Best Day Ever
I love days like today.
I noticed yesterday that everybody seems afraid to give me stuff to do this week. They must be laying off because I was out sick. They think I am a delicate and fragile thing, and I'm not about to tell them any different. I'm not complaining, it's actually quite nice to come in and do nothing for most of the day. I've often noticed that most people here do nothing for most of the day, only I'm not one of those people. It's nice to be included in that little club for once. I don't think I want to give up my membership anytime soon.
So far today, I've done one ad. That was early this morning. After that, with nothing else in my 'to do' pile, I went and picked up smoothies for myself and a couple of my coworkers. I've become addicted to Jamba Juice's 'Bright Eyed and Blueberry' Yogurt blend this week. I came back from the smoothie run expecting to have my usual onslaught of dorky ads to do, only to find, well, nothing.
So I went to lunch. I wandered around for a few minutes trying to figure out what I wanted, only to realize that what I wanted, was to drive to 'That's a Wrap' over on 7th Street and get some sort of rice bowl thing with veggies. I called Rhonda on the way to see if she wanted anything, and ended up picking up a Teryaki Bowl and some Tea for her.
I ended up being missing for way too long, but was pleasantly surprised when nobody actually noticed my absence. I wonder how long this will last, because quite frankly, I'm loving this.
And now... the Plastic Flappybats!
Our band is called the Plastic Flappybats. We're the greatest 2 piece Replacements cover band that works in Classified Advertising at the Arizona Republic. And Friday night-- we rocked the Pit.
We're kind of the house band, along with another 2 piece called Mustard, who gets together once a month to just sort'a play and drink and have fun at our favorite bar. It's a great time.
Earlier in the week, what with my ongoing stomach issues, I really wondered if I was gonna make it at all, or if Greg was gonna have to stand up there by himself playing Replacements songs. Our Wednesday night Jam turned into me crawling around on my floor in agony, before retreating to the safety of a scalding hot bath. It didn't look good, but I swore I'd be okay by Friday. I had to. I'd been looking forward to this for a month.
And I was. The medication my doc gave me started kicking in, and by Friday, I was basically functioning like a normal human being again. Even better, I wanted to play. I stopped on the way downtown and grabbed a smoothie at Jamba Juice on Central. I've come to realize that smoothies are awesome, especially when they're a yogurt blend sort of a thing. Just awesome. Besides, I can't drink or smoke, I'd might as well drink smoothies.
Our plan this time around, was to play nothing but Replacements songs and Paul Westerberg solo songs, all night long. Not that this was very different than any other night that we play. Our set is usually at least 85% Mats, but this time, we decided to just go full on with it and not do anything else.
Of course, then Johnny Ramone died, and we felt obliged to mix in a couple of Ramones songs out of respect for him. But that was a total of four songs out of our entire evening.
Anyway, I'm getting off track. It was strange playing completely sober, but it was a great show. I feel like we nailed a lot of what we did. Greg definitely nailed the guitar part on Favorite Thing. Next time we do that, I wanna just belt that out. I had to hold back because I was still a little weak by the end of the evening Friday. Didn't want to collapse on the floor mid-show.
As far as I can remember, we played (in no particular order):
I Will Dare
Love Untold
The Ledge
Sadly Beautiful
Let's Not Belong Together
Can't Hardly Wait
Skyway
Here Comes A Regular
Favorite Thing
Runaway Wind
Silent Film Star
Kiss Me On The Bus
If there's anybody out there in Phoenix who's a Mats fan, we're playing again on October 29. Two idiots, 2 guitars, no talent, all Mats/Westerberg. Email me for directions.
last week... the lost week
I've basically lost a week of my life.
My stomach had been bothering me for quite some time, but I didn't realize that it had become a medical problem until last weekend. It kind'a snuck up on me, y'know?
Occasionally, I'd not feel well, and I'd always just think it was something I ate, or that I ate too late in the evening or glarfed down too many reese's peanut butter cups or some nonsense. Turns out it's probably Gastritis. If I'm lucky.
I wouldn't wish this on anyone out there. Whatever it is, you feel like crap, all bloated and in pain, for hours on end, usually after eating and you don't get much sleep, if any. By the time I had realized that I had a problem going on, I hadn't slept in like, four days, and my strategy to deal with the pain was to not eat anything. That was Monday when I had come up with that plan. By Tuesday, I was in the doctor's office, freaking out.
Luckily, the nice lady hooked me up with some pills that seem to be working little by little. She told me to avoid alcohol for a while and definitely stop smoking, which was followed by a ten minute conversation with this nice, but misguided lady who has never smoked a cigarette in her life, telling me how to quit smoking. I wanted to just smile and say "thank you for the encouragement, but it's nowhere near that easy", but I didn't.
I took a week to rest on the sofa, watch the Star Wars Trilogy, and try to catch up on some sleep. It was a good decision, because although I'm still not 100%, I did feel good enough to play last Friday night @thePit. And I haven't had a cigarette since Wednesday.
Now I just have to get back to work on the site. This is becoming an embarrassment.
...where was I?
When last I'd posted, I was preparing to go see Ryan Adams. Let's pick up there.
I'd just been to the venue the week before to see Face To Face with my friend Greg, so I knew what to expect from the venue. They'd added seating towards the rear of the hall for this show, I guess they figured there'd be a lot more old people like us there, who'd need to sit down during the show.
I was feeling a little under the weather, and it was a Sunday night, so I decided not to drink that night. Rhonda didn't either. I think we were the only two sober people in the place.
Anyway, I'd read reviews of Ryan Adams shows here and there, and spoken to a few people who'd seen him, and I never could get a good read on what his shows are like. I know this guy who went to see him in Chicago when he was opening for the Rolling Stones. The first show was apparently quite good, so he decided to get tickets for the next night, whereupon Ryan spent the evening repeatedly insulting the headlining act, and the town in which he was playing. I spent the entire week previous hoping that Ryan was in a good mood to play on Sunday night.
Rhonda and I are both fans of the guy, so no matter what, we weren't gonna pass on the chance to see him play live. I'm glad we went, too, because he came out and played his ass off all night long. And he only threw one guitar.
The backstory is that Ryan had recently broken his wrist. Sounds like it was a pretty bad injury too, that resulted in pins and bars and all kinds of crap being shot through his wrist so it'd heal properly. This is not good for a guitar player, I would imagine. It was his right hand, so it affected him strumming and picking, but luckily it wasn't his fret hand or he'd probably be screwed for even longer.
Then again, what do I know? I can barely play on a good day.
Anyway, he was out playing some shows, I guess, to work out the kinks and to get back into the swing of things. Plus, presumably he was making up some dates, as his wrist injury had come in the middle of a tour, and Phoenix was one of the dates that had gotten cancelled after the little goon fell off the stage and broke his wrist. We had tickets for his original show, and were really bummed that we weren't gonna be able to see him. Imagine our collective surprise when a replacement date turned up on his website, some six months later. It has been a great summer for shows in Phoenix this year.
He played a lot of stuff from his first two solo albums, Heartbreaker and Gold. A lot of the twangier stuff, which is just fine by me.His last two albums were represented as well, with just one song each from those collections. Needless to say, it was a twangier evening than I'd initially expected. Not that I was complaining, though. Heartbreaker is my favorite of his solo albums, he could've just sat and played that in its entirety and I'd have been happy.
That guy has some very nice guitars. Also, his bass player was a total hottie. The audience seemed to agree, as I heard several guys in the audience between songs yelling "Ryan yer bass player's HOT!"
He got frustrated, I think with himself, a few times and it showed. Mostly with his inability to play some of the trickier songs in his catalog. I think that was what sparked the flinging of the guitar about midway through the show. The song he was playing wasn't working out for him for whatever reason, and he clearly got frustrated. Next thing I know, he yells 'dammit!' and the guitar goes flying off to stage right and the guy who was sitting just offstage tuning them. Undaunted, he brought another one out, and the show went on. Later on, when he was playing alone, he was twittering around with some song, and he said something like "If I seem like I'm mad, it's not at you guys. It's probably a little too soon for me to be doing this, but I wanted to try." I'm glad he did.
It was a long show, I definitely feel as though we got our money's worth. He came out and played first with his band, the Cardinals, then they shuffled offstage and he did a long, solo acoustic set that actually took up the majority of the evening. All in all, a good show.
Ryan Adams
Heading out to see Ryan Adams play at the Marquee theater this evening. I just saw Face to Face last week, at the same venue and it was a good show. The thing with Ryan, I think, is that the quality of his show depends on his mood on any given evening. Let's hope he's in a good mood.
Bring out yer dead
I was somehow convinced to cover for the artist who does display obituaries this Saturday. Basically, all you have to do is process images of dead people all day. I assure you, it's loads of fun. For example, It's 11:25, and so far, I've processed exactly one image for an Obit. And it was a bad one. Not much longer now.
Speaking of the dead, Johnny Ramone's gone now. I have to say, the outlook was really grim back in June when his wife and doctor said he wasn't dying, and that he was on some new experimental therapy. I figured that if they were down to experimenting on the poor bastard, then he probably didn't have much time left. You don't do 'experimental' anything if you're prognosis is good.
Anyway... it sucks.
karmiccalamity.com is now online...
...and already I see things that I want to change. It's a work in progress, but at least it's online, and I can start loading in content and updating Hold My Life.
The cat insists on bottled water. I think he might be gay.
What happened to my week?
Short week because of the holiday, which blew right past like it was nothing... the operative term here being 'blew'. I'm optimistic about this weekend, though. I didn't have to suffer through another Friday night of what'sername swigging liberally from my drink all night, while she proceeded to give me unsolicited advice about how to run my life. And, hopefully, as long as nothing goes wrong tonight, nobody's car will be towed at 2 am.
Do I seem bitter? I'm not, really.
I'd hoped to have revamped karmic calamity this week, but it didn't work out that way. I did get it on the web, which was a minor accomplishment, but I'm already planning to change it into something more than it already is.
Y'see, I'd initially conceived of it as a site where I could develop original webcomics of my own, like Hold My Life, and a couple other things I had in mind. I wanted to experiment with Flash and see if I could come up with a way to make a webcomic that really worked, instead of just scanning a comic book page and plunking it on the web. I also wanted to post preview pages from Mass Disruption, because it's a great comic that needs a publisher. Any attention that could be brought to that project could only help.
Last week, though, like most weeknights, we were having a few drinks @ the Pit. A close friend had suggested that the site could be a lot more ambitious than it is. We got to talking about it, and another brilliant Pit scheme was born. What if we allowed others to submit work to karmic calamity? As long as they were up to a certain standard of presentation and skill, it could be a great site for great webcomics. As many of them are @ the Pit, it was a great conversation, and we came up with a lot of ideas.
All of it had reminded me of some conversations I'd had with Brent Simons, the writer of Mass Disruption, about creating a site where writers and artists could find collaborators for their own projects. It seemed to make sense now. A place to bring writers, artists, and maybe even people proficient in Flash, together so they can create great work together. And then karmic calamity can host these projects. Extensive preview content, then set the rest up on a Bitpay system so everybody can get paid for this.
And then... Greg offered to bring his critically acclaimed Ninja Ducks series out of retirement. And thus, a line of comics was born. He's already handed in two episodes, clearly he's more prolific than I.
Folker
Been listening to this thing on a continuous loop for days now, with no end in sight.
Another successful evening at the Ingram household comes to a close.
I had the most jacked-up weekend. Seriously, this one has to go down in the record books somewhere. Went to the Pit for a few drinks after work Friday, as we tend to do. It was two days after the now-legendary Tommy Stinson show at the Rhythm Room, and we were still talking about that for a little while Friday, and making plans for the rest of the weekend. Following on the heels of a successful evening at their house last weekend, we invited our friends Greg and Joanna over for dinner Saturday night for homemade Ravioli and a Canasta rematch.
They come over a little after 8:00 on Saturday. Dinner seemed to go well, and everything was great...until about 2:00 or so, when they went to leave... and found their car missing.
That's when everything turned to crap. Turns out that their car had been towed...by our homeowners association. Yes, that's right. In my experience, homeowners associations are a lot like oppressive third-world dictatorships, in that they do very cruel, ridiculous things to their citizens, often for arbitrary reasons. Like, for example, having your friend's car towed because it was parked on the street after midnight because they "don't like people parking on the street overnight". I truly hate this neighborhood.
We eventually get ahold of someone at about 3:30.. right after we drop Greg and Joanna off at their house. Turns out that it was all a big mistake on the part of the towing company that used to be contracted to do this sort of thing, and that the car was being brought back to us "right now". Mind you, this is about 3:30 in the morning. We go grab Greg and drag him back to our house, figuring that his car would be back there, safe and sound when we returned.
Four hours later... we're still sitting out in the driveway waiting for the towtruck to bring the car back. As you can see in the picture, it's clearly daylight when he finally showed up.
Return of the Quark Monkey
The Quark Monkey has once more been returned to his cage where he will be creating tiny ads for the remainder of the day.
Where did my life go wrong?
At least it's Friday.
Tommy Stinson
Tommy Stinson played at the Rhythm Room in Phoenix last night, in front of a crowd that couldn't have been more than fifty people. The show was awesome. Judging from that performance, I can only imagine what it must have been like to see the Replacements back in their heyday.
No 'mats songs were covered, nor were they mentioned at any time during the show, but the whole time, I just kept sitting there thinking "That's a Replacement up there..."
I know, I'm a geek. Just imagine what a freakshow it'll be if I ever get to see Westerberg perform.
Karmic Calamity
Turning on the lights
KarmicCalamity.com is now ready to go live... I think.
The first episode of Hold My Life and the preview art for Mass Disruption are now available for viewing, the message board is up and running, and I've linked the site to this weblog. Writing the first post in this weblog was the last thing I needed to accomplish before I felt comfortable uploading the site to it's proper home. I wanted to at least have everything functional before I dumped it on the web, but now I'm stuck fucking around with different blog programs, trying to decide which one to use.
About the content on the main site...the webcomic, Hold My Life, will be updated every other week until it's completed. I wrote, drew and produced the thing in Flash myself. Webcomics seem like a great medium, one I'd like to experiment with here and see what comes out of it. Not having to pay printing costs is great. It'll allow me to experiment more, find out what works and what doesn't, and modify the strips as I go along. Plenty of webcomics are just comic book pages that have been scanned and plunked onto a website, and I want to see if I can come up with original content that's truly set up for viewing on a computer monitor. I'll be playing around with simple animation and audio, and messing around with different window compositions for the actual strips to see what works best.
The other project up on Karmic Calamity is Mass Disruption. This was always intended to be a comic book, either as a miniseries or original graphic novel. It was written by Brent Simons and drawn by myself. Brent did a great job on the story, which made it a blast to draw. It's been in the works for while, but I'd put that comic up against anything being published today. All we need now is a publisher...There's more to come. Lots more. I'll be updating the site every day, unless of course, I go to the bar (which is often), in which case you're out of luck.
