Thinking about the things I am not.

This is also from the drafts queue...

You know, sixty is closing in very fast. A little too fast if you ask me but closing in nonetheless.

Which is good too in a way, because I don’t find the long dirt nap that appealing really.

Now, when I was a kid... a younger person, I carried around the incredible assumptions younger people carry around with them. Foremost among these assumptions was older people had their shit together. This sense somehow people who had made their way through the years...

Now, I don’t know particularly where I was going on this but I have the sense it was likely how winding up in adulthood smashes those precepts that you have about it.

I know some people who really have their shit together. Two of my cousins come to mind, they are just ON THE BALL.

Me, not so much.

Maybe I’m better than some people but overall I’m not happy with my efforts.

The other day I was cleaning up around here which is something that goes in waves and I came across a copy of a letter I had written to a friend from over 20 years ago and I was dismayed to put it mildly.

I was dismayed because many of the things I talked about in that letter are still evident in life today and I view that as something of a failure on my part in a big way. Time is our most valuable commodity and to me it told me I had squandered away the one precious resource I had and it was only myself who held the blame.

Then again too it made me wonder about our nature and when I say our nature I mean to speak to all the intangible things that are part of our makeup and that make us the people we are.

Can we change those things is the question?

I know in my case what it was for me was a stark reminder of the fact that no matter how self aware I may be of my foibles there has been precious little movement in the direction I would have liked to have gone.

So, can we change?

I’d like to think it is possible but I don’t believe it’s possible without a ton of effort and diligence. At this stage of the game I STILL would want to move forward and learn and grow.

I hope I still can.

Was it really 11 years ago!

Another drafts queue snippet from 12/06

This week’s column by Rich Johnston - Lying in the Gutters leads off with an interesting quote by Axel Alonso. The quote, “Comics ship monthly and very few artists can draw 22 pages in a month, or 12 issues a year. That’s just facts. So late-shipping books are bound to happen, no matter how well a publisher plans for trouble.”

This is perhaps one of the most laughable quotes of our time.

Why you may ask dear reader?

Well, it works like this - from a publisher’s standpoint it’s a reasonable quote but, as a measure of today’s artists against the generation of artists that came before them, it speaks volumes. Today’s artists in comics are often highly regarded as auteurs. People of singular talent and ability who far surpass the abilities of a previous generation of comics professionals. Yet, this new generation of artists, this latest crop can’t meet deadlines. It has happened all too often, guys just can‘t get there work done in a timely fashion.

The funny thing is, the generation of artists out there today have a wealth of tools to actually make their jobs easier. There are some guys, who actually go out and take photos (handy thing those digital cameras)...

Well, in the ensuing years Rich has gone off and started the highly successful Bleeding Cool website but I have to say I really used to enjoy Lying In The Gutters a great deal and even contributed an item or two over the years. I doubt the link will work but I guess you could find it with the wayback machine.

As far as the post goes, it is a bit funny for two reasons... one is editorial policy. Publishers used to follow a practice of having already completed material in the can so to speak - material where they would commission a stand alone story and then put a page or two of framing around the beginning and end to run it in a month where the regular creative team was behind and looked to blow a deadline.

Often it would give the team a chance to get back on track but in some cases, there was no getting on track because the artist just could not produce a monthly book (look, I know doing a comic is HARD... looks a lot easier than it is).

The phrase Marvel would use in these instances was "The Dreaded Deadline Doom."

Now, the flip side of this is Jack Kirby (who even with the acknowledgment he gets gets nowhere near the credit he deserves) who at points during the 70s was producing as many as 106 pages in a month both writing and drawing them!

Now, that’s an AUTEUR!

So, 11 years ago, Alonzo’s statement seemed a little ludicrous and nothing in the interim has changed my mind.b

Snowbirds?

A draft started in Dec 2006...

How is it possible?

Today is the shortest day of the year and it is also the official start of winter around these parts. I was going to say each year is a bit of a roller coaster ride but a roller coaster ride is fun and I really don’t like this part of the year. I’m just not a big one for the cold weather and I find my distaste for it only grows with each passing year.

The other thing is I love the summer and I relish the longer days...

Here we are 11 years later and if anything I only feel this way about the seasons even more acutely than I once did. The good thing though is Daylight Savings Time now ends later and starts earlier which is a solace of sorts.

I like getting up when it's dark in the morning, there is a peacefulness that hangs over the world at that time, an expectant promise of a new day ahead. When it gets dark early it only makes you notice how short days are or if you are at work how long they are because you feel as if you are working into the night.

Cold weather too... ugh. But, we are now in May which is really perhaps my favorite month. The winter has been well and truly cast off and the idyllic and warm days of summer lie ahead.

Make me think one day soon it will be time to relocate to warmer climes.

Triumph Tuesday!

Because honestly I cannot get enough of the Insult Comic Dog:

Are men and women really equal?

In a word, no.

Yesterday Elayne made a rare comment being put off by something I wrote which I would imagine she is by most of what I write (that's less a swipe at herr and more a comment on me being self aware of my own assholity).

But, the sexes aren’t even close to equal and there’s proof:

Next time you see a man who’s made a poor judgment call, don’t blame the poor guy. Blame testosterone.

The sex hormone associated with a sense of machismo makes men confident — maybe too confident, according to a new study from Caltech, the Wharton School, Western University, and ZRT Laboratory.

 Read it for yourself, the study can be found here: Single dose testosterone administration impairs cognitive reflection in men.

Herstorians hersteria.

This is another one from the archive of uncompleted snippets...

Two of the blogs I follow (Pen-E and Ragnell) are written by what one would consider very militant feminists and though I can agree with some of the things both women write, there are times I find myself completely at odds with them. I am put off by the fact they choose to view the world (and comics) through a very narrow and specific lens, in so doing making conclusions I cannot agree with, often find totally off base or just plain wrong.

I read Vd’O (a woman whose name I refuse to promote) rail at great length about the injustices she faced in her sojourn in the world of comics when at the end of everything, the conclusion I came away with was not only was she a very unhappy person but, quite often she causes much of the problems she complains about by her approach to the world.

This winds up getting into a discussion about another sore spot of mine which is this kind of helpless bs that has overtaken our society in the sense people want to remove themselves from the equation when things don’t go their way. Vd’O totally lost me with one throwaway statement she wrote about her gender lacking its own Grant Morrison or Alan Moore and in so doing taking a swipe at a slew of women who had toiled away producing some great work (just not of idiot Vd’O’s preference, liking or recognition).

But this is not about Vd’O.

Instead, let’s look back for a second to comics history or maybe we should be talking about comics little known history. People look fondly back on the Silver Age of comics, the halcyon days when Marvel had this great thing called a bullpen and the place really seemed to live up to its name as The House of Ideas as Spider Man, the Fantastic Four, Iron Man, the Hulk, the X-Men and a whole host of other characters issued forth that are still very popular today.

As a matter of fact, prior to that heyday the thing that had been driving the industry just a few short years earlier was the genre of romance comics and it wasn’t boys who were buying them either!

But, I want to talk about the black sheep of the family, the forgotten cousin of all those superheroes of the Silver Age:

(I just want to say as bad as that image may be, that is actually the TAMEST one I could find, other covers and materials were so graphic even I wouldn’t put them up here!)

Right about now you may be wondering what I’m getting on about.

Maybe, it’s about the fact I keep hearing a lot of sturm and drang about comics not being female friendly...

 So, here’s the thing... I started this something like ten years ago. Really my life is full of unfinished shit.

Anyway, so the dirty little secret of comics which in light of their popularity today is this jewel that is often overlooked. We look back on the sixties as this magical time when Marvel created all these wonderful characters and everything, when Stan Lee’s uncle Martin Goodman was the publisher of this amazing world changing wave in four color fiction but here’s a little jewel about the House of Ideas (now Disney of all things) you may not have known:

Around 1954–1955, it was relaunched by Martin Goodman, the founder of Marvel Comics, and ran spicy adventure or suspense fiction by the likes of Ian Fleming, Graham Greene, Norman Mailer and Arthur C. Clarke. Humorist Bruce Jay Friedman was an editor in the late 1950s.

According to its current owner, Magna Publishing Group, Swank has been established for “well over 65 years.” A men's lifestyle title called Swank was launched in the early 1940s, by Victor Fox. In a 2002 article for The New York Times, Matthew Flamm wrote of the magazine's genesis: “[Swank] can even draw a line to the same pulp publishing outfit – Martin Goodman's Magazine Management Company – that in 1939 started the comic book publisher that eventually became Marvel Comics, and that in the 1950s and 1960s employed future novelists like Mario Puzo and Bruce Jay Friedman as writers and editors.” Beat poet John Fles also wrote for the magazine. In keeping with its connection to Magazine Management, in the early 1970s Swank ran a three-page comics section that was created by Vaughn Bodē, and continued by Bernie Wrightson and then Jeff Jones.

The Magna Publishing Group bought Swank, along with titles including Stag magazine, in 1993. The previous owner was Charles “Chip” Goodman, the son of Martin Goodman. At the time of the purchase, the company was known as Swank Publications and was part of the GCR Publishing Group, which also published non-pornographic magazines such as New Body and Victorian Accents.

And just so you know ‘Chip’ was also related to Stan. So while comics definitely has gotten better about appealing to women the House of Ideas was at one time built on smut.

The cutthroat.

Another drafts queue snippet...

Spent.

You know I’d really like to write something entertaining. I’d like to point towards something that would generate a laugh or two but truthfully, it has been just another long day. A long day filled with a lot of big personalities and much drama.

#### - Doesn’t like $$$$ to the point she sued him for slander and defamation of character and then settled out of court. Also feels compelled to be the center of attention and must be catered to in order to elevate her sense of self worth. Anyone choosing not to cater to her is immediately determined to be an enemy of the state. Suffers from a specific malady which may have a psychological basis.

##### - ####'s husband who while a bit unorthodox is very much a simple man with simple tastes. Quite happy to putter away with any number of projects, enjoys the outdoors and working with his hands. A direct person who lacks guile and simply wants to be treated well.

Man, what the fuck was I thinking?!?!

It's internal family business I was writing about which really is not for public consumption.

So, here's the thing I realized...

When your parents are around, they don't let you pull shit on your siblings. At least the good parents do. They keep you in line and quash all that ridiculous bullshit that is endemic in families.

I'm an only child with a weird situation in that I have a half sibling and then I have someone who I consider a brother of sorts because he was raised by my douche of an old man.

Anyway, good parents really keep you in your place.

I had particular members of my family, of that older generation that when they were alive quashed a lot of the bullshit that would go on.

See, the really great thing about them... the amazing thing actually is that that generation understood how important it is to stick together. More than anything else your strength is in your family. You succeed or you fail depending on how strong your family ties are.

To some that may sound very, very simplistic but it's a truism.

Italians... we are some fucked up people let me tell you.

Especially the more each generation moves away from that immigrant experience.

You see it in the Hispanic immigrants, that relying on each other but as different ethnic groups become ‘Americanized’ they forget how strong they are as a unit.

My family is that way unfortunately. Things that the parents wouldn't let happen just means that siblings allow all that repressed animosity explode after a parent’s death. I’ve seen it a couple of times now and it’s really sad.

Then again, maybe that’s the lesson here... being American means being cutthroat. Makes you wonder.

Peak and valleys...

There are peaks and valleys in life. I've been in a valley for the last three months with no end in site. There are days when it's especially bad and I'm hoping I'm out of the valleys soon.

Remembering the fallen.

There was a time when I would eagerly seek out the newest issue of the Village Voice. To explain it to anyone today in an age of Twitter and Snapchat they truly wouldn't understand what it was to find the Voice on a Wednesday.

Each week the Voice would come out and while it would have a ton of music, movie and skin ads but, it would also contain within its pages some very good journalism. The Voice was something the other papers in New York weren’t, it was long form stories on Newsprint.

 The Voice covered EVERYTHING, politics to media and in-between. In it’s pages I’d read Michael Musto, Lester Bangs and they also had cartoons by Matt Groenig (you know, the guy from the Simpsons!) and Jules Feiffer but the thing I would always seek out was Nat Hentoff’s column.

Hentoff is sorely missed because he was the one guy who didn’t play favorites and if I can say there is a writer whose beliefs fall more in line with my own, then Hantoff would be that man.

I’m doing some reading now and I wanted to pass along the book selection because Hentoff is one of those people who is worth reading:

Nathan Irving “Nat” Hentoff (June 10, 1925 – January 7, 2017) was an American historian, novelist, jazz and country music critic, and syndicated columnist for United Media. Hentoff was the jazz critic for The Village Voice from 1958 to 2009. Following his departure from The Village Voice, Hentoff moved his music column to The Wall Street Journal, which published his work until his death. He often wrote on First Amendment issues, vigorously defending the freedom of the press.

So I highly recommend:

And if you are inclined to learn more about Nat Hentoff, check this out:

Triumph Tuesday!

Because honestly I cannot get enough of the Insult Comic Dog:

Short f&%$ing memory.

Another one from the archives...

I haven’t really spoken too much about the election but I was somewhere on Christmas Eve and during the course of conversation and catching up on the year’s events one personal calamity that came on Election Day was juxtaposed against the outcome of the election which was described by the person speaking as going from bad (personal calamity) to worse (a second term).

And it’s funny because there were a few weeks there when it looked like the election was going to go a different way and I have to say I was a bit worried (ah the irony of being a moderate Republican).

The frustrating thing here is people in our country have such a damn short memory, and let’s take that a step further, they have a short memory at their own peril...

So this is a bit funny because the election I’m referencing is Obama’s reelection in 2012 and I preferred the incumbent over Mitt Romney. However, even though I can’t remember where I was that fateful Christmas Eve (and I’m racking my brain trying to remember) it’s obvious that I was somewhere where the former President was detested.

Here’s the thing... there’s no place in this country for anyone who doesn’t buy into the bullshit of either of the political parties in their totality. You have to goosestep along with everyone else or somehow you are a traitor.

Roll that over in your head for a little while if you will.

For me, it tells me all I need to know about the current state of political discourse in our nation. It’s something that is dominated by the fringe. The zealots have hijacked it and it is to the detriment of the greater good of our nation.

I can be Conservative in some ways, certainly with a tendency to be what would be considered hawkish on Foreign Policy but I justify that by the lessons of history and the firm belief that no nation can negotiate from a position of weakness. Time and again, history has proven not that the meek shall inherit the Earth but that the strong survive and if we would protect and promote the foundations of our Democracy we had better do it because we are the baddest motherfuckers on the planet.

On the flip side, even though I am Conservative there are things I really don’t care too much about. How people choose to live their lives is their business as long as it isn’t forcing anyone else to adjust to them. You live your life and I’ll live mine. No doubt, you have every right to think I’m an asshole for my beliefs just as I have every right to think you’re an asshole because of yours.

Yes, in this nation we do have the right to be assholes and in that we have an abundance, our nation could well be said to have the one biggest untapped natural resource in the number of assholes we have.

You might even think that Proctology should be the biggest growth industry in our nation because we churn out assholes at an amazing rate.

Anyway, I as is often the case lose track of where I was headed in this rant.

Maybe it’s just that I have come to despise people in general on a level. You know that thing I put up as a description to the blog can be real in some ways. I hate that we can’t have a conversation anymore without it evolving into histrionics and mockery but that’s where we are.

It’s just too bad now, get the fuck off my lawn.

This made me think of my friend.

At some point in Logan which I was watching the other day this Johnny Cash tune is played. Johnny Cash is real hit or miss for me as I’m not a gigantic fan but there are some of his tunes that are just stunning and it’s because of the force of his voice.

Anyway, I was listening to it and immediately started thinking of my friend Ed who is something of a giant of a man (in a bunch of ways).

Thought I would share the tune:

“The Man Comes Around” is the title track from Johnny Cash’s American IV: The Man Comes Around, released in 2002. It was actually written a few years earlier; however, Cash updated it for the album. It is one of the last songs Cash wrote before his death. Both sung and spoken, the song makes numerous Biblical references, especially to the Book of Revelation.

“And I heard, as it were, the noise of thunder
One of the four beasts saying,
‘Come and see.’ and I saw, and behold a white horse”

There's a man goin’ ’round takin’ names
And he decides who to free and who to blame
Everybody won't be treated all the same
There’ll be a golden ladder reachin’ down
When the man comes around

The hairs on your arm will stand up
At the terror in each sip and in each sup
Will you partake of that last offered cup
Or disappear into the potter's ground?
When the man comes around

Hear the trumpets hear the pipers
One hundred million angels singin’
Multitudes are marchin’ to the big kettledrum
Voices callin’, voices cryin’
Some are born and some are dyin’
It's alpha and omega’s kingdom come
And the whirlwind is in the thorn tree
The virgins are all trimming their wicks
The whirlwind is in the thorn tree
It’s hard for thee to kick against the pricks

Till armageddon no shalam, no shalom
Then the father hen will call his chickens home
The wise man will bow down before the throne
And at his feet they'll cast their golden crowns
When the man comes around

Whoever is unjust let him be unjust still
Whoever is righteous let him be righteous still
Whoever is filthy let him be filthy still
Listen to the words long written down
When the man comes around

Hear the trumpets hear the pipers
One hundred million angels singin’
Multitudes are marchin’ to the big kettledrum
Voices callin’, voices cryin’
Some are born and some are dyin’
It’s alpha and omega’s kingdom come
And the whirlwind is in the thorn tree
The virgins are all trimming their wicks
The whirlwind is in the thorn trees
It's hard for thee to kick against the prick
In measured hundredweight and penny pound
When the man comes around

“And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts
And I looked, and behold a pale horse
And his name that sat on him was death, and hell followed with him”

It’s the quiet moments...

I had been working downtown for a few weeks. Downtown to me is down by City Hall and below and I was over on the west side (although at that part of Manhattan walking from one side to the other is not really such a big deal).

Working downtown added to the commute. I’m not happy with my commute to begin with but another half hour tacked onto the day each way makes it truly grueling and the thing is I shouldn’t really be complaining because someone I was working with had a two and a half hour commute each way which is just... 

Another one from the dark and dusty drafts queue!

I’m trying to place when I might’ve written this originally because the way blogger works is that if you open something up with the intention of editing it you get a brand spanking new date placed on your draft.

I’m thinking though it was likely I started this  about two years ago when I had a nice run with a client down in the World Financial Center which has been renamed Brookfield Place.

I like the area downtown now.

There have been a lot of changes and there is a lot of new stuff there.

Actually if you’re down there with any regularity, you’ve seen my work! It’s something I am actually quite proud of. I never brag about my work but when I look at the projects I’ve worked on over the course of my career, it stacks up to be a fairly impressive list of clients and projects to be sure...

 I stopped there after trying to pick it back up.

I did walk by my work fairly regularly when I was working downtown. Here’s the thing, I had worked on all this World Trade Center stuff and each and every day I would walk by the project I worked on.

This was the exterior fence graphics that surrounded areas of the World Trade Center site where construction was still going on and in it were pictures of the people I worked with on the project.

This was a nice thing for me, it was nice because on my way to work and then again on my way home I would see friendly faces which is something that wouldn't normally happen to you as you are walking around the city. It also felt like my secret in a way because I had had such a large role in getting the thing up.

My work in and around the World Trade Center site is still up and it's one of the things I have been proudest in my career. Every time I’ve worked on these things they’ve been a bear... lots of work in a very tight timeframe but I have always been happy to have been involved with the project and the people working on it.

This week’s story about Islam.

 Two gay Indonesian men have been arrested and face 100 lashes in a case that is drawing international attention to the enforcement of controversial new Islamic bylaws in the semi-autonomous Aceh province.

Mobile phone footage, showing vigilantes slapping one of the young men as he sits naked on the ground awaiting arrest by local sharia police, has been shared on social media in the world’s largest Muslim-majority country.

Human Rights Watch has demanded their immediate release, saying their possible punishment – a public beating with a stick – constitutes torture.

I realize to some this would be considered ‘Muslim bashing’ but I really don’t think anyone in the West can do anything to change Islam or the voices that are the loudest in the faith.

If we look at the three Abrahamic religions, two of the three have undergone reform movements since their inception however, the last of the three to appear, Islam has not undergone any radical reform within the faith.

Oddly enough I came across this gem:

Jews and Christians are specifically protected in the Quran as Peoples of the Book, reinforcing their spiritual connection to Islam by virtue of having been given revelations from God. The Islamic legal tradition has upheld the rights of Jews and Christians to maintain their beliefs and practices within their communities in Islamic lands, and this policy of tolerance has generally been upheld.

One would wonder where that tolerance has gone when we see example after example of intolerance paraded before us almost daily.

Many Muslims are good, peaceful people but until those voices raise up to marginalize and ostracize those who have commandeered their faith there will ever be acrimony between Muslims and non Muslims.We cannot continue the fallacy of Islam not presenting an existential threat to free and open societies when the loudest voices within the faith are those of hatred and intolerance.

We need to start calling it out for what it is, here in our country and in other countries around the world. Ignoring an ongoing and growing problem isn’t going to make it go away, it will only get worse.

I’m hoping people within the faith begin to recognize what is happened and start to make a point to stand against this behavior - they’re the front line soldiers in this fight. As that passage mentions above we are all of us Peoples of the Book and should look to find common ground together so we can live in peace. We must challenge the threats to that peace as much as we can.

Absolutely chilling.

Hillary lost the election and her supporters are still smarting over that but I was reading something today that made me breath a deep sigh of relief.

There's this book that is out:

I realize people glorify this women but through the years she has shown some truly insidious tendencies. There’s always been rumors about the public face versus the private face and I have confirmation through a friend that those rumors have merit but what I read today I found chilling:

To this end, she had a trusted aide access the campaign’s server and download the emails sent and received by top staffers.

“She believed her campaign had failed her — not the other way around — and she wanted ‘to see who was talking to who, who was leaking to who,’ said a source familiar with the operation,” Allen and Parnes reveal in the book. “Her political director, Guy Cecil, had talked with members of the media from his campaign account. Her chief strategist, Mark Penn, was a tyrant. And far too many of her minions had fought for turf and status rather than votes.”

Roll that one over in your mind if you will for a second.

These are the people who supported her the most and instead of just asking them their opinions and taking what they said to heart, she took it upon herself just to go in and read their emails. Think about the INVASION OF PRIVACY.

Would YOU be happy if your boss gathered up and read through all your emails? I wouldn’t whether they revealed anything personal or not it would just seem extremely intrusive.

I know there are a lot of companies now that have blanket email policies or even have gateways that track all internet traffic and that’s something I find intrusive but someone to actually take the steps to go through emails like that says something.

ESPECIALLY WHEN YOU CONSIDER CLINTON HERSELF HAD A PRIVATE EMAIL SERVER WHILE SECRETARY OF STATE!

Think about the double standard there!

I doubt if you supported Clinton it will do anything to sway your opinion of her but truthfully it is just another instance in a long line of them that underscores what I found repellent about the woman ever becoming President.

This is what I built my career on.

There are times I look up and I can hardly believe how much time has gone by. If I had kids I would likely be painfully aware of it because you can’t escape it when the baby you had is having kids of their own.

Still I often think to myself how incredibly lucky I was to be an ‘early adopter’ of the desktop computer.

It’s not that surprising in some ways, as a matter of fact I can see how I arrived at it... I was this weird amalgam of pinball/video game junkie who also had a thing for electronics having done the CB thing during it's heyday and also being fairly adept at doing all kinds of wiring and home electronics.

I was working at a newspaper when one of my bosses proclaimed I would be getting a Mac of my own with a scanner and a bit monitor and everything.

I would work all day and then leave at 5 and go out to get dinner and then come back to the office and stay there until 11 or midnight playing with this wondrous new toy I had gotten. Sitting down and figuring out things, making art on it, exploring. Even a few years later I was one of the first in my company (Grey Advertising) to have Internet Access.

That was no small deal by the way either. I would sit there with Mosaic exploring then too.

Anyway, I came across this and if you are one of those people that can remember way back when here is a little bit of fun from Archive.org:

MacOS System 7.0.1 Compilation

This emulator gives one the real System 7 experience which would be akin to working on a Mac circa 1991!

(The funny thing is I’m old enough to have used System 6!)

System 7 (codenamed "Big Bang" and sometimes retrospectively called Mac OS 7) is a single-user graphical user interface-based operating system for Macintosh computers and was part of the classic Mac OS line of operating systems. It was introduced on May 13, 1991, by Apple Computer. It succeeded System 6, and was the main Macintosh operating system until it was succeeded by Mac OS 8 in 1997. Features added with the System 7 release included virtual memory, personal file sharing, QuickTime, QuickDraw 3D, and an improved user interface.

 

 

Triumph Tuesday!

Because honestly I cannot get enough of the Insult Comic Dog:

Quiet lately.

Another drafts queue ditty!

If you’re one of those select few that make their way to these environs, you might have noticed it has been deathly quiet round these parts of late.

There are a couple of reasons for that of course. First off having the storm hit a few weeks back meant losing power for a week (not really but ti felt longer). During that time I noticed just how much time I spend fucking off on the computer (there I said it). I didn’t feel losing power was a bad thing overall – probably it is something I should do one day a week to get used to it.

My power went off on Monday evening and was off until Friday evening.

I went to bed much earlier than normal.

I read by flashlight.

I read three books and six graphic novels in that span...

I know I wrote this sometime a little after Sandy hit.

That was kind of an interesting week in a way because not having power makes a big impact on you in ways you don’t normally think of.

I took a hit too because I had had work scheduled for that week that wound up getting cancelled because of the storm and if I had had the presence of mind at the time I likely could have applied for some kind of disaster relief but I didn’t.

Even afterward I had hoped to get my roof done but that’s another story involving insurance companies and how they don’t want to pay out claims and threaten to drop you if you file (which kind of makes insurance useless don’t you think?).

That week, it was cold and the Sunday before the storm hit I was running around trying to do my best to patch what I could and found myself in the crawl space hammering away trying to shore up a very week roof. I look at these things as comical experiences, me twisting around trying to come up with some way to prop up a sheet of plywood between rafters, oh the joy!

The day afterward when the power went off I realized I wouldn't have any heat.

I had been down to Home Depot on Sunday and they were all out of wood and Duraflame and anything else I could throw in the wood burning stove that’s in my basement (my house is really quite strange in some ways). I always pass this really huge Garden Center that I had never been in (and if you’re from the area you likely have passed it because it is right off the Saw Mill) and thought to myself just to check and see if they had any firewood.

Well, it turned out I happened on something...

See, they had firewood! And not only did they have it, they had it WAY CHEAPER than it ever is at Home Depot! So for what I would spend for maybe three small bundles of wood at Home Depot I literally filled my entire car UP! I mean I got to units of wood that took me three hand trucks to get into the house and by keeping my downstairs fire going and having the temperature at a very hot 82° the upstairs where I usually am was a decent 65° until the power got restored.

It was a weird week and it only took me three days to figure out I still had hot water even though I didn’t have heat or juice (another long story).

I’m not big on weather things anymore... in the time I’ve been where I am, we had a couple of pretty big snowstorms and besides Sandy we had Floyd which hit us directly (it was the once in a 100 year flood - amazing).

I just want blue skys especially between now and when I can get my roof fixed!

Another draft...

Wasted Saturday.

There are things I can and can’t do anymore. I come to realize this although I try my level best to hide from it.

I’m sure in the past I’ve touched upon just how long the days can be while I’m working. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad in this economy to have work, there are far too many people I know who are out of work and unable to find a job. It’s not a fun thing for them and it worries me.

So, I consider myself lucky...

But the days do take their toll and since days start somewhere around 5 in the morning (when I rise) and don’t end until I set foot back in the door at night (sometime around 8) I arrive at the end of the week just needing a day of not doing to much before I am able to have some energy to get out and do things.

Today was like that.

Also, it seems like it’s always something. I had a physical malady come upon me so suddenly and severely it’s amazing I was at work at all this week. And finally the capper would be being at work until 10:30 on a Friday night, one of a few late nights at work this past week.

And as much as I wanted to get out and enjoy the day today, another part of me just wanted to take it slow and not do too much of anything.

S...

As I am getting older, I realize the batteries are running down and need more time to charge than they used to.

That's a problem though.

I have to much ‘wasted’ time to my credit and precious little left (only in the sense there is less ahead of me than behind me).

The other day I was cleaning up a bit (which is a good thing and something I need to do more of) when I came across something and I realized that it had been a decade now since my old man passed away.

So, that's a tale fraught with all kind of implications but the truth is these ten years have been on my watch and really I can't say I’ve made the kind of progress during the decade I would’ve liked to have made.

Again, see that line above about ‘problem.’

My fault, totally by the way.

I like to believe (although I am sure some folks would vehemently protest this) that I’ve got a decent enough head on my shoulders that I can figure my way out of things but then I often wonder if I can figure out a way to change my own nature? Is there a way to change the default state?

If you’ve ever been in therapy, this can be an ongoing topic, what we deal with and what we avoid and why we make those decisions. I can be acutely aware of these things but the question for any of us is whether or not we have the will (not just the desire) to change?

Weighty stuff but the truth is Saturday’s are getting too precious to be wasted.

The funny / sad email I got.

So I got this email a little while back:

From:

Flickr HQ

Subject:

An Update to the White House Flickr Account

Dear Flickreeno,

You're receiving this message because you currently follow the White House account on Flickr, which hosted photographs from the Obama Administration. These photos and this account will be updated and live on as the official National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) with the Flickr username 'ObamaWhiteHouse', managed by https://www.archives.gov.

Starting today the incoming Trump Administration will take ownership of the official 'WhiteHouse' Flickr account. If you wish to follow both accounts no further action is required. If you wish to unfollow one or both accounts simply go to the link(s) below and click Follow Button to select the 'Unfollow'.

To unfollow the 'ObamaWhiteHouse' Flickr account go to this link and click the unfollow button: http://www.flickr.com/obamawhitehouse
To unfollow the WhiteHouse Flickr account go to this link and click the unfollow button: http://www.flickr.com/whitehouse
All the best,

The Flickr Team

I don’t check in on Flickr as much as I used to. Unfortunately, I’ve either been too busy, too distracted or just not feeling much of an urge. Flickr redesigned their interface awhile back and in the process killed a lot of what I (and many others) liked about Flickr.
I’m not going to get sidetracked on that because there is a whole other post about that and the recent redesign of LinkedIn...

But, I did check in the other day and I saw this email and was a little disappointed by it.

I was a member and still am of the White House Flickr account. I liked seeing pictures from within the White House during the Obama Presidency because they gave insight and humanized the President.

And admittedly, I liked President Obama. I didn’t agree with everything the President did but that’s not a President’s job. There were a couple of areas where I was very, very disappointed in Barack Obama - I think he polarized out nation much more than ever before although the big sell in his first campaign was in working across party lines.

I’m not saying anyone in this is blameless and I despise the Tea Party turds. I watched them sink a recovery via a government shutdown on principle alone and I have a special bit of hatred for anyone who stands on principle to the detriment of the nation (whether they be on the left OR the right).

Still, I have an inherent belief in the institutions our nation is built upon. Our nation does a very good job of course correcting itself in ways that other countries do not.

When people are getting all very hysterical about the latest campaign cycle try to caution them and point that out but it usually falls on deaf ears.

Anyway, this was the first time I had gotten this kind of email about a group I belong to on Flickr and I was disappointed by it. I was disappointed there was such anger in people. It's not surprising I imagine, when GW Bush was in office he was the object of anger and Obama too was an object of anger but I still can't fathom how people can't respect the office.

I know people point to the man in the office but I have to tell you if you go back and look at that very select club of folks who have been President you will find that it is chock full of very flawed people. Last time I checked no one is perfect and it would probably be better for all of us to remember that.

Beautiful things that make me cry.

Because I am very much a weirdo (or maybe paradoxical might be a batter word) there are things that one wouldn’t assume I have a place in my heart for but they have dug in and found residence in the hard earth to be sure and are deeply rooted therein.

This is one of those things (and equally scary is that it is coming up on its 50 anniversary):

 
Big Yellow Tax by Joni Mitchell
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
With a pink hotel, a boutique
And a swinging hot spot

Don’t it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got 

’til it’s gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

They took all the trees
Put 'em in a tree museum
And they charged the people
A dollar and a half just to see ’em

Don’t it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got 

’til it’s gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

Hey farmer farmer
Put away that DDT now
Give me spots on my apples
But leave me the birds and the bees
Please!

Don’t it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
’til it’s gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

Late last night
I heard the screen door slam
And a big yellow taxi
Took away my old man

Don’t it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
’til it’s gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

Don’t it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
’til it’s gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot 

They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

This is the album version with lyrics:

Not an April’s Fools Joke!

How much has the debate on healthcare changed? Seriously with the defeat of the Ryan bill (which was a horrible proposal to be sure) some interesting things are being bandied about which have more of a chance to pass now that we’ve gotten the stupidity of the Freedom Caucus morons behind us.

Trump did his bit, playing like the good Republican and letting Ryan hang himself with his own stupidity (hoisted on his own petard comes to mind) which can never be imagined to be a bad thing.

I hate Paul Ryan if you hadn’t noticed, you can see my earlier comments about my thoughts on his ideas about healthcare reform here.

However, the NY POST of all places ran this article which lets you know things have changed and hopefully (for Republicans and for all Americans) the party is being moved back to the center after being hijacked by the extreme right.

The simplest way to do this is universal health care, on the Canadian model, with a right of individuals to purchase a Cadillac plan on top of this out of pocket. And there are things that might be added, like removing the ban on reimporting drugs from Canada.

Not only would this be close to what Trump promised, but it would be a responsible response to the problem — one, moreover, that would reach across the aisle to the Democrats. Take out all the killer amendments that would give them a plausible excuse to reject it, and ask them to put up or shut up.

Now let me tell you who’d support this. The people who elected Trump in 2016. They weren’t right-wing ideologues. They were people who had lost or who feared they’d lose their jobs. Many were but a few steps away from the diseases of despair, social isolation, drug and alcohol poisonings and suicide that Anne Case and her husband, Nobel laureate Sir Angus Deaton, tell us have lowered the life expectancy of white Americans.

Could it be we finally get UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE DONE and with a Republican President to boot!?!?

I started to write this ahead of April’s Fool and then never got around to finishing it breaking a good string of posting every day but what is interesting is seeing the reactions this has garnered in the interim.

On the right, Ryan has worried the President might work with the Democrats! Oh my! The sky might fall! In the process Ryan exposes himself to be an idiot who wants to stand on principle above the good of the country.

Alternately, there are people on the left too, so indulgent in their glee over the failure of Ryan’s piece of shit and happy to make it an emblem of failure they can wrap around the President’s neck, they miss the opportunity they have. They like Ryan want to embrace their principles as opposed to finding what common ground there may be between the two sides.

It says a lot about the dysfunction in government these days.

The truth about Uber.

This was in the drafts queue but it’s fairly recent. This guy in the video is the head of UBER and he is such a TOTAL DICK.

Here’s the thing, UBER is akin to the pirates of the taxi industry.

What’s that mean?


They don’t follow any of the local licensing or laws that taxis are normally subject to.

Add to that, the people driving for UBER AREN’T EVEN EMPLOYEES! Their independent contractors!

UBER basically is the absolute worst manifestation of Capitalism there is. All UBER does is to bring down wages and suck up their share of a fare without giving anything at all to the driver.

The driver in this video pretty much says it all and you can see THE DICK who owns the company has nothing but contempt for the people who drive for UBER.

So the question for all the limousine liberals out there is why are you idiots supporting UBER?

That whole business about the gig economy is just another buzzword for exploitation and nothing more.

Triumph Tuesday!

Because honestly I cannot get enough of the Insult Comic Dog:

More drafts dreck!

Acchhhhhhhhh!

If you’ve been wondering.

If you’re one of the two or three readers of this blog and you’re wondering or have noticed things have been a bit sparse of late, I actually have begged off a bit of late just because I’ve been so busy working.

I’m fortunate, I have work and I’ve been working fairly regularly for some time now.

This contrasts against many people in my field, around my age or older. People I know who are out of work and have been out of work for a long time.

I can’t afford to be out of work, it’s as simple as that and I am glad to have a job and to have work as well but, I will say it leaves me with precious little time to do much else. A normal day involves me getting up somewhere between 4:45 and 6 am to get myself ready for the day. And once I do get in, I pretty much sit down and work the whole shift without too much of a break.

One of the things I’ve noticed about offices these days, something that contrasts with how it was even a few years ago is that no one really takes a lunch anymore. I don‘t know when it happened but, happen it did and now it I see the majority of people in the company where I work, pop out to get something to eat or heat something up in the kitchen and then eat at their desk while they’re still working.

Again, I don’t know what happened but while it’s not the rule it is very common.

And I don’t really talk on the phone much anymore either. Whether it’s the cell or even the work phone, I just find I don’t really like having a conversation on the phone so much...

That’s where I stopped. I haven‘t had work in too long now and I’m starting to get more than a little concerned about it. I don’t want it to go much longer and I certainly hope it doesn’t or big problems are going to be happening.

I’ve got a lot of things I need to get done this year...

I need to get my teeth done. If I was a famous writer maybe I would impose upon my fans and just have them send me money to help out for my own mismanagement of life but I’m not.

I guess I just have to suck it up like so many ‘normal’ people.

I’m getting older now though and while I don’t mind my job, I am getting very, very tired of freelancing and wish I could find some decent staff gig I could just lock into nad not have to worry about the whole hunt aspect of freelancing.

It’s a big pain in the ass to put it mildly.

I’ve been lucky in a lot of ways, lucky in the sense that I have managed to keep at it and keep working for the most part when I’ve seen peers just get locked out of the profession altogether.

I’d like to think I’m good at what I do but a part of me feels I’ll never be as good as I want to be.

The other day, I was looking at some work I have which I have been meaning to get up on a portfolio site. This is another area where I keep dragging my feet, actually setting up the portfolio site and getting it done.

I am HYPERCRITICAL of my work. REALLY. I have worked with some of the most AMAZING people over the course of my career. I mean, I am jealous of their talent because they make it look so g-damn easy!

I sweat every damn thing I work on and even afterward IT’S STILL NOT ENOUGH!

And the thing is, I look back on some of this work or projects that I’ve been involved with and the funny thing is I cannot tell you how many thing I’ve worked on have wound up winning design awards (while I wasn’t the designer believe me, I am very involved in each and every thing I do work on).

It’s frustrating...

So, I lose my train of thought here. Work is different, I’m different, life changes... tough it out.

Adventures in Babysitting.

More drafts queue!

I like working and I like work... for the most part. There can be moments when all jobs can be trying or tiring...

I STOPPED! ONE FRIGGIN’ SENTENCE! WHAT THE HELL!?!?!


Anyway, I think if you look under the dictionary definition of frustration jobs will be in there somewhere.

In a perfect world we would all win the lottery and never have to work, right?

You know, one time... many years ago. I had a one in 45 chance to win 45 million dollars!

I came up short though (obviously).

At the time, I was working at a very big ad agency and we would normally have a lottery pool. I was going on vacation at the time (I seem to remember those...) and was on my first (and only) trip to the Caribbean but I knew I had better be sure to get my money in for the lottery pool because I knew my luck would be I would be on vacation, NOT put in my money and we would win (or the people who put in would win rather).

Sure enough when I got back, what happpened?

We won!

Well, we didn’t win a lot but it was a 44 million jackpot and as a friend described it to me, he had been watching the drawing when the first five numbers that came up were numbers that we had!

So there we were down to that last number and it was all that was separating the 20 of us from being millionaires and what happened?

We didn’t get it!

Damn!

Well, I think we walked away with $50 each from that which was somewhat anticlimatic to say the least.

Still there it was, close (again not horseshoes and hand grenades) to having lots of money.

I still think I‘ve got that big lottery win in my future, hope it comes up soon!

What happened!?!

Another from the drafts queue...

Reading corner.

I’m spending a lot of time reading lately.

So, I’ve rediscovered the wonder of the written word and I’ve been burning through books lately. And I’m thinking in the ever challenging search to provide content, one of the things I could be doing is passing along what I’ve been reading to you.

This week’s entry is a bit of an oddity...

That’s where I stopped and for the life of me I cannot remember the book I was reading at the time which is a bit sucky.

I have (what I think) are odd reading tastes. I’ve read some things that one might not necessarily associate with someone of my age or gender but I like reading. Lately, I’ve been catching up on a lot of comics stuff in the form of graphic novels or compilations of things.

I AM NOT sad I stopped buying comics.

As far as what I see from the big two go, things have run off the rails but then I don’t know what their sales figures are these days. I don’t know what the impact of online readers are as opposed to print. I do know the last comic shop I patronized closed and another that was local to me closed as well in the last few years.

I guess comics at least in that form are undergoing a change.

I have to say though more often than not I’m not especially crazy about what I do read only because it appears that both the major comic companies now are all about ‘event’ comics.

What had been a sporadic treat at one time (the crossover) now has become the default position for comics I would figure to drive sales but I can’t be bothered.

Then there’s the art...

I was going to take a pic of something I had been reading because it was SO TERRIBLE, it was such a completely muddy mess as to be unreadable.

I worked as a colorist at one time, well before Photoshop had taken over comics coloring (at least I think they’re using Photoshop) and coloring was fairly straightforward because of the limitations of the medium.

Anyway, I remember Mike Higgins clearly talking about coloring one night over a game of RISK at Terry Kavanaugh’s (at least I think it was RISK but alcohol may have been involved)  and he made a point about when you were coloring anything it was important to establish a foreground, mid-ground and background with your colors.

Today, coloring has become what would best be described as a bunch of frustrated pencillers who have decided to take out their anger over their own shortcomings via Photoshop.

Some manage to do a great job coloring but unfortunately most do not.

So, I was reading this Guardians of the Galaxy thing and it was.... really, really bad. I’m sure I’ll find something else because I was almost going to take a picture of the thing. It was so overworked that you couldn’t pull out any one thing in the soup that the damn thing had become.

I’ll get back to this because it’s something of a pet peeve for me - the loss of clear storytelling in comics. It’s funny because comics likely has never been more popular in some ways but man, they sure seem to be doing their level best to destroy the medium.

War of the words.

More from my drafts queue!

Even when I’m not collecting my thoughts in this little isolated corner of the internet, I am still out there stirring up trouble. Most of my time these days is devoted to a neglected project which I am hoping to finish up soon and which should significantly improve my environs but, I still manage to stir the pot occasionally.

Last week, I found myself in a bit of a flame war on a board. Sometimes, the internet is great because there is a dialog and other times it is not so great because people act in ways they wouldn’t in a face to face setting. Lots of name calling, writing in all caps (the online equivalent of yelling), a dose of overused punctuation to make a stronger argument ( reminescent of the Seinfeld episode where Elaine goes exclamation point crazy).

Fortunately, I don’t take these things seriously anymore.

A lot of the reason is because the internet has an all access pass. It’s a good thing but, it’s a bad thing as well. On the one hand, it can be an avenue where you can find interesting and thoughtful people to connect with, others you may brush up against the kind of person who would make your skin crawl in a day to day situation.

The whole online things runs a big gamut.

On Flickr, I’ve seen female photographers post artsy nudes only to be subjected to a litany of ‘Let me do you!’ comments or to find themselves besieged by an inordinate amount of anonymous pictures of strangers genitals (yes, too many penises). I’ve gotten emails in the past from people who said things I can’t ever see the sender having the courage to say in real life and again there is the whole bulletin board phenom.

It’s not like people aren’t rude in the real world but, the faceless factor of the online world gives cowards much more courage than they would normally have. Makes me understand a bit about how mobs behave because I believe the same underlying forces are at work.

Thing is though, I can be the most humongous prick imaginable. It’s not a hard thing to do, as a matter of fact it’s just way too easy and I can say it’s only over the last decade I’ve found myself shying away from the urge. You get older, getting through each day becomes more of an issue, you just want...

And I stopped there.

Unfortunately, I have never stopped being a dick. I’ve mellowed to be sure but there’s a guy in me and he’s not a nice person.

I’ve had what would best be described as a bit of a knock about life. When you have a life like that I think it changes you. Somehow, at this moment I’m thinking about Harlan Ellison for some reason because I think he had a knock about life too. The reason I say Harlan Ellison had that knock about life is because if you look back at the first things Harlan wrote they are about his time in a street gang.

It‘s great reading but understand, Harlan was actually part of a gang in Red Hook, Brooklyn to research the books.

You can’t do that unless you’re tough but being tough is something that never goes away I think.

Those books by Harlan by the way, are good reads and you should check them out.

The Deadly Streets:

Web of the City

The season that wasn’t.

More housecleaning from the drafts queue...

You know, being a Mets fan these days is a lesson in disappointment and unfulfilled expectations. There is simply no other way to put it because as much as you may love the blue and the orange there is no denying some really intrinsic dysfunction within the organization that is expressed in its every move.

Right now the Mets are winding down their season with a whimper, there simply is no other way to put it and if you’re like me you’ve just gotten to the point where you’ve lost interest entirely. You are numb from the experience of another season squandered with no real progress to be measured on the field in developing a team that will contend in the years ahead.

But you have to ask yourself why? Why is it that year in, year out a team that is in one of the biggest markets can operate in such a slipshod manner.

I obviously wrote this long before the Mets took a trip to the World Series. It is likely that I wrote sometime between that event and round about the firing of Jerry Manuel.

I’ve got another baseball snippet along these lines that I’ll post too as well soon.

Right now it’s the glory days for Mets fans and if you saw my prediction this is their year (at least I think so).  That’s because the Mets this year have starting pitching like nobody’s business.

You’ve got Thor and DeGrom at the top of the the rotation and there are two guys I hope are with the Mets for a long, long time to come. I like them both because they have those intangibles... they’re team guys. If I’m the Mets, I pull the trigger and lock these guys up for a little bit, give them some security and take something of a discount in the process.

Behind them, you’ve got Wheeler who I love if only because of the fact he’s a really good picture and he WANTS to be here and then you’ve got the next addition to the big hair trio in Robert Gsellman who has become a bit of a favorite too.

You’ll notice I didn’t mention Matt Harvey there...

I’m hoping Matt Harvey has a great year this year. I hope he recaptures all that promise he showed a few years back. I hope he becomes the ‘Dark Knight’ again and once he does I’m hoping for something else.

A trade.

As soon as Matt Harvey shows even the slightest iota of what he was, boom! Trade, trade, trade!

You’ve got some people who would call me crazy to say that but before you would jump to that conclusions, hear me out.

You know the ‘intangibles’ i mentioned when I was talking about DeGrom and Thor? Harvey doesn’t have those. Harvey is THE PRIME EXAMPLE of what I don’t want on my team.

A baseball team is not a single player but 25 guys who have roles to play. Some are great and some are there to do specific jobs when called upon. Harvey though has proven in his very short career NOT to be the kind of guy who puts his team and his career above all else. It showed the year the Mets were in the Series when coming down to the wire there was a controversy between Scott Boras and the Mets, It was controversy when he was rehabbing from surgery. It was even him being out in a spring training where he really needs to prove his mettle once more.

Baseball is littered with pitchers who have ONE good season. One good season does not a Hall of Fame career make. At this point in time Harvey has yet to prove he’s a Hall of Famer, he’s shown promise to be sure but not much more and you can be assured when the time comes and he is a free agent being a Scott Boras client, his agent will extract every last dollar he can from the team that signs him (which is what a free market is all about).

So, instead of spending for ‘promise’ turn him into something else. Turn Harvey into an asset for the team, trade him.

Remember, the Mets traded RA Dickey the very season he won the Cy Young! A lot of franchises would have called that crazy as well but it netted the Mets Noah Syndergaard, Travis D’Arnaud (both on the team this year), John Buck who ultimately turned into Jay Bruce (sounds strange, right? But Buck was traded to the Pirates for Dilson Herrera who was the key to the Jay Bruce trade) and also Wulmer Bucerra who was ranked #10 in the organization as far as prospects go.

If you can trade Harvey away and get a good return like that WHAT WOULD STOP YOU?!

Anyway, as I write this another season full of promise is upon us and I for one am happy!

Irony thy name is Peter David.

As I had mentioned earlier every once in awhile of late I had dropped in on Peter David’s blog to witness his latest manic episode of ranting like Chicken Little. I’ve already spoken at length about how the supposedly ‘enlightened’ David who pretends to be so much better than so many is really deep down quite a nasty piece of work.

I have to wonder fi the reason David was so good at writing the Hulk was that deep down he was as misanthropic as the Hulk who was originally Marvel’s Mister Hyde.

I’d be lying if I didn’t say that every little bit of rain that falls into the man’s life gives me the sense that there are scales of cosmic justice and they do balance out.

Now David who had been stricken with a debilitating medical condition (stroke) a few years back and who pleaded with fans for financial help decided to dig into the well again but this time to pay off an old tax debt.

That tax thing is a motherfucker, I’ve been down that road but I did take care of things and was glad to have done so. The IRS on your case is akin to having the Sword of Damocles hanging over you and the IRS is better than a loan shark because not only do they not go away but they’ve got the entire US Government on their side.

However, there is something a little galling about a man who can take trips around the world and go to Disneyland and live a pretty nice life pleading poverty and digging into the pockets of fans instead of taking care of things himself.

It’s especially ironic in light of this little episode last year at NYCC:

Here is David on the heels of being unable to walk out there begging for money, a bit like the story that had him so incensed at Comicon. Of course like in all other things Peter’s racism is okay because he’s ‘liberal.’

Triumph Tuesday!

Because honestly I cannot get enough of the Insult Comic Dog:

fren·e·my [fren-uh-mee]

You know some people you just have to get away from.

You either know what I’m talking about or don’t but sometimes there are friendships where you catch yourself wondering whether in fact the person is really your friend - dictionary dotcom does a good job with it because I believe that’s where the following term comes from:

fren·e·my [fren-uh-mee]
noun Informal.
a person or group that is friendly toward another because the relationship brings benefits, but harbors feelings of resentment or rivalry: Clearly, turning the competition into frenemies is good for your business.

I don’t believe in the whole concept of frenemies. Life is too short to waste your time on things like that. Besides, I look to friends for support and I want to support my friends as well. I want to revel in friend’s successes and soften the blow of any failure they may encounter. Maybe that’s my own naivete – it just seems so counterproductive to waste your time being jealous or rooting for someone to fail and then walking around acting like you’re their pal.

But not everyone feels that way and there are some people who it seems want to surround themselves by others who they can root against because it’s the only way they can feel good about themselves, when the people around them fail they can feel superior.

I find that just weird.

Anyway, the other day I got together with someone who I hadn’t seen in a long time. The person in question is an inspiration to me because he is so caring, so giving and so nice. A...

++++++++++++++

I don’t know who I was talking about when I was writing this which means more than likely I’ve excised this person...

Anyway, so I tried to finish this once and now we’re at a second go round on it.

You know, the sentiment is still there and I do know I’ve had a few of these vampiric leeches around me over the course of my life but I have managed with age to winnow out the pack for the most part.

I realized awhile ago people can break out into groups and there are people who just have a crappy attitude towards the world.

I realized a little while ago, someone close to me... I couldn’t ever remember him complaining about things in life. That isn’t to say he didn’t have his problems and there weren’t people he wasn’t crazy about but he didn’t really complain much about things.

It was noticeable enough that one day I bought it up to him and he plainly responded he didn’t see much of a point in complaining.

Complaining doesn’t do much good overall as far as one’s personal issues go.

But we’re getting off track here a little bit, I’ve found myself to be very particular about people as more time goes on. I’m also less inclined to IMPOSE myself on others. I mean that, I don’t want to be someone’s Frenemy and I WANT BE THERE WHEN THEY’RE CELEBRATING THEIR TRIUMPHS!

I want to be around people and lift them up not bring them down. That’s work but I want people to do the same for me as well.

I’ve had freenemies though, they’re the folks who’ll constantly pick at your scabs. They’ll bring up everything they know bothers you and make sure you manage to get worked up about it or at least they’ll try to get you worked up because that’ll help them feel better about themselves.

I think work can be a good breeding ground for the whole frenemy thing which can be sad because so much of people’s time these days is spent being preoccupied over work.

So, be on the lookout!

Do I know baseball, or what?

Back on March 1st I took the plunge and made predictions for the coming baseball season, instead of providing you with a link, I'm just reposting the entry in its entirety. Read it and then take a look at the image below from the sportswriters over at Yahoo. It's interesting where the predictions deviate - no one believes the Giants can win the NL West or the Mets can win the NL East. What is interesting is just how many agree with my assessment of the AL standings but look for yourself and of course we’ll see where things fall by November...

NL EAST Mets (I’m biased) Braves Nationals Marlins Phillies	AL EAST: Red Sox Orioles Yankees Blue Jays Rays
NL CENTRAL Cubs Cardinals Pirates Brewers Reds	AL CENTRAL Indians Royals Tigers White Sox Twins
NL WEST Giants Dodgers Padres Rockies Diamondbacks	AL WEST Astros Rangers Mariners Angels A’s

I’m not going as far as to predict who will be the two wild card teams and who will manage to make it through the playoffs... OR WAIT... SHOULD I!

Okay, what the hell!

NL Wild Card teams: Dodgers Braves	AL Wild Card teams: Rangers Orioles
Playoffs 1st Round Giants face Mets Braves face Cubs	Playoffs 1st Round Rangers face Indians Astros face Boston
LCS Mets face Cubs Boston face Indians	WS Mets face Boston

Times change but people don’t!

This is another form the drafts queue...

Send in the clowns.

The big news over the weekend was this:

Western forces hit targets along the Libyan coast on Saturday, using strikes from air and sea to force Muammar Gaddafi’s troops to cease fire and end attacks on civilians.

Libyan state television said 48 people had been killed and 150 wounded in the allied air strikes. It also said there had been a fresh wave of strikes on Tripoli early on Sunday.

There was no way to independently verify the claims.

CBS News on its website said on Sunday that three U.S. B-2 stealth bombers had dropped 40 bombs on a “major Libyan airfield” that was not further identified. A Pentagon spokesman said he had no information about such an attack.

So the question of the moment is where are all the outraged masses? Where is all of that righteous indignation we saw back when the U.S. went back into Iraq to clean up the mess that lingered for a decade plus after the ‘first’ Gulf War?

I’m curious because anyone who doesn’t think this is just as much about oil as it was in Iraq, is living in  a huge state of denial. I’m curious because this is so much about regime change and the parallels are so stark (between Libya today and Iraq a few years back) that the amazing irony of it all could only be lost on only the truly stupid.

Dare I say, there is a different measure put to the current chief executive only because he is a Democrat?

And anyone who for a moment thinks things might be different if HRC had gained the Presidency, need only look as far as the current Secretary of State’s actions and statements of the last few weeks to have that notion dispelled:

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Thursday that a U.N. no-fly zone over Libya would require bombing targets inside the country to reduce the threat posed by Moammar Gadhafi’s forces...

“A no-fly zone requires certain actions taken to protect the planes and the pilots, including bombing targets like the Libyan defense systems,” Clinton said as she neared the end of a Middle East trip dominated by worries about Libya, where a rebel offensive is apparently flagging.

This really should come as no surprise as Hillary’s husband was a big fan of lobbing bombs into countries on a regular basis while he was president.

I stopped there. This was from way back in 2011. What I found funny is that there was no mass of demonstrations on the part of all the folks who had gone out when we invaded Iraq. I just found that more than a little ironic.

Here we are six years later and we can see the results of Obama Foreign Policy as executed by Hillary Clinton and John Kerry. That Foreign Policy was one of disengagement couched in the expectation that World Bodies would take up the mantle of maintaining peace and order the world over.

Well, we see how that worked out now don’t we.

After World War 2, the United States maintained a troop presence in Germany and Japan for DECADES. There was a logic in leaving troops in those nations after the war and it was to use them as a stabilizing force in those societies.

In Iraq, we didn’t do that.

The result... ISIS. The result... a refugee crisis in Europe.

There was a reason for that too. Don’t forget that the former administration fostered the Arab Spring in the hopes that a wave of Democracy would take hold throughout the Middle East. The result turned out to be exactly the opposite.

As the Arab Spring spread to Syria, Qatar and Saudi Arabia saw the unrest as an opportunity to unseat Bashar al-Assad, an Alowite Muslim leading a country that is majority Sunni (like Qatar and Saudi Arabia), while at the same time undercutting the economic interests of rival energy exporters Iran and Russia, which have long backed the Assad regime. As Mitchell Orenstein and George Romer point out in Foreign Affairs, the major belligerents in the Syrian civil war—Iran, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Russia, and the United States—are all energy exporters concerned with the future of energy extraction and how it will reach an oil-and-gas-hungry European market. They describe how Qatar has long searched for an inexpensive way to ship its natural gas to Europe, a goal that puts it in direct competition with Russia:

I could talk about China in the South China Sea, I could talk about North Korea, I could talk about a whole host of things but this post would wind up inordinately long if I did. Barack Obama got a Noble Peace Prize: The 2009 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to United States President Barack Obama for his "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples."

Honestly, this is one that should be given back because if ever a guy was given a pass our former president got a monstrous one as he continuously dropped the ball over eight years in office. Not that you would hear any of his supporters ever admit to it.

The lament...

More from the drafts queue...

The other stuff.

Although I don’t really talk about it much a lot of other stuff has been going on.

Did I say I was working? Well, I am and have been for awhile now. I like work, actually I like being able to pay my bills and work really is pretty painless as these things go. I’ve realized I am rapidly becoming irrelevant to a majority of people because of age. Maybe I’m oversimplifying it but it seems that way quite often, there are just a bunch of people all under a certain age and for the most part I’m invisible to them.

When you think about it, maybe being invisible isn’t so bad...

I started this way, way back in 2011 round about the same time of year as a matter of fact. That was a good time for me in retrospect because I had a solid year of work with one client permalancing more or less with them.

The last five years have had their ups and downs and after this permalancing gig ended for rthe most part I had two very bad freelance experiences back to back before winding up back where I started for a couple of more months.

The sad thing is how much I liked it there and even though I would work there again over the next three years or so there would never be any permanence to the gig.

I’m at a point now where I just want something steady with benefits if only not to be in the constant struggle of trying to scrape up some new gig. The last two years or so have been rough with gaps that have been longer than I would’ve liked but I keep swinging for the fences.


The life of a freelancer grows tiresome and at this point I just want to find that place where there are some nice people and the work is okay and I can just do my time.

Is that really too much to ask for?

How stupid are you?

Way back in the days when I was using Mosaic and I surfed the web with it looking at text pages and checking out Usenet Groups on the side I belonged to something called CPSR.

CPSR which is still in existence stands for Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility. The group was ahead of its time in the sense that they could see how an interconnected world could readily lead to abuses and privacy concerns. Now 25 years later their mission seems more important than ever before.

Social media has changed things... not for the better because it has encouraged people to overshare. This blog is a form of oversharing but I do take steps to shield certain things and am careful about my digital footprint which I guard zealously.

Maybe in a few years when I get to the point where I am ready to retire I will arrive at that moment where I no longer care about the opinions of the rest of the world but for now in an era where employers look at a digital footprint for prospective job candidates you really need to be careful.

Anway, I was reading this article and I couldn’t help but think how many stupid people there are in this world who look upon gadgets as harmless things and items which will afford them some status but interesting enough in the process they are making some truly deep sacrifices for the sake of appearances.

This article talks about those ‘great’ digital assistants you can purchase for your home but before you do you might want to read it because getting up to turn out your lights might be the better option:

Alexa and Google Home Record What You Say. But What Happens to That Data?

Triumph Tuesday!

Because honestly I cannot get enough of the Insult Comic Dog: