Friday Warm Up - 21/03/08

Just trying to get the muscles going before I get on with the comics panels of the day. Found a new use for photobooth on my MacBook Pro though...

In other things, one a completely unrelated note, for those who didn't see or hear the full version of Obama's speech on Race and Religion on Tuesday, listen to this man. He truly may be one of the great statesmen of this generation. I know everyone wonders if he's been properly tested in hte crucible of international politics; but no one freaked out (except for the reactionary wing of the Republican party) when we elected a no name governor from Arkansas with little international experience to the White House in 1992. If you can get past the inappropriate fellatiography of the man and his intern, he did some good work in trying to bring peace both to Ireland and the Middle East.

Check it if you get a chance...

Spitz-O-Rific - 12/03/08

It's kinda like if Harvey Dent, crusading Gotham City District attorney, one day threw acid in his OWN face--just to stir things up a little.

Jesus, what the hell was he thinking? I lived in New York at the height and then beginning of the end of the DotCom boom. When it became apparent that there were a lot of people who made a whole lot more money than they should have and screwed some honest folks to do it in the process, Eliot Spitzer was this guy you remembered reading about who was a holy bloody terror to people who had the gall to break the law with the sense of entitlement of a 20s robber baron. It was nice to read about.

And now he goes and pulls a Gary Hart. What a friggin' douche bag.

Your Options as an American... - 17/02/08

I love this. I just got my tax rebate check for the 2006 tax year (yes, I said 2006m; yes it is 2008...) Anyway, on the back of the check, the IRS and US government apparently only recognize three states of being, one of them being dead...

And then, you've got to love the simple declaration of a return address like this...

Now back to scribbling...

Night Bus Grandpa - 02/12/07

Last night, Lyndsay and I were heading home from a nice Thai meal in SoHo by getting on the number 3 Night Bus off Haymarket. No seats below--and I can count on one hand the number of times I sit on the lower deck on a double decker bus--so we head up.

We sit toward the back of the bus; me being a bit oblivious as I often am to insulate myself from the sound and the fury, it only comes to my attention a few minutes later that there is a teeming mass of prepubescent gangsta hormones seething with pseudo-street rage at the back of the bus. There are about 10 boys and girls listening to and singing along with music they're blasting from the tinny speakers of their mobile phones.

This is nominally interesting because--although the R & B and hip hop to which they were singing was as robotically uninteresting as most mass produced musical bog water is these days--listening to them interact with it was fun.

But then one of the little guys lights up. On the top deck of a bus where smoking probably hasn't been allowed since the early 90s, this kid who is at least five years away from even thinking about shaving is sitting there at the head of his group of friends, in the midst of a bunch of silently frustrated bus goers (from their mid-twenties to their sixties) puffing away--or at least pretending to puff because I don't think he has any idea how to inhale.

The kids are yelling at each other, the girls are trying marginally to ask the one guy not to smoke, but mostly it is just a nascent testosterone fest by a bunch of punks who think that manhood is something they learn from music videos.

I take it for a while. But I'm tired, work was frustrating, and I don't want to breathe smoke all the way back home. Other people are getting visibly upset.

I turn and stare down Smokey the Bandit. He looks at me with eyes that are a bit disturbing--glazed over with stupidity and hatred and dulled by the cough medicine he has undoubtedly nicked from a pharmacy to get where he wants to be that night. He looks at me, scowls and then asks me what the fuck my problem is.

I point to the no smoking sign and say, "See that lovely sign up there. In case you can't read it, it says 'No Smoking'." He looks at my dully but trying to be angry. His friend, younger, perhaps 13, tells me to "Suck his dick." Had I had my wits about me, I would merely ask, "Son, have you even gone through puberty?" But of course my wits aren't anywhere to be seen. I am sitting on a bus, seething with rage because here is a group of punks who've found that pushing the boundaries of social acceptability is just so much fun and I am stuck with them. I am raging at the fact that I find myself obeying social dictates (You know? Like ones that say "Don't beat other people's poorly raised children in public. Hope that when they get home their parents will do it for them.") whilst they sit there hopping across invisible social lines waiting for someone to tell them to stop.

(We should pause to note that Lyndsay, sensibly, tries to put a calming hand on my forearm, because she's seen first-hand what happens when people speak up to roving bands of British shits, no matter how old. A good friend of hers, who is black, watched a man get beaten severely in full view of the rest of the passengers on a bus because he was the one person to stand up to a group of kids who had been racially harassing Lyndsay's friend. With no fear of 2nd Amendment nutters armed and with a permit to conceal, and the British penchant for tight-lipped silence in the face of social outrage, there just doesn't seem to be a great fear of consequences.)

But let's not focus on my stupidity and anger at kids doing what kids do, albeit more loudly, angrily, and maliciously than I've seen in a while. What really gets me going, is the couple behind me; an aussie couple in their early 30s. At one point, the woman is clearly upset and turns around to see what's going on, only to find Smokey sitting directly behind her. She must have knocked his knee with her elbow or something because he fixes her with a glare of pure, dumb hate. Her boyfriend's response? To sit quietly looking forward, saying nothing. Her response? To apologize effusively saying, "I'm so sorry, I did not mean to offend."

What the f@%k?! (warning: rant coming on...) She doesn't have to say anything. She can just turn around. But that apology only feeds his stupid, feral rage; vindicates him in his quest for power beyond his 14 year old lot. That is appeasement of the kind that still makes old men fume at the thought of Vichy France, that makes the Dutch still quietly hate themselves for acquiescing in the face of Nazi might.

Now the comparison is absurd, and my rage is no better than his. But if he and his companions are the ones going to be taking over in a few years, then I guess I'll just have to kick back, pop open a few colds ones and watch the apocalypse.

Then again, maybe I've just become an obnoxious old man who needs his Maylox because dinner didn't go down well...

(Random picture from Sketch Book--completely unrelated)

Pop Quiz... - 15/10/07

A) I was selected by a majority of my people to lead them as leader in their highest elected office. I am an Academy Award winning documentarian, have been a tireless advocate for sane and sustainable environmental awareness and care, and am now a Nobel Laureate for Peace.

B) I am a bible thumping, formerly-coke-snorting cowboy who can't spell "cowboy"; have gotten where I am because I am pappy's l'il boy, and spend my time clearing brush and unsavoury regimes by starting fires I can't put out.

Question: Who, A) or B), is leader of the free world and, arguably, the most powerful man on planet earth?

On another note, I did a little poster art for my sister's yoga studio and was kinda happy with the results...

Dangerous Substances - 01/06/07

I just got back to the UK from a 2 week trip to the states. Upon coming back in, our bags got lost so we had to fill out a form to retrieve the bags. On the form was a customs declaration.

I had to sign it verifying that I had not brought any dangerous substances into the UK. Some of the things I had to verify I was not bringing into the country? The usual suspects like livestock, non native plants, explosives, flick knives, horror comics, child pornogr--

Wait, horror comics?! Yes, horror comics. Those be dangerous goods that are not to be imported lest they bring the Empire to its Knees and have Old Queen Liz clutching Her Breast and weeping...

Lo, behold the power of the cartoonist to bring realms to wrack and ruin and with a weapon as mighty as the printed page...

Superpowers - 27/09/05

"It's as if he has a third eye, one that looks out from his imagination and sees everything. It's that eye he looks through when he rolls the other two up. To own such an ability as this and to express it with something as humble as a pencil... ye gods!"

--Roland Deschain of Gilead speaking of the mute boy Patrick Danville

Stalking... - 31/08/05

So here's is something I never thought I would have to deal with.

I was riding to Kim's place from work the other day at around 10pm. Turned down Avenue of the Stars, a wide, fiarly well lit cross street between Santa Monica and Pico. As I am riding, a fairly new looking Volkswagen Bug crosses in front of me with no lights on. Strange, I think, and ride on listening to my iPod Shuffle.

A moment later, the same bud pulls out of a drive way to my right and I holler "Lights!" as I ride by, thinking maybe he's had a senior moment or just not noticed because of the street lights.

I'm peddling along a few moments later, and notice that he is now following me--you know, going bike speed--without his lights on. I get nervous, pull over, and he pulls up behind me. "Anything I can help you with?" I ask. "Nah, I got no where to go tonight so I'm following you." "That's nice, but I am going home to my girlfriend's house, so you can find someone else to follow, alright?"

I get on my bike, turn onto Pico and he is still following me. There are two red lights ahead on two successive blocks so I ramp it up and blast through them while he is stuck in traffic. I turn down a side street, and duck in to an area under a tree not illuminated by the street lights at the bottom of Kim's street. He pulls in behind me.

I turn around on foot--not wanting to go anywhere near Kim's house with this guy following me--and walk back to Pico, freaked out now. He turns and follows. On Pico, I get on the bike, turn around again, and ride as fast as I can back down to another cross street. I duck left down it, and then left down another that runs parallel to Pico. He's still following me.

I get out the side street to the nearest big street, Beverwil. I take a left on Beverwil and head up to the corner where I know there is a large shopping center with a Ralph's Grocery Store open 24 hours. He's still following.

I notice some people on the side of the road under a street light, and pull over again. He pulls up just behind me. Beverwil is a four lane road and he is pulled up in the second lane to the center--in the middle of the road. There's not a lot of traffic but he forces some bewildered other motorists to pass on the right as he is parked in the middle of the road.

He then pulls over toward me and I walk away a few steps. I raise my voice and say that "You've got to find someone else to follow tonight" figuring that a verbal altercation in front of other people will call his bluff and get him the hell out of my night.

"I thought you said you were going to your girlfriend's house," he says back, raising his out voice.

"You need to find someone else to follow now," I repeat.

"I think you're a lying bitch! WHY AREN'T YOU GOING TO YOUR GIRLFRIEND'S PLACE BITCH !?"

"You need to find something else to do tonight."

Now he gets more belligerent. "WHY?! You sound scared bitch. Are you scared BITCH?!"

Quite frankly, now I AM scared. I am a big guy; 6'3", 220 lbs. But I'm also generally a pretty amiable dude who minds his own business. I'm not used to shit getting started by crazy people. He was this youngish black guy, probably 160-180 lbs. In a shoving match I would win just on account of mass. But I have no idea if he's on drugs, psychotic, or armed.

I turn and walk on foot to the Ralph's well-lit and moderately well-trafficked (even for 10 pm) parking garage. As I turn in, he's screaming at me that I am a bitch, and then he throws the cherry on this freakish encounter: "I'll see you back at the hotel, bitch!" This is great, no I am freaked out, and all the somnabulent old Jewish folks that have wandered over to Ralph's to get themselves a little Pepto to help them sleep now think that I couple of "Boys for WeHo" (West Hollywood) are having a tryst in front of their store.

I head down to the front doors of the store, call Kim and let her know why I didn't show up right away at her doorstep as I thought I would. She obviously gets scared, but in spite of my protestations, gets in her jeep and comes out to find me.

In the meantime a mall security guard walks by as I am trying to call 911 from a failing pay phone (couldn't remember how to get ahold of cops on my cell other than calling directory assistance). I say, "This is going to sound weird by I am being following--" Before I finish he says, "Oh yes, black man, looks like gangster. He's upstairs looking for man on bike. He ask about you." Jesus. Now I am really freaked.

Kim calls me back, "I'm in he parking garage, come up here and let's get you out of here." Yep, that's right; my 5'4" girlfriend does a perfectly executed extraction of her freaked out boyfriend out of hostile territory.

The overwhelming feeling, in spite of the fact that nothing actually happened, is of anger and vulnberability. Vulnerability because I have had enough experience to know that no matter how a simple just clocking the guy and getting out of Dodge might have seemed, you never know all the variables and things can spin rapidly out of control. Anger then because I didn't feel I could do anything, besides fleeing, without making the situation worse. And it makes me angry to think of every unwanted advance, every leering glare that women who don't ask for it get.

To underscore the point, after we all calmed down, Kim's roommate Megan said, "You know you were asking for it, wearing that sleeveless biking jersey like you were." We laughed a little nervously, had a glass of wine (I had three) and went to bed...

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