Wednesday, April 30, 2008

I dropped off the Slice O’ Life original format collection at the printers today. I about gagged when I saw how much this is going to cost me for a 40+ page comic book.
Prices have really jumped since I last did this…obviously it’s been quite a while.
They should be ready by next week. Check the website (probably the “news” button) to obtain a copy and when and where I’ll have a signing.
I’m going to eventually have a “store” page on the website very soon to purchase books, t-shirts and other ‘one-off’ art pieces.
Yes, I am a busy little beaver.

Saturday, April 26, 2008

Back from Sacramento and boy am I tired. I’m not too used to staying up past 2 am anymore. I hope Steve got what he wanted as he had a few snafus with his recording equipment but I think it all turned out okay. The guy is good.
I also enjoyed recording with my old pal, Marty Montana. Marty is an excellent bassist and musician. He and I go all the way back to playing in some of our first bands in the mid 70’s in Oak Park with our buddy Art Arias when I was a sophomore and they were both juniors in high school.

Sacramento, on the other hand looks almost nothing like how I remembered it when I moved away 26+ years ago. Sure, I’ve been back there countless times since I left but I rarely went anywhere other than my mom’s house. I rolled around a bit after I left but that was the first 5 years and not much changed in 5 years.

She’s been gone for 10 years this coming August and since then I have been up there maybe 5 times and most of those 5 times was right after she had passed away. The other time was for Aldo’s funeral a few years back literally a couple of days after I was out of a 5 day hospital stay (I had no business behind the wheel. Man!). I never really explored the place like I did yesterday after say, 1982.

I spent most of a day just driving and walking around and I was almost heartbroken to find that most of the stuff I remember is gone and what’s left has changed so much I don’t really recognize any of it anymore.

I did drop in on Esoteric Records which hasn't been at it's original location in about 30 years. I got to shoot the bull with my old pal (and once employer) Denis Tomassetti and have a Fat Tire Ale too. I used to hang out then began to work a bit at the original Alhambra Boulevard location when Rick DaPrado owned it (across the street from McKinley Park) and then it's 2Nd location on Broadway (right down the street from the original Tower records). During my visit yesterday we were laughing our asses off about all of the characters that came into the shop(s) and crazy times we had at those places. Thanks, Denis. A great guy from a great family!

Almost every one I grew up with that I was real close to, like myself have moved away. What parents that are still alive have also moved.
There are still some folks I wonder about and have lost touch with and I don’t know where they are. There is even one person who (I thought) I was pretty good friends with but he got real pissed off at me for wishing him a happy birthday last year on what I thought was his 50Th birthday but it turned out it was his 49Th. Geez, how did I know he was going to be such a jerk about it? At least I remembered his birthday, right? Now the guy doesn’t speak to me. Oh well. Life’s too short to hold grudges or to drink crappy beer.

Anyway--Sacramento is about twice the size (population) as when I lived there. It’s somewhere in the area of 470,000 in the metropolitan area. Hey, at least it isn’t San Jose…I mean, I have nothing against San Jose but they were always roughly the same size as Sacramento and today they have just topped the metropolitan population of 1,000,000! That’s not counting the surrounding areas. Yikes!

I miss a lot about Sacramento but most of those things I miss are just memories from a different time and places just change, for better or for worse things just change. You can’t stop time.
I suppose that old saying applies here; “You can never go back.”

Oh, last thing…Big ups to Alex Pearlstone for his excellent job at the scrimmage today at the Coliseum down at UCLA! Home boy is a walk-on for the Bruins football team and it looks like he may have made it through what is the 2Nd phase of a 4 phase situation. Way to go, bro!

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Geez-Louise! My back is still a little stiff and sore. I'm just now able to do some stretches and sit-ups. Hopefully this will all mend sooner than later.

I'll be in bee-u-ti-ful Sacramento (aka; Sac, the Bag, Sack-o-pimentos, Psycho-mental)recording with guitarist extraordinaire, Steve Brooks this weekend. Though Mr. Brooks is primarily known as a bad-ass jazz guitarist he can also play any style that you can think of...and sometimes things no one can think of. Yeah, he's that good. He and I have a loose sort of guitar duo that we've been fooling with since the mid-1980's and we are recording this weekend for a goofy project Steve is involved with.

Oh, I will also be at the APE (Alternative Press Expo) this coming November in San Francisco. I was at the first three APE's when they started in San Jose back in the early-mid 1990's. I'd be great to see you all. I'll have a couple of books by then and hopefully a t-shirt or two as well as some original art for sale.

Friday, April 18, 2008

My heart felt condolences go out to the family of Phoebe Washer who died last Monday when hiking the Marin Headlands. Phoebe was a gifted young artist whose life was cut way too short.
You can see some of her work by going to www.phoebewasher.com.

Thursday, April 17, 2008

I forgot to mention in my last blog that I had the opportunity to interview Leon Redbone on the radio (by phone) at KWMR in Pt. Reyes Station this past Tuesday evening. He is truly a rare performer these days and quite the gentleman. Thank you, Leon for the time and a special thank you to Kay Clements for setting the whole deal up!

Oh, for those of you who may be wondering how I was able to interview Leon Redbone on a radio station… I am a programmer (this is what a radio “DJ” is called these days) at KWMR which, as I stated before is located in West Marin County in the beautiful town of Pt. Reyes Station. My program is called Fault Line Radio and I’m on every Tuesday evening from 9pm until 12 midnight PST. It’s a music show where I play “random music randomly” and occasionally have interviews or a tribute show focusing on an artist or particular musical genre. I’ve been there almost 9 years now just 3 months short of the actual on-air beginning of the station.

You can stream the station on-line by going to www.kwmr.org (or go to my links page and find the address there) and then clicking on the little cow standing on top of the flashing “On Air” sign you can just follow the prompters from there on. There are loads of excellent and interesting programs on our little, listener supported station. Check it out.

Monday, April 14, 2008

My last visit to my chiropractor for this freakin’ back pull is today. I can’t wait. I’ve been a pretzel for 8 days now (a personal record) and though I am far from being hunched over and in excruciating pain and walking with a cane, which was the case for three days I am still a bit stiff and slightly tilted to one side. I missed an entire week of work to boot. I tried to work last Monday but spent about 10 minutes in my chair and the rest of the time on my back on the floor, so I bagged working last week until I could actually sit down for more than 10 minutes.
I miss the ocean, surfing, paddle boarding and riding my bike to work and just around in general.
Well, looks to be light at the end of this long, lame-ass tunnel.

Other news—I’m looking to send off the Slice O’ Life ‘original format series’ collection to the printer this week. I am also thinking of having a book signing for this collection as well. I’ve never done a signing before and I’m not too sure how it works or if anyone will show up. I’ll probably hold it in Santa Rosa some where since Slice O’ Life is in the North Bay Bohemian and that paper reaches three counties (Sonoma, Napa and Marin Counties) but is based in Santa Rosa, so….Stay tuned and I’ll keep you few who look at this blog posted on the date and location.
For those of you who are not near the North Bay location or in this part of California (or even in the great state of California for that matter) the collection will be in comic book and book stores as well as available from my web site.

My next project is to re-work and then release Throb. This was a 24 page, 9 panels-per-page wordless comic, somewhat like Istvan Banyai’s Zoom but different I created several years ago. I’m changing the ending of the book and adding a few extra pages, changing the entire cover (front and back, inside as well). This book wasn’t even distributed and I think I may have taken it to a comic/zine con somewhere but don’t really remember when and which one.

On top of all of this I am currently working on the first issue of Tortilla and a couple of poetry chap books and of course more Slice O’ Life strips.
All of these will be with me at this years APE con (Alternative Press Expo) in San Francisco. I was at the first three APE’s when Dan Vado ran them down in San Jose. I haven’t been back and am pretty excited and curious as to how it all shakes out these days.

Monday, April 07, 2008

When my back is out...so is my work. Between my back and my right knee 2008 is turning out to be a painfully crippling year.

Wednesday, April 02, 2008

Okay, okay, oh-f%#king-kay already! The reading is on SATURDAY the 5Th. 8pm. I have received six (6) emails including Norman Zelaya who is hosting this event already on how I effed-up on the actual day.
S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y. A-P-R-I-L 5Th! Got it!
An aside, I'm surprised that six (6) people actually read my blog....

Tuesday, April 01, 2008

Hey, if you happen to be in San Francisco’s Mission district on Friday night about 8 pm you’ll be able to catch me reading….poetry (yeah, you read that right). It’s a fairly well hidden fact that I not only read poetry but I read my own poetry.
Now, I’m not saying that it’s any good but it is mine.
If you do show up you won’t be totally disappointed as Norman Zelaya is hosting this event and his work is GREAT!
It’s at the Galeria de la Raza located on 24th @ Bryant.
Check out the website for more info….

www.galeriadelaraza.org