Masta Shake, with hands, sketch...

As if he wasn't gross to begin with...

Sirach

a poison, a sickness

an infection

enters through the wound, and swelling red, all it touches
dives to the heart

to kill all it finds.

Technorati made me do it.

So.... here's a new one. I am fascinated by all these folks, this internet generation Y or Z or whatever the hell they are called these days, these wacky kids that scare old people like me because old people like me who are old are... well... old... fascinated by the interlinked linked togetherness and other fancy science fiction futuristic terminology and other such words that describe the collective society, nay, community which they comprise.

At any rate, I've experimented in a tiny amount with del.icio.us tagging to think that it's the wave of the future, and is so far ahead of it's time that most people I talk to just don't get it. Basically, I can share my bookmarks with you, or anyone. I can have access to those bookmarks anywhere and anytime I'm on the 'net. And so can you. I can also 'tag' anything, anywhere, at anytime (I'm on the 'net) and it then becomes available to me and all of you. ALL of you... BUT! tagging is also weighted and you can see what tags are getting action, what others are looking at or for, and what is similar and related... And more. It's all very sweet and you will all see in the future how freaking kick ass it is.

As an aside, Flickr uses tagging in the same way, if you are familiar with searching pictures on Flickr then you've got a good idea on what is to come. I like Flickr. I'm a Google guy myself, but they dropped the ball on the photo thing... sorry Google, you know I love you...

And so, here's the thing:

Technorati Profile

that Technorati told me to put in here... oh yeah, I didn't make that point. So yeah, I guess I can use tagging on del.icio.us and it can show up over on Technorati, which I'm also still just figuring out.

Yeah, basically I have no idea what I'm doing, but all the kids are doing it, and I want to stay hip and what not... be 'with it'.

And it's fun... you know, totally rad.

Hey ! Kevin !!!

I miss you.

cup's of coffee, redux!

ah HA!

So, as I proclaimed I was no connoisseur of coffee cups, I come across this little gem. Perhaps I should reclassify myself as no collector of coffee cups, collecting anything requires money, mostly, and I have a hard time spending money to have a lot of one thing that will get used very little. I am not opposed to collecting a few here and there over time and eventually ending up with a lot. And perhaps that is what collecting is. I guess I'm contradicting myself. What I'm trying to say is, I do not go out of my way to find great coffee cups, I only hope that, every now and again, perhaps I will run across one that kicks ass.

Well, out of ye ol' blue, I get hit with this beauty. This cup hails from the 1960's. I found two of them, but only bought one. They were not expensive, in fact less so than some novelty coffee cups. This one was a slight bit more beat up than it's brother, which is the reason I chose it. More rustic or something...



And as you can see, this wonderful cup works both left handed and right handed. This is gratifying considering how disturbing I find cups with graphics printed only for lefties...



...those inbred bastards...

a taste, a squeeze and some loathe

Well, I've been thinking about this for awhile. I have another blog just for my art, but I find this blog and that blog crossing paths every now and again. I suppose I could play that up and create some excitement, but hey, that's too complicated and I'm too lazy. So I think I'm going to squeeze all those posts into their appropriate locations in time and space in this blog. That'll make this one twice as busy and harder to look at, or easier if you don't like to read.

I've been really pissy in my last couple posts. This past week I must be doing that male hormone cycle we get like girls get with their PMS. Bunch a hogwash if you ask me. I don't have time for that froo froo shit. This is the loathe paragraph, I don't feel like constructing something special in such a way that it would dawn on you about 3/4's the way through reading it.

And finally, in case old man wasn't enough, here's Squeaky Beaker, so named by Ethan (I'd point you to his kick ass stopmo site, but it appears defunct at the moment). Some more of these will show up at various points in this blog's past, due to their timestamp when they come over. Enjoy.

This guy is obviously unfinished. I think I drew him at work, and had to, well, get back to work. I think there is something special in his legs missing. Wouldn't you like to know what his legs look like? I do. I don't think you and I will ever find out...

The old man and the airport

Oh my goodness.

I love the airport. You know, the mall or other densely populated human gathering locale can be so rich in opportunities for observed human behavior, but the airport occupies a niche market.

Airports are not casual. People go shopping to relax, to acquire goods, perhaps to obtain sustenance with which to bog their gullets... Not so at the airport. Here, everyone is in a rush, they are concerned, they are concentrating, they are more than anything, upset.

Okay, I'll concede shopping may or may not be relaxing for some, and often shoppers do, or are in a, rush. But if you are a reasonable reader, and I know you are, you get the point. I know I can ramble on and on ad nauseam, but that is over important details for you to see, feel and taste the experience. So don't be a dullard. Keep up.

(I'll take this moment to point out that this blog also contains material which could be filed into the 'Overheard #xx' category, just as the previous entry. Alas, perhaps I was rash in my judgment that Overheard's days were finished. Too late now I suppose... funny how judgment is spelled without the 'e' after the 'g' and yet the word still has a hard 'g' sound...)

First up, we have the dumb family with the poor pre-teen daughter being molded into an idiot herself. I'm standing in the (rather) long line at LAX to get through security, and this couple is standing behind me chattering away.

Another pause. Perhaps there is a more elegant way to setup a story than what I do here, with all my starts and stops. By the way, since I used the word 'story', I'd like to point out that, with the rare exception that should be obvious to you in that it stands out rather starkly from the rest, most of these entries into this blog are quite true and I try not to embellish much if at all. Of course I may craft it in such a way as to hope to at least keep you entertained... I am aware of the mundaneness of some of these posts... I'm mean... *coffee cup imagery* ?! What the F is that all about? Only here folks. Well, and probably a hundred thousand other blogs on the 'net...

But I wasn't pausing to tell you all that crap, I just spewed that out in a moment of unforgivable honesty...

So I hope that you, reader, are not offended by what follows because it contains some convoluted personal judgments (without an 'e'). Alright, the first thing I overhear from dad is, "...even if you're attacked, your chances are still pretty good. The odds of you being blown up in a plane are still very low." I'll take this moment to give him the nod towards his statistical assumption, however unscientifically he may have arrived at it... His wife chimes in that she agrees, and complains about the security measures. She says she would rather security remained as it were before the 9/11 attacks. "I'd rather take my chances," she says. Well, thank you fucking idiot lady, but the *other* ONE HUNDRED TWENTY people may NOT want to gamble their lives, no matter the odds.

Of course, while I personally think your *odds* of going down in a plane due to accident is most likely higher than you dying as a result of sabotage, I'd like to point out that accidents do not choose to happen, as opposed to terrorist attacks against a civilian target where humans can and do actively choose to make these things happen. You cannot perform a security checkpoint to discern the likelihood of a mechanical disaster. Likewise you can perform 'maintenance' (note the root of the word, 'maintain', taken literally would mean to do nothing more than you are already doing, it's an abstract thought that I want to get across to you, since most of America is reading at the 2nd grade level these days...) and hope to prevent a bombing.

We have seen it all over the world. Car bombings are a daily occurrence. Perhaps there should be a lengthy security check before you can drive your car...

But all of that aside, what really offended me, was, regardless of the talk about odds and what not, was the brash selfishness. It's typical of Los Angeles, but I personally still find in inexcusable. The security line would be a HELL of a lot shorter if these three were the only ones on Earth. But then they wouldn't NEED security because there would be no one around to attack them, and, Hell!, there'd be no one to fly the God damned plane so they could get wherever the fuck they were in such a hurry to get to.

That was just the cake. The icing was the out loud proclamation by daddy, "They should just do racial profiling, anyone with a turban should be automatically investigated."

I had two responses to this. First was, shut your fucking mouth. As the saying goes, it's one thing to be an idiot, it's quite another to open your mouth and remove all doubt. I myself have ridden in a plane with turban wearing folk, and I'll admit to having emotions about this. But I was quick to slap myself (metaphysically) for such a blanket judgment (without an 'e') of a society, a religion, a race, a whatever. All Americans are gun loving cowboys, right? I know I am. Thanks to the rest of the world for judging me (with no 'e') thusly. Hypocrites. So it really bothers me to see Americans do it. And the reasonably intelligent people (are there really so few of us?) are caught in the fray between these knee-jerk, overly-emotional, fear driven cattle called the human race.

For fuck sake.

Basically, daddy, you're just a fucking moron.

Secondly, do you think they don't already do that? How naive do you have to be? So far nearly 100% of the folks that have crashed our own airplanes into our own buildings have been of Arabic decent. I'm sorry. It upsets my stomach to say it because I simply don't want to group a bunch of people in with a handful of bad apples. It seems terribly wrong. But as the saying goes, call a spade a spade. This is a hot button topic and personally, I really hate the way it's polarized, but shit, it's all fucked up any which way you slice it. Daddy is still a buffoon.

The worst part is the pre-teen daughter who is going to grow up a shining product of their parenting.

But enough of that. Onward Starbuck's !

I get some coffee at Starbuck's after suffering through the whole TEN MINUTES of the security check (dear God, a travesty!) and I want to be bold and get the Peppermint Mocha, which is seasonal in case that wasn't offensively obvious. Yes, I know good coffee, yes, Starbuck's isn't the best in the world, it does just fine though, so you lovers and haters go hash it out somewhere else... McDonald's Sausage McMuffin ain't no gourmet breakfast but damn that shit tastes good every now and again... I can't shake my white-trash roots...

I sit down and pull out my M7 (I love this thing), so I can store some thoughts real fast before they fade (including the family unit which I have so unjustly sat in judgment on with no 'e') and I get this from an older couple sitting next to me: "This tastes one hundred percent better!" Well I suppose it does. One hundred percent better than what? Gold? Poop? Burger King? I think it was in regards to a Starbuck's sandwich. I don't imagine that is some kind of food for the gods, but I *am* sure it is better than many things that can be had for your stomach.

It struck me as an odd thing, taken literally. As English speakers, and especially as Americans, we communicate a great deal with metaphors. Sometimes it is rather entertaining to sit back for a minute and listen to what is being said, taken in it's literal form. I am really curious what exactly is one hundred percent worse (which is absolutely worse, using 'absolute' literally) than a Starbuck's sandwich and more importantly, how one arrives at such a mathematical conclusion.

I also wrote myself a note about "hating shit that reminds you of other shit that you hate." I don't remember what that was about now, but it sounds frustrating, whatever it is...

Well, my flight was delayed by about an hour and a half, so out comes the M7 again and I start up a doodle to pass the time. I scratched out this picture, inspired by an old man who had walked up and sat down a little ways across from me along side his wife.

The picture is terribly unfair, he was a pleasant and normal looking person, so I am misrepresenting him here almost in his entirety. Except the socks. The black socks are dead accurate.



And now, it's Jerry Springer time...

Damn that was a rant and a half. I hate putting that up there at the top, about terrorism, because there just isn't much to laugh about. Most of it is very very sad. Sad because of the hatred. Sad because of the death. Sad because this is the current state of human affairs. We *choose* to do this to each other. Are we not brothers and sisters after all? We fight and kill each other for 'things'.

A very wise man once said to me, (this man is the closest person to a 'guru' I have ever met in my life, and this is just one of many many things he said to me, astounding in it's simplicity, and beautiful in it's honesty).

We're still apes, fighting over bananas...

Think about that. Like one of those trick questions where the answer is so obvious that you almost never see it. There is so much in that sentence that you aren't getting, because the message looks so obvious.

This man said these things to me in a context I cannot relate in such an eloquent manner as he, the best I can do is tell you to try and figure it out, and say, trust me, it's in there. I am only a student of life myself, not a teacher, but I have met some teachers, and we could certainly use a lot more of them in the world...

The evolution of mankind.

Okay, so. You've got coffee cups, right? And many many times they have something clever or wonderful printed on them, a picture of a beloved hound dog, or an advertisement for the local printing shop, or a cartoon about a couple having sex before having this cup of coffee...

That is all fine and dandy, but I've noticed (not that I am some kind of coffee cup connoisseur, but I do take pleasure in a fine example of that species of beverage transport...) that most of these cups with some sort of graphical image or message on them only have the image on one side. And that side is the one that points out when holding the cup in your left hand and inwards when holding the cup in your right hand.

Now you are saying to yourself, "Self, what the hell is he on about?" (which is the way a Brit might put it.) Or, "Self, do you give a shit, 'cause I don't!" (which is the way most Americans might put it.)

Regardless of which you are, or whether you are something else altogether the point remains the same. The graphic is outward in the left hand and inwards in the right hand.

I don't know about you, but I am, and so are 70 to 90 percent of all human beings, right handed. If you are left handed then I feel bad for you. Evolution has decided that, because you are prone to paranoia, alcoholism, Crohn's disease, accidents and dying young, that you will (in Darwinian fashion) not be selected to continue down the future path of our species. As I like to say, too bad for you. Shoulda been right handed...

So even thought right handers are the outright majority, and we are also superiour to our cave dwelling, left handed ancestors... most coffee cups still have to be held in the left hand in order for the graphic printed on the cup to be seen by anyone other than your belly button.

If I hold the cup I am drinking coffee from right now, a nice example of a retro coffee cup printed with the label of the ol' A. H. Perfect & Co.'s Perfect Coffee Brand coffee (how's that for 1950's advertising redundancy? I love that shit.), in my left hand, which I am doing now because I am typing and so I use my 'back up' hand to do the menial work of lifting so my right hand can be free to hover over the keyboard as I consider my next run on sentence, I cannot myself see the graphic. But I am not looking at the graphic. I am drinking from the cup, so I cannot see the sides of the cup at all, and if I can, I've probably spilled the coffee all over my lap and laptop. In which case you won't get to read this, (unless I use the 'recover option' to finish it off and post it, you may never know which has happened!!!).

Here's the sticking point... if I should lift the cup with my right hand, then the graphic is facing inward, and as I just pointed out (stay with me, I know the science of coffee cup imagery orientation is quite obtuse...) I can't see the sides, and so I can't see the graphic... but neither can anyone else, because when I'm drinking the picture is pointing at my crotch.

So to sum up where we are at this long winded moment, in the left hand, the image is out for others to see, in the right, the image is in for the crotch to see.

But wait. "Hey, run-on-sentence-dude," you're saying, I can hear you ya know, "but you said that when you're typing you use your inferior hand to lift the coffee." Your point being that the picture is operating correctly and effectively.

This is true, and it is quite effective when used thusly. But think about it. If I am working and the left handed is lifting in an absent minded way, I am most likely to not have somebody standing (or sitting) in front of me admiring my awesome coffee cup. On the other hand ('other hand' get it? oh ha. I really didn't mean that intentionally, it just happened, sorry.), if the cup is sitting so that I lift it with my right hand, utterly stopping any work or thought process, then I, myself can view and appreciate the image. For a split second before my nethers get to see the image they've seen dozens of times already if hafting ye ol' coffee mug with the right hand.

So in a lonely situation, having the graphic oriented for the left hand simply serves no purpose other than to prevent you, the very user of this coffee cup, from enjoying the image in any fashion, unless you hold it to your face with your right hand prior to chugging. I don't do that, maybe you do, but then I'm guessing you're left handed...

But if I am in a situation, socially, and I am right handed, like so many of us are, then science dictates an extremely large probability that my cup will be in my right hand. And the image will be pointing at my belly. Maybe pondering the fate of the cup's contents, if it could ponder, which it cannot since it is a lifeless object.

And now I have illustrated to you the conundrum of imagery printed on coffee cups. I am of the opinion that perhaps the Society of Coffee Cup Imagery Location has some kind of left handed Illuminati type hold at upper echelon of it's committee. Or maybe it's an anachronism from a time when left handers roamed the earth.

Either way, it bugs me out. I want to use my right hand the way God intended it. And I do not want to deny people watching me drink coffee the pure pleasure of my cup's totally sweet picture. Or clever phrase. Or brand marque. Or whatever else you stick to the side of one of those...

Stengah!

So I pull up to 7-11, just because, and I head on in. Well, these two fine looking young women and I meet up at the door at the same time. (what timing eh?) On the way to the door I hear the two of them talking...

Now this would normally fall into the "Overheard #xx" category, but I haven't done one of those in like 6 months, and this is more than just two chowderheads blowing bubbles into the wind. Besides, I think the whole "Overheard #xx" idea is about defunct. It has some merit but it hasn't stood the test of time... who knows... maybe in the future... probably not...

Anyway.

As we approach each other, the short, blonde haired, high heeled in jeans with a black jacket on young 'lady' says, "Do they have Thanksgiving in Africa?"

Now hold it right there. I know we haven't even gotten very far into tonight's experience to really justify putting this one on pause, but I want you to savour this moment. As I did at that moment.

You really need to appreciate this, a chilly Monday night, around 11 pm, in Hollywood, walking up to a 7-11, the dark of night shattered by the surgery room blast of light from inside the store, two good looking girls (I almost typed 'women' but.... but.... oh HAHAHAHA! sure they 'looked' good, but... posters look good, but they're pretty flat... and they sit there and do nothing... overall they really contribute nothing, except to make a room more interesting to look at... kind of like a house plant...)

Anyway.

So, you get the image in your head right? Cold, dark, bright, orange and green. We come to the door at the same time, I get a bit of a sideways glance from one of them, the second and taller of the two, while the first one, the shorter one, asks, "Do they have Thanksgiving in Africa?"

Being the gentleman that I am, I reach for the door and open it for them. As you can predict with L.A. women I think I got a glance and nothing for holding the door. Well, I'd do it anyway, it's just the way I am made, but that doesn't mean they aren't uppity bitches. I think they were driving a Honda Accord or something similar (which is the appropriate Los Angeles method of judging somebody's inherit value as a human...) Poor things. I hope they find a sugar daddy soon, or they might have to resort to sexual favours for... oh, well, I suppose they already do that... it *is* L.A. afterall...

I mean, there's no law against being NICE. You know, I'd really like to meet their parents... the people that raised them...

Anyway.

So I open, the door, and they head in, and I take this question, "Do they have thanksgiving in Africa?" with a measure of shock. I'm cool on the outside, but on the inside I'm totally like, woah, omigod wtf byob mia afk bbq !?!

And I crack a smile. A smirk really, because I tried to stifle it but it went up on one side...

The second girl, the taller one, says, "Oh yeah, I'm sure they have mashed potatoes and gravy and..." I can't remember all the details, but she was being sarcastic, saying that she was sure that Africans (in general? there is a lot of them, and many different types...) were waaaayyyy into Thanksgiving.

They headed right on into the 7-11 and I came around the door slowly, you know, with a little style, mostly just to buy myself some time to crack up a tiny bit before getting into the store... Once inside I looked over at them, I think the taller one looked at me, not at the same time, but the way you can see someone look at you out of the corner of your eye, the way you just looked at them out of the corner of your own eye, as if, like in olden tymes, when two people, untrusting, suspicious of each other would "eye" one another...

But enough run on sentences...

So we did the subconscious eying of each other, and for a moment I wondered if they were fucking with me, because the conversation was so completely absurd. If they were, kudos to them, because I think they're idiots *and* I got a great laugh out of it. If they weren't, well, then I think they're idiots *and* I got a great laugh out of it.

Anyway.

While standing in line, I was behind an orthodox Jew, and he had a drink cup, you know, one of those big plastic jobbers with the top on them so you can put a straw in them... like the ones you find at Jack in The Box, or 7-11, but (And I am completely not shitting you) this thing was HUGE. It was as tall as a usual plastic novelty drink cup, but it was twice as wide. I'm guessing (And I am completely not shitting you) it will hold 2 liters of whatever... you know... an entire bottle of Coke, or something...

But that's not the point. The cup had a graphic on it, as most do, and this one was of "American Chopper", the show on Discovery or The Learning Channel or whatever about the bike builders, Orange County Choppers, where you get to watch Teutul Sr. and Teutul Jr. bitch and moan at each other for a whole hour while they (Teutul Jr. really, Mr. Teutul Sr. please don't kill me, I'm just being honest...) build a bike from mostly scratch...

I know I'm all wordy and shit, but the short of it is, I'm standing there behind an orthodox Jew, in 7-11, and he's weilding this fucking GIANT cup of soda advertising a show about hard core bikers... Only in L.A., right?

Anyway.

As I'm leaving I get to the door, the tall and short bimbos are still over in the corner get cash out of ye olde cash machine, I reach to push the door open, and in the corner of the window, the corner in the middle where the doors meet, just above the door handle pushing thingy there is a sign, I think it was a "now hiring" sign, and of course the sign was facing outside so the blank white backside of the sign was facing inwards towards the inside of the store...

I push the door open as I'm walking out, and notice, scratched onto the blank backside of the sign, were the words "help me out".

A message from the past, from a desperate person... an artifact from a moment unknown to you or I... a moment... help *who* out? It reminded me of the scribbled signs like "watch for the walkin dude" that Roland and company came across before meeting Father Callahan in the Wolves of the Calla.

It was a fitting end to my 7-11 adventure, because I certainly needed help out of that place... There are a few other funny things that happened while inside, but this is enough for you.

Anyway.

I'm watching Family Guy while writing this and Brian just ordered a 'Stinger, with a whiskey back' and I actually know what that is... sophisticated... and far older skool than Schlitz Malt Liquor...

... it's also the name of a kickass Meshuggah tune...

Lionel Richie... a Chia pet?

Get your very own...

I was watching Futurama on Adult Swim tonight and saw this Chia commercial. I'd actually seen this commercial last year sometime and we remarked how much this Chia resembled Lionel Richie. I'd forgotten about it until it popped up tonight...

Thank God for tivo...

I am a ghost

I float through walls. I fall through the floor.

Seeking hands reach to pull me down, but they can't grasp me.

I send clouds of birds into sudden flight.

I follow you into dark hallways. I move over you in the night.

I pass through your flesh.

I stumble unseen.

Draw a straight line for me.

Grace, a hammer, has crushed my bones.
My back, bent, broken now.

Shattered, and nothing holds me up.

My heart flies to where my body cannot enter.
My eyes are blackened from the brightest, the brightest I have ever seen.

My hands burn still, from the softest of touches.
I cannot even twist away.

This is grace.

Chicken Pot Pie

My cat, Chicken. He has a sister and she'll probably find her way onto this page sometime. They're a blast to photograph...

Both taken with my Nikon D70 w/ a Tamron 90mm 1:1 macro lens (which is a great lens, btw).

angst, itunes and radioactive warfare

Well, first off, I finally got my answer to where the nukes were on BSG. Although I'm not real sure why Galactica did not use them in Exodus where it looked like it was the end for her and the entire human race. Seems like when you're backed into a corner and all is lost that would be a good time to pull out the nukes. But what do I know of strategics of space warfare against an aggressive robotic race of war machines?

It also appears that Galactica took possession of Pegasus's nukes at some point considering she now carries a lot more than the 3 she was left with in season 2. This makes sense if she took them for the assault to rescue the humans from New Caprica, but that only makes the non-use of them in that episode all the more perplexing. Oh well, she's got 'em now...

itunes 7 has gapless playback for albums such as Pink Floyd's Dark Side of The Moon, so that the songs flow into one another as intended instead of being chopped up. iTunes users the world over rejoiced. It's probably the most significant improvement to the software since it was born. Can't believe they missed that one... Oh well, we've got it now...

And angst? What would a blog of mine be without angst? Not really sure... happy? I just threw in angst to sweeten the deal a little bit, sorry if I mislead you... too bad for you...

Unitard!

Look, I *know* it's not nice. But everyone laughs at it. Well, everyone I've showed so far. I have shit in my past that hurts, but you have to be able to laugh, if you don't, then what's the point of living. (you'll notice no question mark there, it's not a question dummy, get with the program already.)

That's just a statement of my position because I am, for myself, sensitive to the situation. That said, it's not an apology. It's a fuck you if you can't take a joke. Because this world has gotten to the point were it takes everything personally. Shit, I should be writing this rant in my other blog.

Besides, he's a cyclops... show me a God damn cyclops and then I'll consider feeling bad...

Aqua Teen Hunger Sketch

Doodling about on my M7, watching ATHF... maybe I'll pump out a few more of these...

Creepy magic Homer

I suppose if Homer had human hands... was some kind of wizard... and was mixing some kind of magical dust to perform some kind of magic... he might look like this... As the title suggests I find it rather creepy in a way. I think I actually drew the hands first, and in a fit of jack-ass-ed-ness added Homer's head onto the shoulders... I can guarantee you'll see more of that kind of crap from me...

Motherlode !!!

I never really understood that word. I know what it means, I just never looked up it's etymology. This is the best example of what I came up with when searching for information on this word; basically, from 1800's and 1900's a woman's worth as a wife was measured by her proficiency at or abundance of weaving or sewing. Yeah, sexist right? Well, I suppose it's good that we moved them into the kitchen over time. Rugs and sweaters don't taste very good and are rather chewy.

Here's an old picture that I scanned recently for archival purposes. I did some minor cleanup on it. You can see (or maybe you can't since the image is so small) the top is a little blurry from the scan for some reason. Oh well.



And this is the meaning for that title and sideways discussion on it's origin. I found when looking over the image full size on the monitor how totally cool some of the ink word is, and figured I'd post a whole shitload of full sized examples...

This picture was done with a quill and ink. Pretty sweet eh? So the results is some very excellent ink lines and interaction with wet ink on ink. Kinky.

The following images are how the scans appear when viewing them at 100% in photoshop.



That one, leaves from a rose vine, shows what I was speaking of in a previous post about different artists' impact on me in terms of their line technique. I haven't read the book in a while, but that image reminds me of Frank Miller's Ronin. I'm not sure what tools he used, but the inky-ness of that book is extremely cool.



Not quite as 'clever' looking as the image before it, this one shows how I work. Usually quite fast and sort of 'scratchy'. Personally I don't care for the quality of this area, but it's still fun to look at.



Looks like some kind of mutated giant tropical tree. I imagine Flash Gordon would find this kind of leafy creature in one of his adventures.





And these two are from the thorny bits. Again, up close they remind me of some threatening alien world a space adventurer from the 1950's might encounter...

Friends

Well these two obviously don't have a very honest relationship, or at the very least, it is a rather one sided honest relationship. I don't know about you, but I think that one guy looks like a real jerk.

I really enjoy little bits of sketches like these where you see something happening, but you don't know what it is specifically. One could spend a considerable amount of time conjecturing just what is happening between these two. Lots of fun. Yep.

Here's a full sized image of some of the detailed area as scanned on the flatbed. There is some real nice ink action going on. I'm going to guess this was done with on of those famous black (in this case, blue) pens with the five or six notches at the end of the cap, with blue ink (of course!). Those pens are legend... ah! found 'em. They are the uni-ball Rollerball. Simple. Elegant. Love those things...

You're going to see a lot of line quality detail images in this blog. I love that. I used to imitate my favorite artists, not so much the style, but the way the linework itself looked... maybe that is some kind of fetish?

getting nowhere...

The whole point of that 'circles of hell' post was that, I had a moment where I felt like I had been continually banging my head against something... I won't go into the details... and had a sudden association with the level in Hell where those particular damned are sentenced to pulling and pushing heavy stones around. The actual thought I'd had was of someone continually rolling a stone uphill. I was relating to that in particular at that time.

But, as it turns out, the fourth level of Hell (the one concerned with weights) in fact contains two groups of damned who crash giant weights against each other, over and over again, in some kind of tug-of-war in reverse, until such time as their final judgment comes, and this punishment is levied against those who are consumed with material acquisitions... not what I had in mind. I was thinking more of an existential kind of block-headedness so I was pretty far off the mark there...

I know there is a reference to eternally rolling a stone uphill as some form of punishment or self-punishment, but I am unable to recall where that seed in my mind was planted... somebody out there knows...

Anyway... I sort of digressed in that post about my dream and never really got to the point.

Interestingly enough, when I looked up the punishment with the stones, I came across a reference to snakes, whereby thieves are continually bitten by snakes as their damnation, interred all the way down (get ready for some participial phrases!)in the 8th level of Hell, in the 7th ditch in the City of Dis. I find interest in the relationship between those in level 4 who are materialists, and those in the 7th ditch, thieves, who it could be argued are also concerned with material possesions...

Sucks for them...

The circles of Hell...

I just remembered this.

I had a dream the other night.

Long time readers are sighing to themselves. Crap, not another blog about his damn dreams they say.

Well, as Kevin reminded me today, and as Dirty Harry used to say... "Cool it, hammerhead!" to which I'd like to add my new founded word 'hurtlock.'

So to you whiny recounted-dream-blog haters out there, I say, "Cool it, you hammerheads, or I'll put you in a hurtlock !!!"

Now that I've threatened you all with physical violence to stifle your moans of pain and anguish...

All I can really recall from the dream is... there were two snakes. Yeah, it's a snake dream. But these thing were strange. They were very short, two feet long at the most. Well, that's not that short by snake standards, but these things had a diameter of about 4 inches. Imagine a two foot snake with a body as thick around as your fist. Strange, I told you. Now add to that the head. It was not a snake head. I don't really know what it was. More like a rodent or something. And the teeth! These teeth were not snake teeth, they were not fangs. More like a mouth full of razor sharp teeth, much like a shark, or a piranha. And their bodies were colored bone white, and I think their eyes were white or bluish, and they weren't reptile or cat's eyes, the pupils were round more like a human's eye. Trust me, these things were fully creepy, unnatural, as something spawned from the sixth dimension...

So, yeah, these two snakes were bent on doing some kind of harm, a kind of evil. Pretty standard. And since it was my dream, I was the central reluctant hero. All very usual. I remember one I grabbed below it's head, and with a knife I had (it was some kind of serrated pocket knife, not really long enough for this kind of physical combat, but you make do with what you have at hand in dire circumstances...), I severed it's head from it's body. The blood was red, and sort of thick, not thick like human blood, but kind of gluey, like it was some kind of automobile lubricant. And there wasn't enough of it, the thing just didn't have enough blood in it's body compared to it's size, as if it simply didn't need the blood to run it's biological mechanism.

The second one I got ahold of, I had the intention of doing him in the same as his twin. I went to work on what would be the neck, but this one, perhaps because of my overconfidence due to my previous success, was quite a bit more difficult. Where the first put up little resistance due to losing his head in a rapid manner, the second writhed about violently, and was extremely difficult to hold with only one hand, especially considering I could barely get one hand around it's thick, squirming body. The knife didn't go cleanly through in one go, and he made a violent thrashing. I had to try several more times to finally do him in, resorting to sawing at the neck with the short knife. I never was able to cut through the body completely, but I finished the job nonetheless. It was like sawing through some kind of thick, ropey leather.

The exciting part of all of this, was my fearful resignation to the whole event. Certainly, an encounter of this type is rather unsettling, considering the violence, and adding to that the otherworldly creatures attacking me. It is interesting to me how little, or almost no panic I felt, as if I was operating on some kind of auto pilot, some other voice or force guiding my actions. "Grab the neck" and I did, "Sever the head" and I did. It was not a matter of fear, reluctance, or furry. No emotion can I clearly recall. There was a part, far back in my mind that was thoroughly freaked out at how entirely bizarre the whole thing was, but the front of my mind was operating like a robot performing a function without a passion of any kind.

I suppose the striking points in the dream are these personal observations. I don't have any kind of usual clever twist ending to this blog, I was mostly entranced by the funky and spooky monsters, and the strange, vacant way I dispatched them.

I guess I found myself almost as otherworldly as the monsters themselves...

vooting

Well, I did some research on vooting and came up with nothing. So bear with me. The only solid reference to 'voot' I found at urbandictionary.com, but that describes 'voot' as a variant of 'woot' mostly used by girls, for reasons I didn't really understand.

Now, 'vooting' describes the sound, or act of creating the sound of your upper teeth vibrating on your lower lip. It makes a kind of 'vvvvvvvv' sound. Some people can intuitively make this sound, probably even at this moment as you read this. Others, sadly will only show their teeth, and say "vvvvvvv". You see, the voot sound isn't produced with the throat at all. In fact it feels more like you're sending air through your nose and vibrating your upper palette. Perhaps someday, a government subsidiary will fund a scientific research project into the mechanics of vooting... until then these humble illustrations will have to suffice.



That is some random dude vooting. He appears quite good at it...



And this is a self-portrait of myself, vooting. I couldn't really tell you why I look so surprised, I can actually voot quite well.

I couldn't really work it into my fancy paragraphs up there, but I must credit Mr. Ethan Marak as responsible for coining, or at least, relaying the terms 'voot' and 'vooting'. He is also quite good at vooting, if memory serves... I'd link you to his sweet stop motion site, but I can't seem to locate it anymore. Bummer.

photos, two

I take pictures with a camera also. There's a couple of pics of people that I like a lot. The first one is straight out of the camera with only a slight exposure adjustment, and the second has no alterations at all. I do like to play with photoshop, but most of the pictures I take that strike me like these two generally require very little fiddling. And I prefer to keep 'fiddling' to a minimum when presenting images as 'photos' as opposed to 'artwork'. Just a personal quirk.




Most pictures I take that I have much interest in are usually macro pics of flowers. They don't move around much and you don't have to talk to them and tell them how to pose. People are far more complicated...

three dudes

These three dudes are up to no good, you can just tell by the looks on their faces, although one of them is less sure of his involvement in what the other two have planned. The one guy seems to be aware of this, and the other appears consumed by his own thoughts of chicanery.

Either that or they are about to go into a bar, and that one guy needs to get home to his wife...

bacon-face

I used sit down at the computer, sometimes on break at work, sometimes at home or a friends machine, and paint or draw stuff just to distract my mind. If you happen to read my other blog I'm sure you'd understand that I basically think about everything too much, as long as it pertains to my own existance, and the complications thereof.

This is one of those. I sat down with Painter 5 probably and just started painting. One of those you never know what you'll end up with kind of sessions. This is what I got after a little while of screwing around. It never ended up becoming anything, I just went back to work and it just lingered around.

A friend of mine saw it afterwards and pointed out to me that it looked similar to Francis Bacon's style of painting. I didn't think of it at the moment, but after considering, it does kinda look like something he might do. Which is pretty flattering since I like Bacon's work alot.

How's this?

First, I hope I don't leave anything out, this is really important, and I've been writing this post in my head already and usually the words and thoughts float out as fast as they float in. It's a rough life blogging things.

Okay, so let's try something new.

I'm a wordy sonofabitch. I started out thinking about an email I'm going to write, and it starts out simple enough and before I know it, it's a paragraph long and what I'm doing is writing a page just to explain the one sentence. It's like I can't just say the one thing. I have to make sure that every angle as to why I'm saying it is covered so there is no misunderstanding, or some kind of special insight into why I've been motivated to say the thing in the first place. It's like the impetus is more important than the thing itself.

I don't know. I'm weird.

I slept late today. I don't feel that good.

I posted a blog before this one.

I posted to my opialympia blog, which I keep for my artwork. That thing is picking up steam since I started it just a couple months ago. That makes me happy. The link is over there -> if you're at all interested.

I did some stuff on the computer afterwards. Some photo and art stuff.

I kinda did nothing for a little bit.

I've been feeling anxious today. Like having energy without focus.

No, like being aware time is passing and not doing enough with it. That's bugging me. Which is interesting because I was motivated to make myself a list of goals that I'd like to meet in the coming year. Not really a New Years resolution come early or anything, I just want to be more than I am right now.

I go to work, and that gives me purpose. I used to be married, and that gave me purpose. In the last year of the marriage all I was really focused on was getting us together, and starting a family. I don't have that anymore, and I'm not really sure what to do with myself. So I'm trying to get back to my creative stuff.

I discovered something about myself, something that was missing in my marriage, and I don't know how to describe it. I think... I know now how it is supposed to feel, how it is supposed to work, and now I see how I've been doing it all wrong. Well, wrong for me at any rate. I know without a doubt what I want or need in my relationship, should I ever be so lucky as to find it... There's more to this, but I'm not sure what to think of some of it. It has me confused, although it's not bad, there are just some contradictions that I have trouble wrapping my brain around. I know that it'll come clear in time. But I'm an impatient bastard, in truth.

It's like this: back when I first was separated, I had to by some new furniture. And I didn't want to buy cheap junk, I wanted stuff that would last a long time. Something substantial, something mine. One of the most important pieces of furniture, to me, is the coffee table. This is the center of a room, and it sets the character of a home, in my opinion. Anyhow, I knew what I wanted. I knew that when I saw it, I would know without a doubt that would be the coffee table for me. I turned into this high maintenance picky asshole. Angie took me around to I don't know how many furniture stores across L.A. and eventually she got frustrated with me. I think to the point that she didn't really want to help me look for one anymore. The process took a couple months, but I did find the thing.

One day I was walking down to the improv studio which is just a 5 minute walk from my apartment and literally 30 yards from my place, there was a furniture store, a little boutique place (it's not there anymore, not sure if it closed or just moved) and I just looked in casually and there it was. My coffee table. I walked in and bought it. And now it sits right here next to me. (I'm typing this on the floor on my 8 billion year old laptop, which I call a slaptop, because I have it plugged into my mixer which I use as a stereo receiver, so I can use it as an internet radio receiver. Pretty cool huh? Yeah, but my neck is starting to hurt and my right foot fell asleep.)

The point is, what I want in a relationship is that coffee table. I know it when I see it. I am terribly aware of that now, where as before I just wanted to find somebody to plug into that place in my life. Well, I realize now that won't work.

See how long winded that was? That's what I'm talking about. It's like some kind of mental vomit. I could actually go on more, but I feel like I've got it about 80% covered, and I just have to let the OCD take a break for a few minutes. It's hard to do sometimes.

And now I've forgotten a few of those things...

I dropped a small metal basket on my two toes next to the pinky toe on my left foot. I cracked the bones. What's funny is, when I walk around the house barefoot, they hurt all the time. I'm currently getting a slight shooting pain up the bottom of my foot. Great. But when I wear shoes they hurt much less. Strange.

This post (and the aforementioned email) started stampeding through my head as I was finishing up my shower here at 4 in the afternoon.

I took a 40 minute shower. I turned it on hat and sat down. I just sat there for awhile as my brain chattered on and on.

Now I'm going to run up to Whole Foods and by some food that's good for me, but which is a bit expensive... ah well.

But I think I'll also stop by Carl's Jr. and get a delicious hamburger. Man I'm craving one of those right now in a bad way.

I haven't eaten all day.

I'm staying home tonight. Alone. Maybe I'll watch a movie, or read my book. I'm reading Olympus, the second book to Illium, written by Dan Simmons. I'm quite a fan of his stories. This one is ridiculously complicated. Also, and I think I noticed this before but, Dan must have forgotten more classical literature than I've ever contemplated reading. That man has got to be one well read son of a gun.

Son of a gun. Now there's a phrase you never hear anymore.

I saw Demolition Man last night after Battlestar Galactica. 'Hurtlock' is a word that has joined my lexicon. Although they don't explain it in the movie, nor do we actually see one used, 'hurtlock' appears to be some kind of fighting move, such as a lock or hold in wrestling, designed to do nothing other than hurt the person receiving this lock. Too bad for them. They got put in a hurtlock.

Also, I really liked this phrase. I'm going to put it in random places from now on.

"You're the guy that was standing outside Taco Bell"

That's good stuff.

So there is a retardly long post that was really meant to be just a dumb list of diary like events from my day.

Cool words used in this post:

aforementioned
lexicon
hurtlock

the One, number 2

...but I can't remember if this one was the actual #2 out of the handful of these sketches I've done, although I suppose it doesn't matter... This is a good example of what I like about giving an impression of detail rather than explicitly drawing it in.

He seems rather resigned that he is the one...

This drawing only exists as a digital file now and it got corrupted someplace and it was thouroughly wacked out. I had a couple different versions of it, each messed up in a different way. I fixed it awhile back in Photoshop, although I can't remember exactly what I did. I know I used the red version and processed it to remove the red and clean up a few edges, but I didn't do much else to it. I decided to leave it alone and there are still quite a few problems with it, namely line edges, where you seen a lot of white surrounding the strokes. If I ever use it for anything important I'd clean up and make it look like something, but for now this is the way it exists... poor thing...

And I just realized I lost his hair in the cleanup.

Crap.

sometimes I DO get it right.

I realized that life is different than school.

In school you take tests, and if you get the answer right, you pass the test.

In life, you can get the answer right, and still fail the test.

I'm what? 33 years old? ...and I just now figured this out. I'm guessing you thought, from the sound of the title that this post would end a bit more upbeat...