dead old blog

I love love love this piece! I might touch it up more, mostly focusing on the colors on the character in the foreground.

Bill Liebowitz Classic was a blast. I did a freestyle in the sponsored division. Actually I did pretty good yo, I opened with single A and rocked the twisty shit. A bunch of cats said it was the best freestyle they had seen me do in years. I actually was happy with it, at least the single a part, it fell apart quickly when I switched to five A. I really really hope somebody posts my video, I could learn a lot by watching it.

Redondo Beach was fun, it was cool seeing the kite festival and chatting about qaudlines. Johnny competed in the division which was a pretty big surprise, but on the way down to LA he told me he wished he could compete again and I said "well why don't you?". I had no idea he would just spontanously sign up for an event over the weekend. Neat.

The ride home was pleasantly uneventful. It was neat 'cause Johnny and I kept stopping at truck stops and just vibing on tricks. I started developing what may be the basis of my nationals routine. I wanna flesh the move out more though and see if it's as cool as it feels right now.

I dunno why, but this piece reminds me of Beefy. Or Mr. Bill...

In LA now, the ride was terrific, the hotel was hell hell hell!

On the ride we saw a huge brush fire, an entire field flaming right next to the road.

Then we saw a semi-truck heading north bound that lost it's front wheel. The cab scrapped along the ground sending this his trail of bright orange sparks into the air and cutting in the road. The wheel was rolling towards our side of the highway right at us, but luckily I don't think it ever hit any oncoming traffic.

After that, we saw some planes buzzing the fields and highways doing stunt type manuevers at 11 pm. I know your thinking "crop dusting" right? But do people really crop dust at 11pm? These planes where actually doing complex, low manuevers.

Then we passed at least 25 full size fire trucks that all where on the northbound side of the road.. for no reason. No fire, no car accident, just another "wtf is going on?" moment.

When we hit LA, Johnnie and I went to my buddy Owen's restaurant. Owen hooked us up with dinner, then pulled out his Hitman and asked if I had any string. He had no idea who Johnnie was, so I got him to start trash talking his hitman in front of JD. Then this chick came up to me and said "You should have won on the show" then she turned to Johnnie and said "My friend thinks your cute, what's your name?" She told us about her birthday party the following day and gave JD her number AND her friend's number.

So, the Econo Lodge that Bride bought for us is all sorts of fucked up. The AC is broken in every room, there was a poolside party until 3 am. Finally got to sleep for a while before they began construction on the room above us... AT 6:30 AM!!!

"They are doing construction and they need to stop."

"Well what do you want me to do about it?" said the voice on the other end of the phone. "... Okay... maybe I'll talk to them."

It didn't stop. So... I'm typing this and awake and ready for the contest.

Wheee!

This is Ray, the main character/super villian in Super Top #2. He was born with a robotic eightball for an arm.

I'm gonna try to post a piece of mine a day for the next 7 days, maybe even longer.



This first image is kind of old, heavy mixed media, some plastic wrap (on the wings) then I sprayed a chemical on top that I knew would eat up the plastic, giving it a nice texture in real life). blah blah blah.

I'm at Craig's house right now, scanning years of art... Next up on the glass plate? Trog, my original 24 hour comic from two years ago. I never published the story before because printing a two color comic used to be SO FUCKING EXPENSIVE, but now it's actually very achievable. Here is a panel from Trog.

I recieved an email from Annie Boomer yesterday with this awesome .gif. She's wearing her awesome new Hand Of Yo shirt and doing the Boomer Dance. Annie also commented on that foxy watch I wrote about
yesterday "Looks like the Gods of Bling are shining on you!"

Once again, Baddd Spellah has hipped me to another great trailer... Did you know they were making another Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie? It's cool 'cause it's in the style of the old Eastman and Laird comics.

Hey if you get the time, check out Shawn Fumo's blogspot. He wrote recently about this video that any nerd should see. It's the video view from a rocket booster as it takes off, leaves the atmosphere and disconnects from the shuttle. Go NASA, it's your birthday! Go NASA, it's your birthday!

While watching this video I tried identifying what was happening in the video, I found some very good observations on the comments on this blog including the following:

1. Eric Ingram Says:
   July 10th, 2006 at 10:38 pm

   Here’s a video from the right aft SRB. This video seems to buffer and play faster, too.

   And thanks to Slashdot user Goldenhawk for the information below regarding this video:

   1:30-1:40 Mach transition (breaking the sound barrier - watch the nose)
   2:39 a rather visible bit of debris flies right past the camera
   2:58 separation from the orbiter/tank stack
   3:59 as the booster tumbles, you can briefly spot the shuttle as a bright dot
   5:18 you can see the smoke plume thru the upper atmosphere
   7:13 some debris goes past the booster camera
   7:17 you can see a shroud (parachute) line falling
   7:25 you can very briefly see a chute
   7:30 water entry
   7:40 the chute falls into the water
   8:00 as the booster floats, the chutes and shroud lines are clearly
   visible around the booster

Let me tell you a story about this watch.

Last week I was walking to the post office to ship some DoctorPopular.com orders, when I noticed all the cops on the corner of 24^th street and Mission. It looked like a gang fight had occurred, and the cops came and split the gangs into to groups while booking them. I walked past one of the groups, all the guys were bloody and fucked up, one had this huge welt on the side of his head that looked like it was from a baseball bat.

I kept walking down 24^th towards the other group of cops and bloody gangsters. About halfway down the block I saw this watch laying on the sidewalk. Shit like this doesn’t stay on the street for long, it must’ve been a leftover from the recent fight.

So I was between the Nortenos on Capp Street and the Sorenos on the steps of McDonalds, with somebodies watch at my feet. Of course I grabbed it, slapped it on my wrist, and kept walking down 24^th.

Fuck dumpster diving, anyone else wanna go Gang Blanging with me? I’ll call up some guys and say “Man, I can’t believe what the Nortenos just said about your mother.” Then I’ll just follow them around and pick up the scraps after the cops break up the gang fights that are sure to ensue.

Wow, I just saw the pilot for The Amazing Mr. Screw-On Head (watch the pilot at www.scifi.com/amazingscrewonhead
), and I love it!

I was really into Mignola, back in the days when he rarely did anything other than cover art.

I was excited when he started Hellboy, but it just didn't interest me at all. I could get what he was going for, but it just didn't work well, I preferred his short stories and masterwork covers and posters.

So I wasn't so much "skeptical" when watching the trailer as I was "barely interested". But it totally won me over. More of that alternative history stuff, ala Alan Moore, but with great art and an Adult Swim humor aesthetic (the show is on Sci Fi though).

The only thing is watching a half hour of "aged" colors might get on my nerves. League of Extrodinary Gentlemen pulled of a vintage look without having such a bland color palette.

But here is a preview of mine... It's page 5 I think.

I'm trying to do a 1001 Arabian Nights kind of story.

You can read a bit more here.

added: You know, it sort of feels like were are on an episode of the Real World for Cartoonists or something. What happens when 7 Cartoonists are forced to draw together for 24 hours in a row in an cramped SF Studio apartment.

So far we are still being polite, but we are real too. It is early and I am teh typing, whee!

final edit: Finally got some sleep... Just wanted to give a final tally, 14 pages done. I love 'em all. It's a neat story, I'm going to add another six and publish it.. sometime.

So I'm back in the swing of doing lots of Go Games and stuff. That's fun, during today's game I got recognized from the tv show a couple of times. That's really neat considering its the very first time since the show has aired that that has happened. It was funny timing too, I was on the corner of 2nd and Howard working the game when these two girls came up to me and started asking me a bunch of questions. I just wanted to focus on the game so I kept giving them short answers and trying to get them to leave me alone. So one of the girls says, "So what are you somebody famous or something?". "No," I said "I'm just some guy standing on the corner with a broken laptop, fake cell phone, office chair, and some hula hoops" All of which are props for the Go Game. Right then this lady comes up and says "I just wanna say you were terrific on the tv last week. You and those two other nice boys were robbed. When it was showing your segment and it showed San Francisco on there, all of my family came running in to the room and started watching the show. You are going to go far in this world". I thanked her and she walked away, then one of the girls said "Hey, you said you weren't famous." I was about to say that I wasn't right when this white utility truck honks it's horn and the driver yelled "Hey, Master of Champions. Yeah! Doc Popular!" as he was waving a big thumbs up.

So, those were the only two people to say anything about the show, and they were both almost in the same minute.

I have another game on Thursday and then I'm going straight to my friend Craig's house and we are going to start a 24 Hour Comic Day. This is a challenge where an artist tries to create an entire comic book, start to finish, in 24 hours. This will be my 3rd 24 Hour Comic Book Day. Ideas, my last 24 hour comic is availlable on my store, fyi. There will be four of us in his apartment, each creating our own 24 (or more) page book.

Then on friday night I'm performing at a local Bastille Day celebration during the midnight cabaret. Info here.

So, I'll go straight from a gig to a 24 Hour Comic marathon at 5pm. Finish at 5pm on friday, get some sleep, then go to an Bastille Day/Absinthe party at 10:30pm. Word! It's weird because right now I'm packing my shit for the show on Friday night, like I'm just about to go to it 'cause I wont be home for a long while.


Oh, I made a cool "Hand of Yo" shirt tonight, it's really special for two reasons. It was a misprinted shirt where the city was put on the bottom left (instead of bottom right), so I embroidered the string going all the way behind the shirt and then attaching to the hand. I also did something really neat, I sewed down a piece of yo-yo string to the shirt. Usually I just do a thick zig zag embroidery, but tonight I used this special presser foot that is usually used for rolling hems, and I used that to hold the yo-yo string in place while I did a zig zag around it. It was just a little more work, but totally cool result. I'm washing it now to see how well it handles abuse.

..at Typhoon restraunt at the Santa Monica Airport. Typhoon is the only restaurant that I've found in the US that features a "Bug" section on their menu, that's why I make sure to eat there everytime I visit LA.

Here is what I wrote the first time I visited there a few years ago.

I'm one of those cats that will enjoy anything unusual, whether or not it's good or bad tasting. During the filming of Master of Champions, I dragged my friends McBride, Owen, Remmy, Augie, and YinYo to Typhoon and encouraged them to try the entomological cuisine for themselves. We ordered one of everything, White Sea Worms, Stir Fry Cricket, Garlic Roast Garthim*, Chicken stuffed Waterbugs, and Stir fry Ants.

Everything but the Waterbug are served on a crispy bed of potato strips. So if you just scoop up a plate of food, you'll have a pretty hard time of distinguishing what's a crispy bug and whats crispy potato. Still, it's pretty difficult to not thinking about what exactly you are putting into your mouth. But you get over it pretty fast.

The Waterbugs are a very different story. First off, they are very large, not just something you can pop in your mouth and swallow. Secondly, there is no bed of potatoes to conceal the texture. First you have to decide, am I going to bit off the head, or the torso. Then you have to chew.. chew... chew... It's impossible to identify which part of this dish is chicken and which part is bug. Chew... chew... Swallow (or spit into your napking).

Sake really helps this meal. Anykind, served anyway. You are probably gonna need some.

Before we feasted I made a toast, "Throughout our existence, mankind has always become wormfood. But tonight we celebrate, because tonight we turn the tables!"

I'm sure there where hella bad puns, but I'm not going to post them because they really bug me. I hate being a pest when it comes to easy jokes. It did just occur to me that at some restuarants the crispy potatos would be referred to as a nest, as in "delicate red ants served in a crispy nest of stir fried potatos".

All photos by Owen on his fancy pants cell phon-era.






So if entomology interests you, check out some of these sites, and maybe I'll see you at the Insectarum in Montreal sometime:

• http://eat.bees.net/
• http://www.ent.iastate.edu/misc/insectsasfood.html
• http://www.riverdeep.net/current/2002/03/030402_eatingbugs.jhtml

*um... obviously we didn't eat Garthim.. They were out. I guess we'll have to wait until D.C. II for more.

Download a high res version of the show here.


Here is the video for my recent appearance on the MOC.

I have written a VERY LONG summary of what happened behind the scenes for that show that you can read about here.

So tonight the episode of Master of Champions that me and my friends are on will be airing so be sure to check it out, or as Z. from Hipster Please says "This cat can do more tricks with a yo-yo than a Parisian hooker can with a scarf and a bowl of sorbet, so it’s in your best interest to watch."

The plan is to have a watching party and my friends Matt and Rachel’s loft; they have a huge projector and stuff. I'm encouraging all my friends to bring Have' A Corn Chips, I'll have Popalote salsa and homemade wasabi guacamole dip.

My mom called last night and read an article that was printed in the Marshall County Gazette (from my hometown of Lewisburg TN). She said I sounded whiny in my interview I said "what interview". "The one you did for the paper" she said "all you’re doing is complaining in it.". So I guess the paper ran an article full of quotes and stuff that they gathered off of my personal blog, they never gave me a call or anything with questions. Funny huh? So all the quotes are terribly out of context and stuff.

After the party tonight, Honaker and I are gonna go see Aesop Rock at the Independent. He and Jeremy Fish will be having a release party for their new childrens book "Next Best Thing". Fish is probably my favorite local artist, I love Mars-1 and others, but Fish isn't just a one concept artist. Can't wait to see the book...

Blockhead is opening, I'll probably miss him, but I hope not. His beats are fucking legendary, one of my top 10 all time fave producers. I saw Aes about three years ago in Minneapolis, it was terrible! It was billed as Aesop Rock with El P opening, right? But it turned out they where on stage together, and El P turned every Aesop Rock song into a "yell rap" song, like an anthem rap or something, even the slow stuff... "YO, LUCY! LUCY! KEEP DRAWING LUCY!!!" Just terrible, they did 7 El P tracks and 5 Aesop tracks. I hope tonight was better, I was more excited before I saw that Aesop had Rob Sonic backing him up, why can't rappers just go on stage and rap their songs, like on the albums. You don't have to have a back up rapper, are you listening Mr. Sean Daley?

I hung out with Ta Wei at his new space yesterday. He is taking over the grill at Thee Parkside (1600 17th St, near Bottom Of the Hill) and should officially be started on Monday (July 3rd).



He was working on his new menu while I was there and it looks good. He mentioned that he always likes to make his menus on his typewriter, which fits his persona. It looks like Ta Wei is going to try to take traditional bar fair and give it a Thai twist. I just noticed that his typewrite must be european. Here are some highlights:

House Fries- "A starchy blend of potato, sweet yams, yucca in curry mayo, curry ketchup"

Double Burger Platter- "Two petite burgers garnished with thinly sliced plums, blue or goat cheese, and the PLATTER comes with special house fries."

Fried Pork Sandwich- "Tender Slices of pork marinated in lemongrass sauce with pate, curry mayo, cumber and basil"?

Pad Se Ew- "I love this noodle dish. Fresh fat rice noodles with basil, tofu, red peppers, shiitake musrooms. Sounds like a pasta primavera thai style"

I wrote a few weeks ago about the fire at Benders, Ta Wei says the official word is that it was arson and there were possibly even witnesses.

I'm not sure what his schedule will be yet at Thee Parkside, but I'll post it here when I find out. The plates range from $5 to $8.