a brash impatience.  It breeds a sense of incontrollable honesty, but also the likelihood of regrettable decisions. And it’s true, I don’t always make the most thought through choices, impulse ruling the day, but for some reason with tattoos I’ve been able to to go completely against my own nature.

For as long as I can remember I’d wanted tattoos.  Not just a tattoo, but many many tattoos.  I’m not sure at what point it developed, or if it was something gradually ingrained by early bouts of actions movies and WWE, but it was there.  The ultimate question, though, was what would I go under the gun for?

I think people get tattoos for a myriad reasons.  Love.  Faith.  Fear.  Beauty.  Strength. Or any other singular emotion that you might find in a spoken word poetry jam.  And I’m OK with that.  I pass no judgement.  On the contrary, in fact I respect their commitment to their convictions.  But like most things in my life, I have a very romantic outlook on how I want to approach things.  Allow me to elaborate.

The first inken monuments I ever had permanently commemorated on my body were very significant to me personally.  I had known I wanted tattoos for years, but up to that point I hadn’t known what I would get.  A butterfly? Possibly.  A chinese character for “Neat”? Worth exploring. Nipples on my butt cheeks? Eventually, but not now.  However, when I got in to grad school and I knew no amount of delusion could hide me from my impending adulthood, I wanted to commemorate it.

My parents had always been a hugely important part of my life.  For lots of reasons not worth going in to now, I had a rough child hood.  They were young and strapped and a million other things when they had me, but through all the shit and ups and downs there was always love and emotional support.  I knew that at the moment signifying my break from my parents, the metaphorical flying of the nest, I knew I wanted something to show my appreciation for everything they had done for me.  I knew that they had unavoidably constructed me as a perfect yin and yang, half Noel and half Paul.  Not perfect as in I’m perfect, but in the sense that there is balance in the influence.  I arrived home during spring break my senior year and asked them both to sign a piece of paper.  I went to the  tattoo shop without any hesitation and had their signatures placed on my ribs on either side of my body.

Considering the personal significance of those first two tattoos, it was hard to take any new tattoo idea seriously.  There were many, but inevitably they seemed trivial by comparison.  I decided that I if I were to get any new tattoo, it HAD to be significant in some way to my life.

And that’s when the concept began.

My body, and my tattoos would become a log of my lifetime.  I knew I didn’t want to fill my body with tattoos by the time I was 29 and not have any room left for anything else.  I wanted to be able to get tattoos into my 40s, 50s and 60s.  To do that, it meant I had to approach things in a way contrary to my own disposition.  To take things slow.  To consider all options.  To sleep on things for weeks or months or years.  But it was the only way I could see things happening.

The thing is, for as long as I can remember, I’ve loved the concept of a whole. The idea that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.  That each individual piece could mean nothing without all the other parts.  It’s this concept that pervaded my thinking.  And once it entered my consciousness there was no other way I could approach my future tattoos.  How could I?  It’s the idea that my tattoos would not be some new mark or blemish on my body, but literally a manifestation of where my body had been, literally the story of that body.  And so it began.

It’s been three and a half years since those first two tattoos and I’ve only added one more.  It is considerably larger, but it is no more or less significant.  It just is.  It was added.  It became.  It is me and I am it.  And we are. And when I grow and more ink is subcutaneously spiked into my body, it too will just be me.

I can’t pretend that anything about my approach is any better, smarter, cooler, more aesthetic, conscientious or enlightened.  But it’s the only way that makes sense to me.  I  know that winnie the pooh holding a honey pot where the black hole of the honey pot is around your butt hole makes sense to some people.  To them I say “Fuckin’ A.” But I couldn’t pull that off.  So I’ll keep it going the way I have been, and when I’m 75 and I’m covered in my life, I’ll let you know whether it was a good idea or not.  But I think it’ll work out alright.



View Comments / Sep 17.10 / Tattoos / by Joey Camire

// Think of the Children

By Alex Aloise .
09.15.10 // Tattoos

View Comments / Sep 15.10 / Tattoos / by Alex Aloise

// Tattoos Up The Wahzoo

By Wheatstraw Worley .
09.13.10 // Tattoos

View Comments / Sep 13.10 / Tattoos / by Wheatstraw Worley

// From the chauvinist in me.

By Ben Cheney .
09.12.10 // Pet Names

View Comments / Sep 12.10 / Pet Names / by Ben Cheney

// They Make Everybody Lovable

By Alex Aloise .
09.11.10 // Pet Names

View Comments / Sep 11.10 / Pet Names / by Alex Aloise

// Little known celebrities

By M. Martin .
09.11.10 // Pet Names

Washoe

Tama

Suleiman

Paul

Nipper

Muezza (no offense)

Mike

Mary (Tennessee rocks!)

Incitatus

Ham

Chunee

Cher Ami

Castor & Pollux

Blondi

View Comments / Sep 11.10 / Pet Names / by M. Martin

// 50 Nicknames For My Dog Flossie

By Tom Pappalardo .
09.07.10 // Pet Names

A comic I published just a couple of weeks ago… how could I not post it here?

View Comments / Sep 07.10 / Pet Names / by Tom Pappalardo

// I Smell A Meme and Subsequent Book Deal

By Wheatstraw Worley .
09.06.10 // Pet Names

View Comments / Sep 06.10 / Pet Names / by Wheatstraw Worley

// True story: My wife is a monster.

By Ben Cheney .
09.05.10 // Night Terrors

View Comments / Sep 05.10 / Night Terrors / by Ben Cheney

// -1

By Ryan Roberts .
09.04.10 // Night Terrors

View Comments / Sep 04.10 / Night Terrors / by Ryan Roberts

// Worse Than The Happening

By Alex Aloise .
09.02.10 // Night Terrors

View Comments / Sep 02.10 / Night Terrors / by Alex Aloise