Chugging and wheezing to the end of another year. My back's been out for a week now so things are a bit slower than usual here at In the Nite Press HQ...as if any slower would be pretty much stopped or even reverse!
I'm still chugging along with the latest Bagazine project between bouts of laying on the floor. Also working up the new and hopefully improved Slice O' Life strips for the coming new year.
This year I hope to have some t-shirt designs that will be available on my website as well as at any conventions I may attend. Yeah, you read that right. I'm actually going out into the public like I used to do in the last century. You've been warned.
Hope the new year is better for you all and I'll try and get some stuff done in the off-chance that someone out there is even remotely interested.

I was laying on our couch last night reading while my wife was working on her laptop and simultaneously watching some forgetful television program (it amazes me how certain people can multi-task like that) when a commercial came on that had me slowly lower my book and squint over my reading glasses.
I was hearing the tune, Pressure Drop performed by the Clash (a great Toots and the Maytals song which I love both renditions, by-the-way) that had me wondering what could that song be doing on a mainstream American TV commercial? To my astonishment it was the background music for pimping a Nissan SUV.
Joe Strummer MUST be spitting and spinning somewhere I'm sure.

So Much For No Blogging

I said I probably wouldn't blog anymore deciding that they are a total waste of time but a friend just recently explained to me that they can also be useful for conveying news of my current shenanigans, so....
I went to the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco recently to see an old friend, Keith Knight talk about the K Chronicles and just basically catch-up with him and such since his moving to L.A.
I hadn't realized how much time had passed since Keith and I were in the same room together. He remembered my son as being a little guy and me and the family just moving out of S.F.
Well, my son will be 17 years old pretty soon and Keith is married to a wonderful woman, Kirsten who is now pregnant with their first child. Oh, how time flies!
It was good to see Keith and catch-up and laugh about all of the fun we had as San Francisco cartoonists during the second "Golden Era" back in the late 1980's Early 1990's we enjoyed along with pal's Brian Wilcox, Nina Paley, Hugo Kobiashi, Flower Frankenstein, Bruce Hilvitz, Ed Brubaker and all of the gang at Puppy Toss not-to-mention the now gone Comic Relief just a couple of blocks from our apartment.
Keith also gave me some (much needed) advice on my current strip, Slice O' Life and I am currently changing the format size wise (4 panels instead of 6 panels) and, as Keith recommended featuring myself in the strip as well. The first part is pretty easy for me to do however that second part is going to take some getting used too.
I am also working on a "one shot" mini-comic to go in the latest Bagazine published by the bad-ass himself, Johnny Brewton of X-Ray magazine down in Pasadena.
I am also re-vamping (i.e. adding more pages) to the very, severely, poorly distributed one shot comic book I did years ago entitled; Throb. It's a 28 page, 9 panels per page wordless story sort of on the lines of that book and animation, Zoom. Naturally I will self-publish it as soon as it's ready-to-roll.
...and finally, I will be working on a catch-all comic book entitled Tortilla this coming 2008 as well as possibly (I said possibly) putting out a "best of..." Slice O' Life collection from the original format.
Okay, that's all for now. Check back often as I promise to keep up the chatter on my end.

The more I think about it the more I realize that blogs are a total waste of time. Especially mine.

Barry Bonds has finally jacked the elusive #756 out of AT&T Park last night (into the deepest part of the park I might add) and as I watch the replay over and over I see the relief almost physically lift from the guy’s shoulders. I think that Barry is probably happier that it’s all over than the actual feat itself.
I was at AT&T (it was PacBell park then) for #600 and it was pandemonium then, so I can only imagine how it was last night. I’m not only excited that I have seen this record topped twice in my life time but that this time it was by a guy from my home team done by one of us. Now if we can just get a World Series win I can relax myself.
I don’t care what your opinion of Bonds is concerning juicing or not. The fact remains that there is NO steroid on the planet that can increase natural coordination and the eye-to-hand mechanics that it takes just to hit a baseball and Bonds has always had that. Hell, the guy is 43, bad knees and all and he still hits it pretty damn far.
It’s great to have this record here in San Francisco and done by a San Francisco Giant and by the son of an ex-Giant but if the world were a more perfect place and indeed just in every way as the anti-Barry Bonds people who are suddenly stricken by some high-mindedness and feel that they have been slighted by Bonds achievement then that would mean that George Herman ‘Babe’ Ruth, Hammerin’ Hank Aaron and Barry bonds would all still be chasing Josh Gibson’s record anyway, right?

Wait a second….just where in the hell does the bay area end and the rest of California begin? The lines are becoming very blurred these days and I’m not too sure anymore. I was north of Santa Rosa not so long ago and the folks up there were considering themselves part of the bay area (?) and last I checked the actual bay, which contains the water of the Pacific Ocean wasn’t even remotely close to this area.
Of course our state is being developed (raped) at an alarming rate these days and people are being squeezed into places that can’t possibly maintain them. A small example is the fastest growing town in the United States. The once sleepy little town of Lincoln, California (located east of Sacramento) has a population that has grown since the year 2000 from around 11,746 to the present day 39,566 and still growing (that’s 236% growth in less than 7 years folks)!
A childhood friend of mine and I used to go up there often since both his parents grew up there and his grandparents were still living there at that time and back then the population was somewhere around the size of a large high school.
At the rate California’s population is growing as everyone is still coming here for the American dream (Wake up! The dream died a few decades ago out here. Go some place else) pretty soon people as far North as Red Bluff, as far East as Sacramento and as far South as Watsonville will be considered as part of the bay area!

Yep, it's been one-solid-month since I last posted something on this blog. I was plenty busy for all of June and I was away in Europe for a good portion of July. Besides, I have always believed that the air between the music notes is just as important as the notes themselves.

Wake up, Lemmings!


Our current administration has been absolute on their stance in Iraq with no withdrawal in sight as well as the impending war with Iran, still feeling confident with the original decision of invading Afghanistan and pinning most of the blame of 9/11 on Saddam and the rest on Bin Laden and if that isn’t enough telling the citizens of these rapidly becoming un-United States, as a bill to hugely increase internet streaming services is about to be passed, building of more prisons is in effect, giving more money for military spending to Isreal than any-other-countries combined, whipping up the populace with phony immigration concerns while making it almost impossible to have any practical, coherent medical insurance for the average person and basically attempt to take away any remaining rights we as citizens have in the name of “Freedom” that our economy is strong and just fine.
This tells me that one should never, EVER doubt the power of suggestion.

One of the greatest things about this country of ours is that every-day-folks like me have the great opportunity to vote. I vote and I take it seriously. I vote on local measures as well as bigger initiatives all the way up to voting for the presidency. However, I like my vote to count, especially when concerning the latter. Guess I’m glad I don’t live in Florida, huh? (See: 2000 election).
What is bothering me the most in these gas-price gouging, excessive consuming, Paris Hilton/American Idol worshipping uncertain times is the presidential candidates we have to choose from. Personally, there is only one candidate who is running that I am even remotely in-line with politically and that candidate doesn’t stand a chance like a bucket of fried chicken at one of my family gatherings of even getting on the ballot. Every presidential election that I have voted in (with the exception of my first time) it always seems that I have to settle. Always! It’s like having three piles of stinking, dirty socks and I have to select the one pile that stinks least.
Yeah, I know it could be worse….or is it already on its way?

Sometimes you just have to stand back and gape in awe of where you live. Living here in Marin County one almost always has something to be in awe of. The natural beauty of the place is a good reason. We have the bay on one side and the ocean on the other with beautiful Mt. Tam between them. We have redwoods and wild life and wonderful weather to be sure. However, I'm talking about the other things that makes one pause and ponder. This morning is a prime example.
While walking to my studio I noticed a man probably in his early thirties riding his very high-end and expensive mountain bike. He was riding in traffic wearing most of the standard, dorky looking "super-hero" garb but what caught my attention was that he was peddling with no hands because his right hand was busy holding a lit cigarette and his left hand was holding a cell phone to his ear as he barked into the phone between chugs on his cigarette.
Man, sometimes I actually like this place.

Please! No more Paris Hilton! I don't know who she is, what she did or why anyone should remotely care. Just stop now. Please. Stop.

I’m a pretty easy going guy and have very few rules in life (the main rule being that there aren’t many rules and what few rules exist are generally subject to change at any moment). However one rule should always be implemented; if you are an adult male you should not wear any type of ball cap backwards unless you are catching a baseball/softball game (rally cap is fine here), riding a motorbike without a helmet (a bicycle on a windy day is okay too) or looking through the view-finder of a camera. And the older you are the worse it is.

I’m not too down with reunion tours. I look at them as about one step above “Tribute bands,” and several steps below French Pop music. My general experience with seeing bands on reunion tours was usually met with disappointment. I saw the Police, Gang of Four, Parliament/Funkadelic, War, the Pretenders, Tower of Power etcetera in their respective “hey-day(s)” and I thoroughly enjoyed them. I still enjoy listening to their music from time-to-time as well. An example of the point I am trying to make is this; I went to see Gang of Four a few years ago at the Fillmore for their “reunion tour” and though they were pretty tight for the most part they were nothing compared to how they were when I saw them back in 1979/1980. Frankly, they were not as vibrant as they once were and seemed to be trying way too hard to please. I left that evening wishing I had never gone. Maybe if it was my first time seeing them the experience would of been different, but I had seen them before and I felt somewhat cheated.

I never saw the Rolling Stones or the Who or even the Kinks in the 1960’s but I did see them in the 1970’s and they were great. However, I saw the Rolling Stones during their Bridges to Babylon tour (my old job. Long story, don’t ask) and, once again thought they were tight and such but it all just seemed so stilted and hokey to me. Mick was pretty stiff and looked pretty silly and good 'ol Keith... his age has finally caught up to his physical appearance.
A Stones show back in the 1970’s held a lot of weight and was considered quite the “Chic” thing to go to and be seen at. Now it seems like an over-priced nostalgia tour where for a wheel barrel load of money you can sit several miles away with a bunch of 60-year olds and watch specks on a platform stiffly move about under colored lights…..oh, and they’ll shoot off some fireworks at the end for ya.
Don’t even get me started on why they (the Stones) even bother to continue to record and release records. I feel that they could have stopped somewhere after Tattoo You and still have several ( and I do mean several) hours of “hit” material to play and that isn’t even counting the other stuff that they recorded that wasn’t a hit but is just as good if not better.

The drummer from the Police, Stewart Copeland stated recently that the opening reunion tour concert the Police just played in Vancouver, Canada, “…was lame.” Though I wasn’t there that very well could be an accurate statement. The Police haven’t been a band in over 20 years and frankly I’m not surprised that Mr. Copeland thought they came off lame.

It seems to me that in most cases it’s actually better to end on top than to continue on until one reaches mediocrity, or in bands such as the Police’s case perhaps this is one-too-many-trips to the well?

I still whole-heartedly encourage you to support music, art, film and literature locally as well as globally.

Priorities


I just returned from a coffee run and was glancing at the front page of the Marin Independent Journal (the news paper of Marin County where I live)while pouring my afternoon cup o' joe and it seems that even with April/May being the deadlist period of the Iraq war for the U.S. and Bush, in his infamous wisdom imposing new sanctions on Darfur (I'm still wondering who will have the guts to impose some freakin' sanctions on him!), five British citizens are kidnapped in Baghdad, U.S. Gerneral Peter Pace undercounts the American war deaths and Cindy Sheehan steps down from her protesting Bush and the Iraq war...it seems that all the Independent Journal can come up with for headlines is that Delta and Dawn the wayward whales are heading back out to sea and something about cows being shot in West Marin.

Circling the Drain

Lately I’ve been wishing and hoping that people would spend the same amount of time and concern with knowing more about the war in Iraq and all of the underhanded dealings the Bush administration has been pulling as they do with knowing all about professional athlete’s statistics and contracts and the results of American idol.
Then again, that would be like asking people to drive less, get off of their cell phones more and quit treating stop signs as mere suggestions.

Afternoon Siesta

This Friday, May 18 at 1:00 Pm (PST) Yours truly will be getting interviewed on Coastal Airwaves on the West Marin radio station KWMR. You can listen in on your computer by going to:

www.kwmr.org

Click on the "On Air" sign with the little cow on top of it and follow the prompters. What could be easier? An all pull-out from Iraq? Yeah, one would tend to think so, but....

I guess I’m more of a traditionalist than I thought.
I went surfing early this morning. By early I mean dark o’ clock early like usual. This is why it’s called dawn patrol. I was alone this morning which in these crowed times is more than unusual and I was also without my buddy, John who either drives out with me or meets me there.
I got to the sea wall as the sky was only beginning to turn from Indigo to a cobalt blue before becoming a sort of battleship gray and did my usual surf check with cup of coffee in hand. It was a nice, crisp morning as there was no wind to speak of and the full moon was disappearing and the stars beginning to fade. Very nice, indeed.
Anyway, to non-surfers a surf check is generally going by surf spots and seeing what the surf conditions are like. Good? So, so? Naw, I’m going back to bed and so on. Lately I’ve been noticing that this practice seems to be on the verge of becoming extinct.
I watched the swell for a while being aware that the tide was at slack and would soon be turning and coming up. I also noticed that a lot of sand was off of the beach and that sand bars were starting to form. The surf was breaking both right and occasionally left, 3’ to 4’ and only a couple hundred yards off of the wall itself. I haven’t seen it do this in quite some time and I was pretty stoked to be sure.
After about 25 minutes of observing the swell and making sure that it is consistent I suddenly noticed that guys were coming down to the beach with there wet suits already on, expensive boards under arms running for the break! “What the heck?” First, one lone guy and then two guy’s right after him and a couple of minutes later and two more guys. I didn’t know any of these people. When I drove up this morning I was the only person there and I was also the only person on the wall checking the conditions as well and now there are five people in the drink, without even looking just running into the surf ignorant as all hell.
Boy, was I ever missing John’s infamous smart-ass remarks at about this point. Being a couple of old guys, John and I have seen some funny shit happen at the beach over the years and it never fails that you almost always get some arrogant “new-be” not check the surf first and end up running down to the water in wetsuit and with the high-end board under the arm only to find it flatter than a pool table. We just shake our heads and chuckle into our coffees as the “new-be” either slinks off without looking at us, or they go out and bob around in the cold water as shark bait. “Yeah, showed us!”
I do realize that with free web sites and cell phones and all the other modern gadgets that people are finding out what the surf is like before they even see the water. Hell, it’s said that over half of the surf population doesn’t even live by the water! I once on a lark was able to check the surf at my local break from a computer when I was on vacation in the Peruvian mountains! It’s just that crazy now.
Still, I’ve just been a student of watching the weather and knowing my surf spots and how they work in certain weather conditions. This is what they call old school, I suppose. And let me tell ya’ this old school method has paid off as I’ve had plenty of great surf with just me or me and my friends because the computers were claiming it was flat or whatever it is they claim and we were out in the water enjoying quality surf.
After watching the Neoprene Lemmings flail into the water I figured I better get a move on if I want to get some surf myself. I returned to my truck and suited up. The funny part about all of this was that with the time I put in observing the surf this morning I still was able to surf for two hours alone in my spot because the other knuckleheads who were in such a hurry ran over to the usual, popular spot and fought with each other for a decent session. I, on the other hand enjoyed the morning alone with my thoughts and the ocean riding wave, after glassy wave.

I had just recently spent part of a day in my hometown. I actually drove and walked around a bunch of areas and places I spent a good portion of my childhood in and was amazed at how in one sense everything had changed and yet even the air seemed to smell and feel how I remembered it all of those years ago. I hadn’t done this since the mid-1980’s so it was quite an eye-opener.
After visiting a cousin I was shocked to hear how many kids we grew up with or went to school, little league or church with have either passed away from cancer, accidents or an alarming amount by there own hand--not to mention the ones who are now either incarcerated or homeless and live under freeways and push shopping carts.
I was also surprised to find out that the few people that had moved away are now back living in town again. What’s up with that? There seem to be very few of us who moved away and stayed away. I can count them on one hand.
There was one boy who I met in junior high school who was a very talented guitarist and preferred to play jazz over rock, which I found very cool and just so beyond what any of our other contemporaries were doing. He didn’t do drugs and was a really mellow, cool guy. My cousin had told me that he had passed away from a drug overdose a few years ago and I couldn’t believe it. My cousin also told me about a girl I had known since grade school and how she had died a while back from breast cancer. This was almost more than I could take.
During the long, multiple hour drive back to the bay area where I have been living for the better part of 25 years I had these two people on my mind the whole way and could see their young faces and how I remembered them as little kids, as high school kids and then how they looked when I had last seen them.
The next day I couldn’t get them out of my head so I tried to look them up on the internet.
I was elated that the boy I had known since junior high school is alive and well playing guitar in New York City and doing quite well too boot! However, I couldn’t find anything on the girl.
I guess this is all part of life. This is how it goes and one must take it as it comes. Everything is different and yet nothing has changed.

Streets of Hope

Walking to my work the other morning I noticed a homeless man walking towards me. He was bedraggled so much so he looked more like a child’s scribble on a piece of paper than of a man. On top of this person’s noggin was perched a ball cap and on this ball cap the inscription; Make a Wish. You gotta’ love his optimism!

I just returned from my late-morning coffee run and on my way back I noticed that some careless person had strewn their garbage from two trash bags all over the side walk in front of the side entrance door of my studio building.
I sighed, set my coffee down and commenced to pick up the trash, re-bag it and set it next to the fence where the garbage cans are generally set out around here. One bag was full of old food containers and the like. Pretty gross stuff. Fortunately this wasn’t the spilled bag. The other trash bag was full of old blankets, a shoe and other miscellaneous items. However, on the ground next to the bag was a hardbound copy of the Tenth Anniversary Calvin & Hobbes book…and it’s from a library that is located on the other side of the county. I noticed that it was due back on November 2, 2004. Man, the libraries in this country are already in dire straights as it is that they really don’t need this kind of careless abandon with books. I don’t know about other parts of the country but I do know that here in Marin County the hours of the libraries have been cut back quite a bit among other things and this worries me. I like libraries and the services they give to the community. It’s truly one of the last community oriented institutions in our modern culture that is free of corporate meddling and such.
Also, being a cartoonist myself the thought that some kid somewhere wasn’t getting to enjoy the wonderful world of Bill Waterson and his delightful creation for free and perhaps set her/him onto path of creativity was not making my day a nice one. So, now I know what I’ll be doing at lunch today. Yep. I’ll be driving this puppy back to the library.

There is a prominent carpet cleaning company of the most national kind here in the land of Dictator Bush and they run commercials on television. Most mornings I have my cup of coffee while watching the local news (see previous blog entry) and this is where I have been seeing this particular advertisement. I know, you're probably thinking, "So, what?"
Yeah, I did too at first, however this particular company seems to be pushing not that they are a wonderful carpet cleaning company so much as they are advertising that their employees are clean, and by clean I mean clean and sober. They go on with a satisfied customer testimonial (the customer is a white woman) on how they trust this company because all of their employees have been carefully screened and are drug, alcohol and background checked and they now feel safer and can trust the company. Also, it REALLY makes me wonder as this woman is blathering on that the two employees shown cleaning a cartpet are an African-American and a Latino....Hmmm. What is the subliminal message here? After the testimonial a narrator then repeats pretty much what the woman had already said and the kicker is that the company’s carpet cleaning abilities seem to be secondary.
This has me wondering what I've missed lately in that carpet cleaners are more keen in advertising employee sobriety as opposed to actually cleaning carpets better than the competitors. What's happening in the carpet cleaning business?

Irony, it's a funny thing




I woke up this morning and poured my morning cup of coffee. I then went into my living room and turned on the TV to watch the news but all I got was a funeral.