karmic calamity

Gah

2007-07-17T16:44:00.001-07:00

I am bored.

Meat Puppets

2007-07-11T07:55:00.000-07:00

This is a good article on theMeat Puppets

Another sad story about a band with all the promise in the world who lost everything because of drugs. But they're back now. Read up.

Avoid Wet Blanket Syndrome

2007-06-17T13:02:00.001-07:00

I recently started posting The Plastic Flappybats songs in Hold My Life.

My friend Frank and I recently studied the craft of songwriting from Peter Case. Hold My Life readers will recognize Peter through his songs that have been featured in various episodes of the comic, music fans will know Peter from his work with the Nerves, the Plimsouls, and also through his amazing body of solo music since the Plimsouls disbanded.

Anyway, I have a tremendous amount of respect for Peter Case. One of the first things he told us in the class was "avoid wet blanket syndrome" - basically don't be your worst enemy, don't get halfway done with the song, decide it sucks and give up on it. Finish your songs and if you decide later that it sucks, well you don't have to play it anymore.

Beyond that, he said to write, write, write. Write every day. And he gave us some valuable tools, using examples from songs written by people like Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Lennon, McCartney and himself, to name just a few. Westerberg's name even came up a couple times... we really dug into the craft of songwriting, and the things that are universal in great songs. You'd be surprised...

Anyway, he gave us new and different colors for our pallette, gave us songwriting assignments every week and sent us out into the world to write songs. And I appreciate Peter's willingness to take neophyte poserus like us into his world and give us the time of day.

We know we're not ever gonna get a record deal-- and honestly, none of us really gives a shit. We're not gonna get our big break. We're probably never gonna get offered the opportunity to play a show anywhere but at Karmic Calamity on First Fridays (kind'a hard to lose that gig cuz I own the joint)-- and we don't really care. The Flappybats just wanna play songs, and hopefully people dig it as much as we like playing.

So that's where the songs are coming from. The class itself gave me greater insight into the life and mind of a songwriter, and I've begun applying that to Penny's story as well. But part of me kept saying "well if you put music in your comic, why aren't you putting your own stuff in there"

And it makes sense. Kind'a putting our money where our mouth is. Yes, the recording quality is haphazard, they're poorly mixed (I never said I was a producer or an engineer), the vocals aren't so hot (I never said I was a good singer) and there are mistakes a-plenty to be found on the recordings (I never said I was Keith Richards). But I think the spirit is there, and you know what? I like the damn songs. We think (well, most of us think) they sound pretty good when we play them live, and they're a hell of a lot of fun to play. And that's the approach Penny's taking in the comic. She keeps saying that everything in life is so heavy, so many things dragging her down, that she wants to write fun, groovy, poppy songs and just entertain people.

So keep that in mind when you listen to the songs in the comic. The Flappybats have songs titled Stumblin Blind, Due West, Far Away, Little Miss Think Twice, Clove Cigarettes, One Hit Wonder, I Don't Know and High Heel Mary. And coincidentally, Penny has songs with those exact same titles.

I think of those songs appearing in the comic as The Flappybats from the comic covering Penny's music. I like to think of those guys waiting for Johnny to leave the studio, and knocking out a cover of Little Miss Think Twice while he's out buying smokes cuz they like her songs better than his.

Unfortunately, they have no idea how to produce a recording.

Just have fun with it, be kind, and hopefully you'll dig the songs.

Cleaning House

2007-06-17T13:02:00.000-07:00

Funny thing happened to me awhile back.

A lonnnng time ago, I'd written a blog entry about the night that a bunch of us wrote a song for our friend Betty, former bartender of the former bar formerly known as the Pit, where we formerly spent most of our free time.

We met a guy there named Richard Alexander-- I dubbed him the Pianist of Doom. Richard is a cool guy, incredibly gregarious and extroverted, who helped us write our quickly cobbled together song and played the thing with us when we dragged Betts out to the lobby to hear it.

It was a fun night, everybody had quite a few, and quite a bit of banter (and more drinking) followed. Richard recently contacted me after having been pointed to the blog entry by a friend of his, and let me know that he felt that he came off looking like a goof in the story. I didn't think so, but Richard was bent about it, so I took it down.

Frankly, I'm surprised that anybody actually read the blog.

Anyway, if you're reading this Richard, sorry. Like I told you in the email I sent, it certainly wasn't my intention to piss you off. If you have a website or a myspace or something I can link to, please do send it to me, and I'll post it here.

And next time you're in Phoenix, hit me up. I'll buy you a beer and hopefully we'll have a laugh about it. We just can't go to the Pit, it's a dorm now. Ugh!

Like a Mixed Drink Waiting To Happen

2006-12-02T01:08:00.000-08:00

I feel like I should post this while it's still fresh in my mind.

The Plastic Flappybats took the stage again tonight at Artwalk, and had a smashing time doing so this evening.

Were we good? I dunno. Do we care? Not particularly. I'm sure that I've mentioned this before: the only thing that matters is that we do the best we can do, taking into consideration our general skill level, the amount of practice we've had, and the average level of intoxication of the band at the time we play.

And, y'know what? Given those parameters-- the 'Bats freaking killed it. We had fun. We were sloppy, it was so cold out that guitars started going outta tune--- but we did our best, and we had a lot of fun in the process.

The Plastic Flappybats are the best band you'll probably never hear. And even if you did, you might just not get it. We're that lowbrow.

Open Season Soundtrack

2006-09-07T08:45:00.000-07:00

I got the opportunity to hear Westerberg's soundtrack for Open Season the other day.

It's good, catchy, poppy stuff. To me, it sounds like a return to the "14 Songs" sound. Which, for a movie soundtrack, is probably a good idea.

Can't wait for this CD to come out. And the movie, for that matter.

Various happenings of little importance

2006-09-05T15:44:00.000-07:00

The other day, I saw my friend Lindsay. She hasn't seen the Flappybats play for a long, long time. And every time she did see us, we were horrible. Anyway, I see her, she's telling me that a mutual friend of ours has joined the roller derby, and that the team she's on was going to be making an appearance at the Bikini Lounge here in Phoenix last Friday. We were invited to go, but couldn't because it was a First Friday and we had to have the gallery open that night.

So then we talk for a minute about First Friday. Lindsay's never done the artwalk thing, and said something to the effect of, "yeah, I'll have to do that sometime".

If she was going to do it, I mentioned, she should try to make it the First Friday in October, because the Flappybats are planning to start playing outdoor shows again. She looks at me, as if to say "why would I come see you guys play?" Knowing that that's exactly what she's about to say, I follow up with "We're really good now."

Without missing a beat, Lindsay says "No you aren't. You guys suck." And no matter what I say, I can't convince her that we aren't gonna go up there and be awful.

That's love. Then again, it's probably deserved skepticism, because when last she saw us play, we were truly awful. It was quite awhile ago. Back when we were still butchering "Jane Says".

I saw her the next day getting on the elevator, and said in passing "I swear, we're really good."

"No you aren't." she says, as the elevator door is closing. Drat. Foiled again. Somebody's gotta keep us honest.

Anyway, I'm starting to get geared up to play again. We haven't been able to since the Pit closed back at the beginning of July. We have been practicing, though, and should have a nice set of rockabilly songs worked up by Oct 6.

Can't wait.

Something new

2006-08-24T12:02:00.000-07:00

I got this weird idea in my head to create Flash trailers for Hold My Life. First one went up today on GirlAMatic.

The music is from a demo that the Flappybats had cut of our first original, High Heel Mary, and I somehow convinced Rhonda to record a couple clips of Penny's narration from the first episode. Yeah, it's a little sloppy-- I prefer the term "shambolic" myself-- but it was a hell of a lot of fun to do, so I think there'll be more in the future.

Who knows, maybe I can make it a regular feature. Maybe every other week debut a new trailer. We'll see.

My quote for today

2006-08-22T13:50:00.000-07:00

If you're going to kick authority in the teeth, you might as well use two feet.

--Keith Richards

My new mantra

2006-08-22T13:45:00.000-07:00

"I think somehow you need to get to a certain point in your life where the notion of failure is absurd."
-Jeff Tweedy

More Woody

2006-08-22T13:44:00.000-07:00

“I hate a song that makes you think that you are not any good. I hate a song that makes you think that you are just born to lose. Bound to lose. No good to nobody. No good for nothing. Because you are too old or too young or too fat or too slim or too ugly or too this or too that.

-Woody Guthrie

Since I'm posting quotes--

2006-08-22T13:43:00.000-07:00

“If you play more than two chords, you're showing off.”

-Woody Guthrie

I keep running across the weirdest quotes this week:

2006-08-22T13:40:00.000-07:00

'Townes Van Zandt is the best songwriter in the whole world and I'll stand on Bob Dylan's coffee table in my cowboy boots and say that.' - Steve Earle

New week

2006-08-21T12:03:00.000-07:00

Here we are, Monday once more.

So the mystery musician that I'd alluded to last week turned out to be none other than Peter Case, formerly (and still sometimes currently) of the Plimsouls.

Yeah, the same Plimsouls that recorded Million Miles Away, and appeared in Valley Girl. Peter's been a busy man since then, having recorded several amazing solo albums, and venturing deeper and deeper into folk-inspired music.

I've mentioned a few times here and there that Peter basically lived Penny's life. He's fighting the same machine that Penny's fighting right now, and I'm really honored to have a smattering of his tunes gracing the comic.

www.petercase.com

Sinatra Quote

2006-08-17T10:20:00.000-07:00

My friend Greg just handed me a CD-- "The History of American Music -- Rock n' Roll". We're learning a bunch of new Rockabilly tunes, and this has the original versions of some of the songs we're playing.

Anyway, I open it up and see the following quote that just cracked me up:

"Rock 'n Roll: The most brutal, ugly desperate, vicious form of expression it has been my misfortune to hear"
-Frank Sinatra

It's counterbalanced by a Jerry Lee Lewis quote on the front cover:

"If I'm going to hell, I'm going there playing the piano"

Damn shame they never worked together...

Open Season on Westerberg!

2006-08-17T09:22:00.000-07:00

Err.. actually, that should be "Westerberg on Open Season"

Information is now coming out on the soundtrack for Sony's Open Season animated film, which opens Sept 29. Paul wrote the score for the film with Ramin Djawad, and now it appears that the soundtrack is pretty much a Paul Westerberg solo album. It's even being billed as "Open Season featuring the songs of Paul Westerberg"

The album includes 10 Westerberg originals, of which "Love You in the Fall" and
"Right to Arm Bears" boast Stinson on bass. One Westerberg track each is performed by Pete Yorn ("I Belong [Reprise]") and Deathray ("Wild As I Wanna Be"). And I have to say that I think it's awesome to see that Paul's getting some much-deserved respect and mass-market exposure

Go here, read all aboot it.

http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002986769

Soundtrack notes

2006-08-15T16:03:00.000-07:00

Hold My Life has something really cool coming up in the soundtrack. An established musician who basically lived Penny's life, and is fighting the same machine she's fighting now in the comic.

I'll mail an original sketch of Penny to the first person who correctly guesses this person's identity. Three clues:

This person was in a band
That band was featured in a movie
This person was recently reunited with a Rickenbacker guitar that was stolen from him 20 years ago.

Oh and Frank and Greg-- you already know the answer so you can't enter the contest. So Hush...

The rest of the month...

2006-08-15T15:26:00.000-07:00

After, say, the third week in July, things started to turn a corner. We went to San Diego, kicked around Comicon, I covered a couple of the webcomics panels for comicon.com/pulse... which was interesting.

I can remember going to many of the same panels last year and came out of them thinking "those weren't incredibly informative"-- I dunno, it really didn't seem like I was walking out of those panels with any greater insight into what I needed to do than I had walked in with.

This year? Well, they were better attended, which told me that interest was higher than years previous... and in retrospect I guess they were more informative. Some of them infinitely more informative. I was turned away at the "Webcomics 101 - Getting Started" panel, along with about a hundred or so others who were interested in the same topic, so I can't really speak to how informative or useful that panel had been in comparison to last year's.

I was able to cover Webcomics 102 - Finding An Audience, and Webcomics 103 - How To Make Money, and I can say that there was some improvement in the actual nuts and bolts, useful information that was offered in those panels. I'm still not convinced that anyone's really got much to say on building or finding an audience. If the best advice being offered is to spend lots of time posting on message boards in hopes that people will check out your comic, and to rely on word of mouth-- I dunno, that seems like a huge investment of time with very little in the way of return on your investment. Sure it doesn't cost you anything, but time is a very valuable commodity.

Then again, what do I know? I have a very small audience. I have begun to test a few theories in the past week, but for now they're just theories. And the less said about those the better, for now.

Of course, if they work, I'll be screaming "I knew it" all over the place, but for now, I'll clam up and see what happens.

Webcomics 103 was a freaking cornucopia of ideas, facts and numbers, and was far and away more informative than the previous year's panel. Especially Howard Tayler of Schlock Mercenary. Incredibly informative. I've gone back and watched the video of that panel a few times now and, frankly, I wish that panel had been an hour longer-- god only knows what they could've gotten around to in that time.

I never know what I've gotten from Comicon until after I've gotten back home and had time to reflect on it. Looking back now, I think I got a much-needed recharge, a break from the grind of everyday life, and a relaxing week away from everything. I also seem to have come away from it with the realization that what I'm looking to do here with the comic and my art is to connect with people. I think that's the source of my angst, is that I don't feel like I've been doing a very good job of that.

Guess every journey starts with a first step. So here we go...

It's always darkest before the dawn (or the Adventures of Roxy and Zeke)

2006-08-15T15:11:00.000-07:00

So anyway, this is my second downer post, part of me putting all this behind me. This all does have a positive ending, I assure you. I wouldn't even write any of this if it didn't.

So there we were, our best little black and white buddy gone, and a First Friday artwalk rapidly approaching. Being open on First Fridays, if you're not really behind the idea, is really stressful. So we both just sort'a looked at one another and decided "no way are you in any shape to be working the gallery" And we stayed closed.

On top of that, we found out that the Pit, our favorite local bar, was closing. The Pit was located inside the Ramada Inn in downtown Phoenix, and that had been given to ASU to use for student housing. I guess they didn't think it'd be a good idea to have a dormitory with a bar on the first floor, so our beloved Pit had to go.

By this point, I'm thinking "what the fuck else can go wrong?!?" No cat, no bar, I'm incredibly stressed out and all I want is to have a beer-- but now I won't be able to because the damn bar is gonna be turned into a freaking cafe or a smoothie bar for ASU students.

Life sucks sometimes.

This is, seriously, the first two weeks of July. Halfway done, just days before Comicon, one week before my birthday and lemme tell ya, I'm in a smashing good mood!

But, y'know, things do have a way of turning around. After we had Erlik put down, neither of us really wanted to get another cat anytime soon. But then we started looking online. And Rhonda found this little tabby/calico mix kitty named Penelope that was being fostered by a lady in North Phoenix. She'd been saved from one of the shelters that euthanizes stray cats. We make arrangements to meet Penelope on a Saturday morning.

The thing is, Penelope has a little friend--Jaden. Weird skinny little bowling-pin shaped tabby mix with a pointy face, pencil neck and a big pot belly. Neither of them was older than 9 weeks old. We went to a Petsmart in North Phoenix, and they get Penelope out of her cage. Almost immediately, her little buddy starts looking at me like "what are you doing?" He's looking at me as if to say "that other cat is the only thing I've got in the world, and you're gonna take her away?"

Great, just great. So then we get him out of the cage and decide that if we're gonna take one, we gotta take 'em both. So we did. No way were they keeping those names, though. Penelope and Jaden? Nah-uh. Roxy and Zeke-- much better.

And all of a sudden, things were suddenly looking up.

Back yet again

2006-08-15T14:34:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I dropped off the face of the blogosphere yet again.

July was freaking brutal, it seemed like every couple of days, another shoe was dropping, another piece of bad news delivered, and something else seemed to be ending. By the time my birthday rolled around towards the end of the month, I can honestly say that I didn't care if I had a good day or a bad one, I just wanted it to be over.

I'm so upbeat.

Anyway, since we're midway thru August, it's probably time to say goodbye to all the horrible shit that happened to me last month, wash my hands of it and move on to something positive. So that's what I'm gonna do right now.

So what happened in July that was so bad? Well, everything started when we noticed that Erlik, our cat/best friend/constant companion of somewhere around 14 years, had developed Lymphoma. He wasn't eating or doing his business correctly, so Rhonda took the little guy to the vet where they found a lump. After that, they wanted to do X-Rays, which gave them nothing conclusive other than "yep, it's definitely a lump". This took us a week to get confirmation that there was a lump.

We knew something was up, but the tests were inconclusive. We began to suspect that the vet that we were taking him to didn't know what he was doing, or even worse, was outright trying to scam us. So we found an excellent veterinary oncologist, who did an ultra sound and a tissue sample. A few days later we got the results-- Lymphoma, very advanced, and the most aggressive form of it to boot. He had virtually no chance of long term survival.

Now, this is where I admit that Rhonda and I are both a little superstitious about the weirdest things. She and I have been together 16 years. We got Erlik as a newborn kitten less than a year into our relationship. So for the last fifteen years, it's been Me, Rhonda and Erlik. The only constants in our lives have been one another and that cat. When we drove across the country to move to Arizona, it was the three of us, and what little we could cram into our 87 Chevy Nova on the road trip from hell...

I remember the first time we saw him. He was the runt of the litter. The underdog. The weird little cat with the black thing on his nose that got beaten up by the other kitties, and mocked by pretty much everybody who saw him. Nobody wanted him-- but we did. We wanted him for all of those reasons. He was like us.

Erlik liked to eat your hair in the morning, or pretty much anytime it smelled good. He loved to lick Rhonda's arms, and minty things like chewing gum or toothpaste (no we didn't feed him toothpaste, but you hadda see his reaction upon smelling it). He'd pull catnip and cat treats out of the bag with his paw, and he'd drink from a glass if you held it for him correctly. He was a smart cat, and but for a couple of vacations where we left him in Greg's care, I saw Erlik every day of his life.

I can remember moving into our new home this time last year, saying "this is the last place Erlik will ever live". I meant that in the sense that we weren't going to be selling this place anytime soon. Not that the little fucker was gonna die inside a year.

Anyway, he started going downhill quickly. He started isolating himself in the closet, finding dark remote places to lay. He stopped eating almost entirely, but he'd eat from our hands... we knew it was time.

So we took him to the oncologist again, and stayed with him till the very end. And then we went home and cried the rest of the night. It was the end of one era, but it wasn't going to be the last ending we'd face in July...

Soundtrack 6-5-06: The Lonely Hearts

2006-06-05T08:37:00.000-07:00

I found these guys on Myspace: The Lonely Hearts.

The Boston Phoenix described their sound as latent Opryisms buried
under layers of Counting Crows guitars, early-U2 grandeur, and Rock N Roll-period Ryan Adams.

I'd agree with that assessment. Somewhere in there, you can hear a bit of twang, but it's smartly mixed in with a very modern production that makes it sound very contemporary. Real nice stuff.

check 'em out at www.thelonelyheartsmusic, and also at www.myspace.com/thelonelyhearts.

Soundtrack 6-5-06, the Lonely Hearts

2006-06-05T08:33:00.001-07:00

Soundtrack 6-5-06, the Lonely Hearts

2006-06-05T08:33:00.000-07:00

5-22 Soundtrack-- Army of Robots

2006-05-22T16:16:00.000-07:00

The Heaviest Cure- Army of Robots

I fell in love with this song after seeing these guys play it live for the first time. AOR is a band that, live, has a completely different dynamic than on their recordings. Way more loud, crunchy guitars, with Daggrr yelling the lyrics over the cacophony. It's always a treat to see these guys live.

Anyway, I really dig this song, partially because of the chorus: "How could I walk away from the only thing that ever really mattered to me and become nothing more than a lesson for those who come after me?" I can identify with that statement, and I'm sure Penny could too. Every time we see AOR live, my friend Barry and I always end up leaving the bar singing the chorus-- badly.

I still haven't gotten to use my new favorite AOR song, but it's coming up in the future.

And next week...? Another "name" that some might be familiar with. I'm really looking forward to this one, just got permission Saturday.

Cya

The Longshadows

2006-05-16T14:46:00.000-07:00

This week, Hold My Life's soundtrack song is Long Shot, by the Longshadows.

While the name of the band may not be familiar to you, vocalist Robin Wilson's voice is unmistakable. Robin is best known as the vocalist for the Gin Blossoms.

He's also one of my favorite singers in all the land.

His collaborator in the Longshadows is guitarist/songwriter Steve French, who was in the English band Star-Club. He and Robin met 12 years ago when their respective bands were touring the States together. Steve's an incredibly talented musician, producer and songwriter.

He's also a very cool guy who graciously allowed me to use his songs in my little comic.

Check out www.thelongshadows.com and www.myspace.com/longshadows for more info on the band, where you can see them play live, and to purchase their CD.

First Friday Last Night

2006-05-06T18:43:00.000-07:00

...was a hell of a lot of fun. Sold some prints, talked to a bunch of really cool people, and got to hear about an hour of Doug Bale doing an acoustic set in the "ramada" area next to our place.

But man, am I tired now.

First Friday - Gallery open

2006-05-04T14:30:00.000-07:00

I can just tell this is going to sneak up on me every single month.

Tomorrow is the first Friday of the month, which in downtown Phoenix means it's time for the monthly First Friday artwalk.

Karmic Calamity Studio and Gallery will be open from 6-10pm. We will be streaming the comic on the "big screen" in front of the gallery, as well as selling prints from the comic. Music accompaniment by Doug Bale, whose music is regularly featured as a part of the comic's soundtrack.

Gallery's open from 6-10PM, Doug will be playing from 9-10PM. Drinks will be consumed down the street at Carly's from 10PM till I pass out.

Soundtrack!

2006-04-24T09:58:00.000-07:00

This week's soundtrack is "Born To Ignore You", another fine tune by Doug Bale.

You can hear the song in this week's episode of Hold My Life. And if you like the song, I highly reccommend you check out his other songs on his Myspace page, or even buying one of his CD's

The link is in the comic. Go read, go listen--go Doug!

Busy night

2006-04-21T23:20:00.000-07:00

Tonight was a good night.

Not much traffic on the street for Third Friday, but we were projecting Hold My Life onto the front window of the gallery, which really seems to work. Penny's story pulled what passers-by there were off the street, and into the gallery. We sold two prints, exposed people to Penny's story, and hopefully got Hold in front of some potential future readers.

If any of you are reading this: Hey. Welcome, and come back soon.

And now, on to the next episode...

Horrible at Self-Promotion

2006-04-21T11:59:00.001-07:00

Soo...

Two weeks ago today, Karmic Calamity Studio and Gallery was open for the first time ever, featuring artwork from Hold My Life, as well as a free concert by Doug Bale, The Plastic Flappybats, and Tony (of Mojo Music fame)'s band. Apparently Tony's band didn't have a name, although he'd joked about billing them as "The Amazing Corsicans".

So that was the lineup for the free outdoor show, which was held in the common area between Karmic Calamity and Tammie Coe Bakery. It was a good show, a good mix of music, ranging from Doug's singer-songwriter stylings, Tony's full-on metal experience, and the Bats' Rockabilly-meets-Replacements set. I can honestly say that the show featured something for everyone, regardless of age group or music tastes. I know we had a blast playing for an audience, and we'll definitely be doing it again, and again and again if I have anything to say about it. And I do. :-)

I also have to give special thanks to Jeremy, an amazing drummer who showed up to play with Tony's group, and then graciously agreed to play on the Flappybats' set as well. I'd be honored to have him sit in with us anytime. You did a great job, man.

The show outside was nice, and Rhonda and I were both happy with the way the Gallery show went inside that night as well. That was the first time we'd opened the doors of the gallery to the public, and it was definitely a gas to do that featuring my own art, which I've never shown to the public before, outside of GirlAMatic.

There are photos at karmiccalamity.com for any interested parties who'd like to take a peek.

Anyway, that was two weeks ago. Tonight's the Third Friday artwalk, and we'll be open for that as well. No music tonight, that's a First Friday thing for us, but we may be projecting Hold My Life onto the wall, as well as selling prints from the comic.

if you're in downtown Phoenix tonight, feel free to stop by 610 East Roosevelt Street and look for Penny.

Cya

Horrible at Self-Promotion

2006-04-21T11:59:00.000-07:00

Soundtrack!

2006-04-17T22:31:00.000-07:00

I'm testing out a new feature in Hold My Life this week: a soundtrack.

The music in the episode is "All It Wants" by Doug Bale, a singer/songwriter buddy of mine who graciously offered me the use of some of his tunes. If you like what you hear in the comic, feel free to hit his Myspace page. He's got more nifty mp3s of his stuff embedded in his profile page, and I do believe you can purchase CD's from him if you're so inclined.

Special thanks to another friend, one Barry Tomack, for stopping by to show Rhonda and I the engagement ring he purchased for his fiancee Cecile... only to end up being shanghaied into hastily coding an mp3 player for me in Flash this evening.

Anyway, there's a little more work to be done on the player so it works smoothly and looks slicker, but I was really anxious to get this done and up there on the site.

Replacements Reunite, record songs, then split up again.

2006-03-31T08:38:00.000-08:00

Lots of cool people have been forwarding me this article the last couple days, so I thought I'd post the nifty pic, and this link to the best Replacements news I've heard in a long time.

http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002274305

Sure, it's only two songs, but it's two songs by the freaking Replacements. I am a very happy Westernerd. How much d'you wanna bet that these two songs see the light of day before Chinese Democracy?

Thanks to everybody who sent me this article.

Some New Town

2006-03-13T07:53:00.000-08:00

If you're reading Hold My Life, and you've seen this week's episode... well, it's fairly obvious that some time has passed between the end of "All's Fair", and this week's episode.

Eight months, in fact.

What happened to Penny between July of last year and today? Lots of things. How did she end up taking a cab to Phoenix? Why is she going to a diner, who was she travelling with and why? And what's happened with Guttersnipe during that time?

I assure you, all of that will be revealed over the course of this new story arc. Those revelations will come from the comic itself, and also from Penny's blog, as that gap is filled in with information. I'm going to try to run the story parallel in the comic and blog for now, so as Penny catches us up in the series, so too will her blog be updated with additional posts from that time period.

I'm also going to attempt to start a new feature here, posting sketches and behind the scenes stuff from the comic. Hope you enjoy it, and if you do, spread the word.

Thanks, seeya.

All's Fair In Rock N' Roll (or "I Never Thought I'd Get This Far")

2006-03-06T10:17:00.000-08:00

"Epilogue", The 23rd Episode of Hold My Life published on GirlAMatic this morning, which is the final episode of "All's Fair In Rock N' Roll, Hold My Life's first story arc.

I'd kind'a hoped that the timing would work out so that I could end "All's Fair" at the same time that the GirlAMatic Cafe opened, and Hold became a free, advertiser-supported strip, but alas, mister Joey is still working on the code for the new GirlAMatic. I decided to open the Archives up as free-content just to celebrate this little mini-milestone.

Feel free to go read "All's Fair" in its entirety, and Penny will be back Monday in "Some New Town", the first chapter of the next storyline. Things are about to get a lot more complicated for Penny Heartbreaker...

High Heel Mary (or "I'm a really crummy blogger")

2006-03-06T10:11:00.000-08:00

The lyrics embedded in the first panel of this week's Hold My Life are from a song called High Heel Mary, which is the Plastic Flappybats first original song.

It was written by Greg and I for our friend Michelle, who has crummy luck with guys. The only requirement was that we fit in a line about red platform heeled shoes.

It's a fun song to play live, one of these days we'll record it. Now all I've gotta do is figure out a way to work Greg's "Little Green Bottle of Sleep" song in...

Into The Mouth of Madness

2006-01-10T12:24:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, I think I'm gonna lose my mind. Today is one of those days.

Artwalk

2006-01-09T19:54:00.000-08:00

We have the coolest house, Rhonda and I.

I can't take credit, Rhonda was the one who found it, I just went along with it when she suggested that we go look at this Artisan Village place. Kind of a condo situation, but the difference being that, on the first floor, some of the homes here have a small retail space that faces Roosevelt street, right on the first floor. We didn't think twice about selling our house, and buying this place. Best decision we ever made.

The idea behind these places is that they're live/work spaces. You can have a business on the first floor, live right above it and be an incredibly happy bastard for having done so. We decided to call our place Karmic Calamity Studio and Gallery. It will, obviously, be an art gallery, and since we're both artists, Rhonda and I effectively constitute Karmic Calamity Studio. The Studio has been open 24 hours a day, every day, since we moved in here. The reason being that I pitched Hold My Life to GirlAMatic within days of moving in here, and I've been working on it every day since.

Some of the businesses around us are open. Tammy Coe Cakes is open right next door, there's a music store down the street, and Retail Laboratory. So, on the first Friday of the month, during downtown Phoenix's artwalk, it seems like traffic on this end of Roosevelt is really picking up. We hosted a charity event that was organized by our friend Monica last month, and even with no promotion, a few hundred people came through the doors, and the event was a success.

Karmic Calamity Gallery isn't going to open until March, but over the course of last week, I came to realize that didn't mean the place had to sit there in the dark gathering dust. No, we could use the place for something, even if we weren't gonna necessarily profit from it.

The idea had come up before, of projecting Hold My Life onto the wall of the gallery sometime, perhaps when we had a show of our art, but it occurred to me that maybe it'd be cool to just do that now. I mean, it' s artwalk, right? People want to see art, why the hell shouldn't I show Hold My Life for free? For nothing, just "here, take a look. If you like it, then by all means go to girlamatic.com and read it there."

So, that's what I did. I took Friday off, and compiled all of the episodes of HML into one Flash movie that just moved from panel to panel at 30 second intervals. Fast enough that it didn't get boring, and yet slow enough that you could probably still read the thing. Borrowed a projector, opened the blinds on the retail space, and projected the comic onto the wall so it was about 4'x6'. I also stuffed these little 2.5"x6" Hold My Life promo cards into the door in case anybody was interested enough to want to go to the website and check out the series there.

The thing looked really cool. Best thing about vector art is that we could'a blown the thing up to the size of the entire building, and the resolution still would've been perfect. The colors were crisp, and you could read it from outside. Turned the thing on, and went upstairs to get tanked.

We had some friends over, bought some alcohol and had a small party while artwalk was going on. We were able to watch from our kitchen, and the balcony in front of it, as people passed by, stopped and read the comic like it was a silent film or something. As it turns out, the idea seemed to work. More people stopped than I thought we would get, more than a few actually stuck around down there to read a decent chunk of the story, and people seemed to be picking up the cards as well.

Hopefully, they went to girlamatic and checked the series out in it's intended venue. I was watching the traffic over the weekend, and it seemed like we got some people.

The thing is, I really thought it'd be cool to just show something free. And it was.

Birthday Guy

2005-12-31T11:11:00.000-08:00

Paul Westerberg turns 46 today. The timing of the current storyline in Hold My Life right now couldn't be better, but I have to admit, it's a complete (but happy nonetheless) coincidence. It's no secret that Paul is among my heroes, a badge I wear proudly. To honor the old bastard, II went ahead and made the archive of the current chapter free for a couple of days.

Even though the song's called "Birthday Gal", this song is appropriate cuz, well, Paul wrote the damn thing.

Happy Birthday, Paul:

Wax is dripping from the frosting on the cake
Come on girl, buckle up, and don’t hesitate
Take a deep breath and blow ’em all away.
We sang of key and all the dishes china-blue
Remember don’t tell a soul, that wish, it won’t come true
Hey sad face on your lucky day.

Birthday gal, did you wish yet?
Can you handle the turn? the candles are burnin’ low
Birthday gal, did you wish that...
There weren’t quite as many candles that you had to blow?

Hair falls down all around the eyes that close
She might wear them earrings but she won’t wear the clothes
Oh, hang ’em up with all the ones that don’t fit no more
I thought this was a party, so come on let’s lighten up
No one gets a slice until we make the first cut
No, we’ll leave the lights down, she’s ready now and this is here.

Birthday gal, did you wish yet?
Can you handle the turn? the candles are burnin’ low
Birthday gal, did you wish that..
There weren’t quite as many candles that you had to blow?
Birthday gal, did you wish yet?
Can you handle the turn? the candles are burnin’ low
Birthday gal

A More Wretched Hive of Scum and Villainy...

2005-12-19T14:52:00.000-08:00

And so, last Friday night, a lonely Ramada Inn bar in downtown Phoenix was once again the best kept bad secret in town. For on that night, the Polk Street Music Scene converged for an evening of music.

Unprepared, unpracticed and yet undaunted, we said "to hell with it" and played our first show since Betty's birthday soiree back in November. How was it, you ask?

Well, it was sloppy and off the cuff, a little too loud at times, but dang, it was fun. I hadn't been able to play much lately because, as I've mentioned before right here, I've had quite a lot going on. Something hadda give, and unfortunately it was playing. So Friday night was a much-needed release from all the stuff I've been doing lately. Sometimes it's nice when you get to put the stuff you wanna do ahead of the stuff you have to do, even if it's just for one night.

We went into this one cold, didn't even plan anything even resembling a setlist, although we did print out some tabs and lyrics to remind us, in case it turned out that we couldn't remember any songs. We were a little rusty at first, and, thanks to the audience member who'd obviously had waaaay to many shots of Jaegermeister, the first set was kind of a mess. Too many distractions, and we couldn't concentrate. Even with that, we still pulled off a good version of High Heel Mary.

The second set was much better. The drunk guy had quietly taken a seat when we started playing. Well, actually, he said "whaddayawannnmeeet'dooofrrrryrrrbannnnnd?"

I told him I wanted him to sit down and be quiet, and that we were gonna play a song for him. Then we played Here Comes A Regular. After that, he left, and Killa B sat in with Greg and I (on mandolin, no less) for the rest of the set. That was fun. The second time around, things seemed to fall into place like they usually do whenever we play together. The whole experience was a little odd because Barry wasn't there, but we soldiered on as best we could, had a lot of fun, and I think we pulled off some cool versions of songs we hadn't played in quite a while.

Friday's show was Mustard's 'farewell' show, as Francois is planning a sabbatical from live performing after the latest addition to the Settles family is born. I predict that Francois will be back sooner than later. A basement monster can only remain in captivity for so long before they escape, and hit the Pit with fifteen guitars and something to prove. Speaking of guitars, Friday was also the debut of the latest addition to his guitar arsenal, a sweet black Gibson Chet Atkins that, although I wanted to paw all over it, I never made any attempt to touch or play. That's a nice guitar, and I don't ever need to be anywhere near a nice guitar... Like the Flappybats, Mustard had returned to it's original lineup for the evening as well.

Rounding out the evening, alt-country sensation Twang, also back to it's original lineup of Larry Rodgers and...Larry Rodgers, played to a packed crowd that was clamoring-- clamoring, I tell ya, to hear him cover the Dukes of Hazzard theme. Okay, well, Chuck was clamoring to hear it. Like the rest of us, Twang's first set was hindered by the drunken audience member who insisted on playing the maraca with Larry. In a remarkable show of restraint, Larry resisted the urge to sock this guy in the mush, instead calling out for "more Maraca!!" Second time around, Greg had joined Larry on guitar. Highlight of the second Twang set, for me, was Greg busting out the violin bow for an impromptu tribute to Jimmy Page during a song that wasn't even a Led Zeppelin song. In fact, I think it was a Tom Petty song...

This stuff is pure magic, I'm telling you.

After that, as things usually do, the evening degenerated into a lengthy Doors set (happens every time) and then a really sloppy "whatever happens happens and we never talk about it after it happens" set, culminating in the second worst rendition of "Do They Know It's Christmas" for an audience of, well... nobody, because anybody in the bar at that point is up there playing an instrument or screaming into the microphone. I say it's the second worst rendition because, as bad as it was, last year's version was worse. By 2007, we'll be up to just doing a "bad" rendition of that song.

And that'll be a shame.

Fly Flappybat Fly

2005-12-13T13:36:00.000-08:00

We'll be playing at the Pit on Friday night.

This'll be our first show since October's aptly named "Metal Meltdown", unless you count playing Eagles covers for Betty's birthday last month. And I don't.

I'm really excited to play. It seems like we've had a lot of downtime and, even for a pretend band, 2 months is too long to go without playing an actual pretend show. I guess we're gonna play it by ear this time as far as what we're playing. Over the past couple of years, Greg and I have learned (and forgotten) a couple hundred songs. I think the plan is gonna be to show up cold on Friday night and see if we can remember any of 'em. I bet we can. Especially the 'Mats stuff and the Wilco covers. On top of that, I've got a list of songs in my head that I'd like to run through, stuff I've never played before but always wanted to.

So, we should be fine.... I hope.

Chapter Two (or, Why Am I Such A Screw-Up?)

2005-12-12T15:35:00.000-08:00

As of this morning, Hold My Life entered the second chapter of the first storyline in the saga of Penny Heartbreaker. I am jazzed, because I've had this part of the story rolling around in my head since, well, pretty much since I drew the very first sketch of Penny and was figuring out who she was and what her story was.

It just hit me last week that I'd gotten this far. On the one hand, I was jazzed, because it represents something of a milestone for me. I'd managed to get the story told up to this crucial point, where things begin to come together and we start to see what this is all about. We're going somewhere. But on the other hand, as I realized where I'd gotten in the story, I also realized that, as a writer or an artist or whatever I am, I really haven't been here saying much of anything on my blog, or maintaining any sort of online presence that seems to be so important in promoting a webcomic to a larger audience.

Y'see, I remember this summer at Comic-Con, the one thing that all the webcomickers kept repeating is that the best way to promote your webcomic is to post on message boards, specifically webcomics message boards, to get your series in front of potential readers. Actually, Scott Kurtz suggested starting shit with a popular webcomic creator and getting them to hate on you, which, although fun, just isn't my style. But the point of what I got from those suggestions was that it's important to maintain some sort of online presence in order to expose yourself to that audience that just doesn't know about your series.

I think about that statement, and I wonder "well, if I'm doing that, how exactly am I supposed to get the comic done each week?"

I guess the solution is that I'm going to have to make time in which to do this sort of thing, and to not allow myself to make excuses, same as I do with the comic itself...and stop sleeping at night.

Anyway, back to my point. Hold My Life, Chapter Two. New Outfit, Same Attitude, whatever that means. Seems like as good a time as any to crawl out from underneath the rock under which I've been hiding and start blogging again.

I Should Be Drawing Now...

2005-10-11T20:11:00.000-07:00

...but I'm not. I've been a drawing machine the last couple of weeks, sometimes it's best to take a day off from drawing to avoid burnout. Instead, I came home and practiced metal songs for our show on the 21st.

Metal songs. Well, mostly glam metal. I hadda do it, as I haven't had much time the past two weeks to get any of the songs down, and we're playing in a week and a half. My fingers hurt and it feels good.

Maybe we won't be awful this time.

GirlAMatic

2005-10-03T16:03:00.000-07:00

Well, that's a relief.

Hold My Life went live on GirlAMatic this morning, check it out!

Also, it's my friend Greg's birthday today. I believe a shout out is in order. Happy b'day Monster boy

I'm not even supposed to be here today...

2005-10-02T11:30:00.000-07:00

I should probably not be online today, or doing anything webcomic related, and yet here I am. What can I say, I'm a glutton for punishment.

Actually, it's more like now I feel like I'm onto something now, and I don't want to squander the opportunity. Things are happening. There's at least the potential that people are going to actually see Hold My Life. We've moved into our new place and we can finally open the Gallery, which could then eventually become the old-school newsstand I've always wanted it to be. The Flappybats finally have a venue that we can't possibly get kicked out of.

So, I guess that's why I'm here blogging today. I was up late last night screwing around with my control panel on GirlAMatic, and at about 2 this morning, I got a glimpse of what it'll look like tomorrow when it posts, which was something of a relief. This morning I got up and began tweaking karmiccalamity.com, and any second now I'm gonna go finish the next episode of Hold.

And on top of that, I know that at some point, I gotta sit down, just me and my guitar, and learn a couple songs. October 21 is right around the corner.

Somewhere Is My Home

2005-09-21T12:36:00.000-07:00

The bad news is that I haven't posted a new episode of Hold My Life for a few weeks. The good news is, I have a darn good reason for that.

A few weeks ago, just as we were moving into the new place, I'd noticed that one of my favorite webcomics sites, GirlAMatic, had opened the doors to submissions. In case you've never heard of them, GirlAMatic webcomics are geared towards a female audience.

I've always thought that HML would be a good fit for GirlAMatic, and always knew that it would benefit from reaching a larger audience. So, naturally, I was very interested in submitting a proposal, and put together a nifty little Flash proposal outlining the story and where it's goin'.

To make a long story short, Hold My Life has been picked up by GirlAMatic, and will debut in October with weekly episodes. That's right, weekly. I am so stoked.

Blogging From The Pit

2005-09-09T17:06:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the inaugural Pit Blog. As I now have a fucking whoop-ass laptop, I can now blog from the bar, just like Warren Ellis. Productivity here at Karmic Calamity headquarters just skyrocketed.

With me are Barry and Greg, as well as architect guy. Say hi to the internet, Flappybats:

Barry: "Hi"

Greg: "Wow. Wait."

Anyway, nothing much of substance to say, drinking and all. Update imminent.

Later

Moving....yaaay

2005-08-23T13:12:00.000-07:00

I'm in the process of moving, which is cutting into my production time for Hold My Life these past two weeks. Initially, I'd had a brief window during which I could've completed and posted a new episode, but the way it looks right now, it's probably gonna be Sunday.

Which would make Episode 3 officially two weeks late.

On the plus side, I'll be getting a spiffy new Qosmio laptop soon, which should enable me to work a little faster than my current, ancient PC I'm working on now.

Seeya Sunday, sorry for the inconvenience.

Slight Delay...

2005-08-14T20:35:00.000-07:00

The next episode of Hold My Life will be posted by Wednesday. I'm running a little behind schedule due to the unfortunate viewing of Last Days, a horrible Gus Van Sandt movie that, as it turns out, isn't all that much about Kurt Cobain, but is instead about some guy named Blake who wanders around muttering for a couple of days and then apparently kills himself.

After watching that movie, I wanted to die.

Anyway, new HML Wednesday.

Army Of Robots

2005-08-11T10:22:00.000-07:00

What with the whole walk-thru deal yesterday, I was feeling pretty drained late in the afternoon. We had been planning to go see Army of Robots play at the Rhythm Room, but it became blatantly obvious that I wasn't gonna make it to 11:00 when they went onstage.

AOR is a great band, especially to see live. I was bummed that we were gonna miss the show, but luckily they've got another one coming up at Last Exit on the 26th.

Artisan, We Have A Problem

2005-08-11T10:03:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was the day our new place was supposed to be "released" by the builder. I guess that means it was supposed to be done. As it turns out? ...not quite so done as we'd thought.

The walk-thru, for those of you who don't know or care (I didn't, and still don't, really), is where you go through the place with someone who shows you how everything works. Pretty pointless all in all, (I know how to turn on lights and dishwashers already) but at that time you're supposed to point out the dings in the walls or little construction defects that you want them to fix before you close on the house and sign the papers. The place is supposed to be, essentially done and ready to go at this point.

This is our second house. The first place we bought, we felt like we'd kind'a gotten screwed by the builder, in the sense that we found out later about a lot of things that we hadda fix. Since the builder already had our money, fixing our plumbing went way down on their list of priorities. Like, all the way down and eventually off the list.

This time, however, we decided to do what we should'a done with the first house. Hence, Rhonda and I had decided to hire a home inspector to check the place over from top to bottom before we did the "walk-thru" with the warranty people. I'm glad we did that because although the place looked like it was finished, as it turns out it wasn't quite finished after all. The guy shows up at 11:30 as scheduled, and literally looks at everything in, on or around the house to identify any defects.

We found some interesting stuff, all of which is fixable, none of which do I wish to detail here in this blog. Nothing crazy. It's not like the building's gonna fall down, and I don't think blood is gonna rain down through the walls, but I have to wonder what the hell they were thinking with some of these things. Boils down to craftsmanship, basically. When we bought the place, I was sold on the craftsmanship of their previous projects, so naturally we're gonna hold them to a pretty high standard.

It's kind'a weird, because I'd have hoped that the place were a little more ready than it is. We have to move out of this apartment at the end of the month, and we'd been assured that it shouldn't be a problem. With two weeks to go till the end of the month, I'm wondering now what will happen when we come down to the end of August.

The Annual Grant McIver Going Away Party

2005-08-02T15:44:00.000-07:00

Yeesh, what a day.

I've posted a new episode of Hold My Life. Another brief episode might be up as soon as this weekend. I'm feeling productive lately.

Be warned, though, I am going to have to go in and re-work the Episode Guide this evening so it functions better. It does this weird thing that can only come from the artist (Flash Monkey?) being half-asleep as he was working last night. You'll see what I'm talking about if you read the webcomic before I've fixed it. I honestly dunno what I was doing when I was finishing that up last night, but when I looked at it this morning, I thought "what the hell is this?"

Fortunately, it's just the episode guide, not something completely jacked-up with the webcomic. And it'll take all of a minute to fix, if that long.

One reason I was tired was because, as I'd mentioned in my blearly late night blog entry from last night, the Flappybats jammed. We're gearing up for the gig that we're billing as "The Annual Grant McIver Going Away Party". We have a friend who just came back from 9 months in China teaching English. Before that, he'd left to travel through Central America (although I'm not exactly sure if he ever made it farther than Casino Arizona). On the 9th, he's gonna be making his way to Poland to try to do the teaching thing there. Poland in the winter, should be lovely.

The thing is, every time Grant takes off, there's a going away party. And hence, a joke was born in "The Annual Grant McIver Going Away Party". Grant hasn't seen us play in just about a year, and that was before Barry took up the bass and was reborn as Clyde Flappybat. We think we've gotten better. A little. Maybe. The two people who come to our shows say we have. Unfortunately one of those people is Rhonda, and the other is this crazy vagrant named Wes...

Well, at least this time we don't need the tabs for the songs we're playing, which is kind of an accomplishment for us. Lyrics are another story, though. We're covering a whole bunch of stuff, from AC-DC to the Buzzcocks to, of course, the Replacements. Maybe some Wilco, who knows?

Should be fun. If, for no other reason than to see Frank bust out his new Shark Guitar. The eye lights up, you know!

Episode 2 is up...sort'a

2005-08-01T23:13:00.000-07:00

It's 11:30. Tonight, the Flappybats jammed for the last time before our show on Friday, the gig we're billing as "The Annual Grant McIver Going Away Party". I'll write about that tomorrow, though.

Ah Monday, My Old Nemesis.

2005-08-01T12:48:00.000-07:00

Busy this weekend, but at least I managed to be productive.

Webcomics Nation launched last week, so I joined and set something up for Hold My Life on there. I've noticed that HML is getting more traffic as a result, and the services that Webcomics Nation offers seem great for someone just starting out. I'm gonna have to spend more time looking at them closer and seeing how I can use those features with what I'm doing. I'm gonna continue to host HML on karmiccalamity, but it's nice to also be a part of a webcomics community like Webcomics Nation. I don't feel like so much of an outsider now.

I set that up Saturday afternooon, and then spent Sunday working on the next episode of HML, which looks pretty cool if I do say so. I'm really happy with the way the art is turning out. I'd hoped to get that posted yesterday, but it might end up being tomorrow before I get that online, as we're practicing tonight. Last chance before Friday...

Suddenly, I feel so old.

2005-07-24T10:15:00.001-07:00

Not really.

We went to the coolest restaurant last night in downtown Phoenix, where a bunch of us gathered for a b'day dinner and a few bottles of wine. Larry suggested the restaurant, and it was a good call.

We'll definitely be going back.

In other news, Barry got me an effects pedal. It won't make me a better guitar player, but man it is so cool. We'll be practicing today, can't wait to bust this thing out.

Suddenly, I feel so old.

2005-07-24T10:15:00.000-07:00

Challenge of the Supergeek

2005-07-23T10:03:00.000-07:00

Okay... it's my birthday today, and what am I doing with this fine day? Pimping out Hold My Life online, anywhere I can find to do so, while watching the Challenge of the Superfriends DVD's that Greg got me.

That is the best cartoon show ever, featuring character designs by artist Alex Toth who also designed many of Hanna-Barbera's original superhero characters such as Birdman and Space Ghost. He's also my favorite comic artist ever.

I poked around a bit, and found that WB decided not to release the first season of Superfriends in this set. This guy says that the first season was the crappy one, but if I could do any comic book in the world, I swear it would be a Marvin and Wendy comic.

Lists...

2005-07-23T09:47:00.000-07:00

Just listed Hold My Life on OnlineComics.net,which looks to be a pretty extensive listing of available webcomics.

I just have to remember to add a links page to karmic calamity, so I can provide a proper return link for them.

Bad Day...okay, not so bad after all

2005-07-21T21:03:00.000-07:00

I got absolutely slammed with work today. I'd come in with a certain expectation of what my day was going to be like, and from the moment I set foot in the door, all those expectations were blown right outta the water. I hate it when that happens.

Anyway, I'm not gonna dwell on it, because, well, there's no point in it, and I'm sure that anybody that comes to read this blog doesn't come here to listen to me bitch about my job, or the minutiae of said job. And, well, it really doesn't matter because Scott McCloud saw fit to link to Hold My Life on his blog. Plain decent of the guy to do so, after all, who am I?

If you've come here as a result of that link, thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you liked what you saw well enough to come back. The new episode will be premiering July 30. I'll be here blogging every day, and I'm continuously adding to the content on Penny's Blog, so there's something new to see every day.

Plus, for crying out loud, there's Ninja Ducks. I just watched Greg produce one of those things in three minutes-- I can't even draw one ninja duck in that time, and mine always look like crap when I try to do so.

Okay, I only tried to draw one, but it did turn out badly. Then we proceeded to draw anything off the top of our heads... ah, the things we do to amuse ourselves.

I'm gonna try to work a half-day tomorrow, and then come home to get some HML stuff done. Hopefully everything'll work out the way it should...

Ground Floor Marketing

2005-07-20T16:15:00.000-07:00

I must've posted links to Hold My Life on a billion webcomics-related message boards today, in an effort to get people to check out the webcomic. I know I didn't hit everything out there, but the webcomic community seems pretty fragmented and all over the place.

If anyone has any suggestions on getting the word out, I'm all ears. I wish there'd been more of a point to that 'building an audience' panel last week at Comicon, but it really didn't provide me with much information other than post on message boards or try to get one of the established webcomic creators to link to you. Scott Kurtz suggested taking a shot at a webcomic you like. Perhaps I should start talking smack about him.

There's another thing that could happen, but it's an extremely long shot of actually happening, so I prefer to not even think about it, or talk about it. Outside of that, perhaps I could send a press release to some of the comics newssites...

This pretty much covers everything...

2005-07-19T19:55:00.000-07:00

Ran across this article from Animation World Magazine today as I was goofing off at work. It covers just about everything I've been rambling about over the past couple of days.

The things I do to call myself a Warren Ellis fan

2005-07-18T21:59:00.000-07:00

Oh, for crying out loud, already...

I go to warrenellis.com today, and realize, as I'm looking at the pics that people have forwarded him from comicon 2005 (he calls it nerd-prom), that not only have I seen some of these people, but I have pics of them. Even worse, I feel that I have insights into some of them that perhaps may have slipped by.

Case in point, this thing: http://www.warrenellis.com/index.php?p=993#comments

Rhonda and I saw this thing and took a picture of it. I saw the pic on warren's site and wanted to remark that he may have missed out on the fact that not only was this thing disturbing as shown in the picture, but even more so because we were subjected to it's bare butt as it walked away. Yes, that's right, this thing was not only some sort of flesh colored face with a hotdog permafixed in it's mouth, but that whoever had designed this costume of misery had seen fit to give it a bare ass that would greet any and every person who had the misfortune of following behind it, or watching it pass.

Anyway, couldn't do that, comments are closed, yet for some reason I felt the need to expand on that. Naked muppet-ass should never be ignored.

Also. Rhonda got her picture taken with this guy: http://www.warrenellis.com/index.php?p=984

On some level, I have a tremendous amount of respect for this guy, He had a dream: to be the crappiest fake robot ever. And that dream was realized this year. Who are we to question his decisions? After all, he's probably a lawyer or an investment banker or any number of different professions that make a better living than I do.

But I Digress. Your mileage may vary.

So...tired...

2005-07-17T22:15:00.000-07:00

Penny's first Comicon...

Realizing that we were going to be going to Comicon, I had a bunch of these 2.5" x 5" cards printed to pass out while we were there, it's kind of like a teeny-tiny movie poster for Hold My Life. Remains to be seen whether or not it was worthwhile, but if you got one of these, and it drew you to karmiccalamity.com, I'd like to hear from you. It'd be nice to know whether or not the cards would be a worthwhile tool for building an audience, but really the only way to gauge that is by response from people who actually got one of them. So, if you're out there...

Comicon 2005 was boatloads of fun, it seemed to me (I may be wrong, though) that there were more webcomic-related panels this year than last. The webcomics panels were, far and away, the focus of the con for me this year. I did enjoy every single panel that I attended that related to that subject, even though some were more substantive than others.

However, there was a series of Webcomics 101 panels this year that were new. Like I said before, some were more substantive than others. The one on "Getting Started" was interesting. I heard a few people in the audience mentioning things like interactivity and asking why there weren't more long-form webcomics, which I found encouraging because, well, Hold My Life is a long-form webcomic that features interactivity. I also got some ideas for a couple of new features that I can add to the main page (an FAQ and character pages specifically) that I'll be adding to karmic calamity tomorrow. I'll also be changing the "About" page (yet again), as I realize now that I really need to differentiate Hold My Life from the plethora of daily gag strips that are out there.

From what I can gather, we've got an abundance of daily gag strips, and very few long form webcomics. If you ask the daily gag strip people, they seem to think that, if you aren't updating the comic every day, then the readers will forget about you. Myself, I don't agree with that. Television shows come out once a week, print comics come out once a month, and I don't think I've ever forgotten about a television show that I liked or a comic that I liked. It's all about devising and sticking to a realistic schedule, whatever schedule you can actually stick to, and then becoming a habit for the reader.

Unfortunately, I didn't get much from the "Building an Audience" panel. The speakers seemed to veer off-topic too often, and when they were on-topic, there wasn't a lot of useful information. It was a little disheartening, because that was the panel that I'd actually had the highest hopes for. My friend Kevin works for azcentral.com, which is the website for the newspaper I work for. He can tell me (and has) exactly how many hits a certain feature on that site gets. For example: last month, they got 1,032,083 comics page views. It'd be great to get Hold My Life on, perhaps, on the newspaper's entertainment site.

Just a thought: how can you speak about building an audience if you don't know whether you really have one? Again, I'm reminded that I really need to toss myself into the webcomics community and not be the eternal outsider, always looking in.

In contrast to the Bulding an Audience panel, the Adventures into Digital Comics panel on Thursday afternoon was terrific, by the way. The writer/producer/director, Sebastien Dumesnil and moderator Leonard Cachola ran a very informative discussion about where digital comics are now, and where they could go in the future, and how all that tied in with the comics market bust of the 90s. The whole thing was inspired by the documentary they'd recently finished, of the same name. I'll be on the lookout for this, as it seems very interesting.

A Geekfest of Monumental Proportions

2005-07-16T00:38:00.000-07:00

That's right, it's 12:39 AM on a Friday night, and where am I? About twenty feet away from the bar, writing a blog entry about the first two days of San Diego Comicon.

Why? Well, because drinks here at the Hilton Gaslamp are prohibitively expensive, and I've had quite a few. So, I'd might as well leave there, and come in here to the comfort of this lovely computer that's kicked me out of aol every single time I've tried to email my friend Barry (I think it has something to do with the f-bombs, I'll try again) and write in my blog about what's happened so far.

I'm amazed at the level of webcomic-related programming at this year's con. There have been two panels each day so far, with at least two on the way tomorrow, and another Sunday. This is exponentially more webcomic stuff compared to last year, as I seem to recall there being, well... none.

Some fun panels, and some incredibly interesting people who are out there doing this thing on their own, on the frontier of webcomics. I hear some discussion out there about the need to see some longer form stuff, perhaps something that could appeal to a mainstream audience, and the occasional mention that, perhaps some interactivity might be nice to see out there.

I really think that I'm on to something with Hold My Life now. I think it has a lot of mainstream appeal, and the blog thing adds a certain level of interactivity. Who knows what anyone else will think of it. For all I know, I just passed out a bunch of promo cards to people who will take one look at this thing, decide it's incoherent drek and move on.

I hope that doesn't turn out to be the case, though. I do think I need to find a way into the webcomics community, though. Sure seems like a lot of really interesting people that I'd like to get to know. I'm sitting on my hands, barely able to contain myself through the panels at this point. I haven't had that sort of reaction to comicon in, well... ever. It's fun to be excited about something.

Of course, we've had to balance our time at the con with more touristy, Rhonda-friendly pursuits, and I think we've done a better job of it this year than in year's previous. We did the trolley-thing today, which in retrospect, kind'a seems like something Penny Heartbreaker would do "to get the lay of the land" so to speak. We had breakfast at the Cheese Shop, then headed over to the light rail stop next to our hotel to jump on and have a little trolley adventure.

We didn't meet a kid named Dex, but we did briefly speak with some chick who was every bit as confused about how San Diego's light rail system worked. A bit on the arcane side, the process of getting a ticket... which seemed kind'a pointless, as nobody ever asked us for, or directed us to actually use the ticket we purchased for anything. I ended up putting my gum in mine and tossing it.

Since it's such a Penny-esque adventure, I'll save it for another post. Maybe tomorrow morning...

She Did Her Best Work After Five

2005-07-11T07:43:00.000-07:00

We were looking online for old movie posters yesterday, and ran across a site that had a bunch of these old trashy book covers.

Countdown to Calamity

2005-07-10T14:46:00.000-07:00

And so, three months after the last reported sighting of him on the blogosphere or internet, the Quark Monkey returns...triumphant?

You bet!

I just uploaded the newly re-tweaked version of Hold My Life. The webcomic itself doesn't look much different than it had before I went offline, but it is very, very different than it had been. The biggest change, and the one that took the most time, is the addition of Penny Heartbreaker's actual blog. (Yes, I know her blog looks exactly like mine, cut me some slack--!) It cross links with the webcomic, so whenever she's talking about something that happened in the past, you can click on the text and it'll take you to her actual blog entry from that date.

I love this feature. I feel like it adds whole other level of story to the webcomic, and it's allowed me to figure out so much about the character. I found that, along the way, Penny has had numerous little adventures, many of which are now hinted at in the blog. One day, I'll go back and expand on those blog entries with actual webcomics that cover those adventures, but in the meanwhile, readers can check in on the blog if they wish, and get a tease of where this girl's been.

I also fixed the button for Ninja Ducks!

Hopefully, I'll be able to get a few billion postcards printed this week before we leave, and place them on the freebie table at the entrance to the San Diego Convention center. There are tens of thousands of people who pass through those doors each day. I'm hopeful that at least some of them will pick up the postcard, see the lovely Penny Heartbreaker and the web address, and decide to give the website a shot when they return home.

If that works, then it should be a smooth ride after that. I've got enough of a backlog of work done on the strip that I haven't posted yet, that I can begin posting new episodes August 1, and not have to worry about falling behind for quite awhile.

Yeah, right... we'll see about that, huh?

Under Construction!

2005-04-30T22:19:00.000-07:00

We walked down to the gallery today and took some photos of the construction site.

Sin City

2005-04-04T07:05:00.000-07:00

Holy crap, Sin City was good.

Chances are, you can find any number of good reviews of this movie elsewhere, but suffice it to say that this is the first time I've seen a movie based on a comic book that was actually an improvement over the original material, because it is the original material. They just took the comics and filmed 'em the way Miller had written them and drawn them.

The result is that all of the strengths of the comics come through, and the experience is only enhanced by the actors' performances. Many of which were excellent.

Shakedown on Polk Street

2005-04-02T09:18:00.000-08:00

Oh man.

So last night was it. The monthly (or so) event that we like to call Live@thepit. Plastic Flappybats, Mustard, Twang, Los Tigres De La Noches and basically anybody who played an instrument that could make it down to Krickets, the Ramada Inn bar on 1St & Polk.

It was awesome. We were lucky to get an early start last night, which allowed us to do about an hour-long (I really have no idea how long it was) acoustic set. Usually, there's dead time early on, and we lose a lot of the happy hour crowd. Last night, we held on to the crowd a lot longer than usual. Played a bunch of Warren Zevon, Steve Earle and Ryan Adams tunes with Larry and Frank. Once I'd stepped off, they continued on, doing some Springsteen stuff and miscellany. That was fun, sounded good and it kept the barflies happy and interested. Gotta do that again.

Mergatron went on first, followed by Mustard. Last night was Mustard's one year anniversary show, and coincidentally, Frank's parents were in the audience. We went on right after Mustard, and fortunately, it was at a decent hour. I think we were on at, like, 8:00 or so. Right after Mustard, just before Twang. Or... right after a drink or two, but before we got completely tanked and couldn't play anymore, take your pick. A highpoint for me was that there was, for once, an actual Replacements fan in the audience. Guy name of Brian, who'd heard about us through one of Greg's posts on the Westerberg Message Board. Real nice guy, I have to say it was an honor to play for someone who was actually a fan of the songs we were trying to do.

If you're reading this, you're welcome back any time, man. As long as you play that version of "Like A Virgin", of course.

Needless to say, we did Replacements songs again. I couldn't hear myself, or my guitar, but I could hear everybody else. Greg, Barry and Frank rocked, I have no idea how I sounded. Nobody wanted to slug me afterwards, so I couldn't have been too far off. Or maybe they're just being polite, who knows?

It really doesn't matter, though. I had fun, I think the other bats had fun, and that's all that matters.

Our setlist was thus:

Little Mascara
The Ledge
Left of the Dial
Another Girl, Another Planet
Seein' Her
Portland
Skyway
Can't Hardly Wait

We ended up doing Valentine and Achin To Be, along with Silent Film Star, later on in the night.

The bar was just packed full until about 9:00. Things started getting confusing onstage, people were getting tired (and drunk, this is a bar, after all) and we lost a bit of the crowd. That was actually fine. It was time for them to go, so we could just have the bands hanging out, goofing around or whatever. That's the point where the evening becomes interesting.

At one point, we all ended up onstage. By 'we all' I mean everyone in the bar. There was simply no audience left. Everybody who was left decided to just go up and play Frank's set with him for a second time. Everybody. There were four guitars, bass, drums, washboard, tambourine, maraca, harmonica, at least six vocalists, all of us singing different songs (at the same time). It was a wonderful, glorious mess. Best part of the evening, in fact.

High Points:
1. Little Mascara (actually, our entire set was cool)
2. Replacements fan in audience
3. Frank's set
4. Barry leaning up against the bar and playing bass for like, two hours straight-nailing every single song.

Low Points
1. Rhonda couldn't stick around, she hadda take a test (which she's taking right now.) Good luck, Roxy.

I do think that it's time we just did away with the concept of it being open mic. That's pretty much outlived it's usefulness. It really should just be Bats, Mustard, Twang, whatever Kee is calling himself that particular month, and Mergatron. The thing is, when others show up and play, they're usually either just a distraction, don't know what they're doing, or they flat out don't get the point. This is Kricket's Bar, not Cricket Pavillion. You will not be getting signed by a major label here, so if you're gonna come, I'd rather everybody play nice with the other basement monsters.

The point is that we all hang out together, and that we all have fun playing together. Sometimes we're good, sometimes we're downright awful, but it doesn't matter. we're all just friends hanging out and playing some tunes. We don't show up with attitudes or egos. Or talent, dammit!

Man, it was fun.

Two Days Till Tomorrow

2005-03-30T20:43:00.000-08:00

Actually, two days till show night. I Can't wait. Hardly Wait

Gadzooks, I am a geek.

New Penny

2005-03-30T20:18:00.000-08:00

Penny Heartbreaker

This is a new image of Penny I've been goofing around with. I'm kind'a digging this take. When I started it, I had intended to only use it as the 'cover' image to Hold My Life. (God, I am so link-happy these days.) But now I can think of one other use for it, just cuz I like the image.

Dave McKean does something in his "Pictures That Tick" book called one page comics. I think I'd like to take this image and make it a one panel comic, basically a single image with a text piece. That might be something fun to experiment with. The trick would be telling the story in text form and having it still be interesting.

If I did that, I'd also like to take the Illustrator file, and have the whole thing printed on a large format printer, about 3' tall, mount it and place it in the gallery. It's all vector art, so I can make it as big as a truck and the resolution would still be perfect. I love Illustrator.

Dunno who'd buy it, but that's beside the point.

I gotta remember to add that "No Loitering" sign on the post behind her, and put some names on those street signs behind her. The headband turned out cool, though.

Cellphone Soap Operas

2005-03-29T15:42:00.000-08:00

I read this yesterday. Interesting article about people using PSP's to view bootleg Manga as .jpg files. I read it and thought "Why doesn't anyone just create original comics for these things, instead of stealing existing manga?" The whole thing reminded me of cellphones and handheld computers. There are people dabbling in that already, I'd like to be one of 'em.

Stan Lee's new company has a couple of projects in development on phones, but I've a feeling that his current work won't really strike a chord with the audience the way it once did. His most recent comics work and the animation he's been working on haven't really appealed to me. Nothin' against Stan, mind you. I love Stan, really.

Put down the broken beer bottle, please, True Believer. All I'm saying is that to really hook the audience, one would have to create something modern and mainstream, a comic for people who don't currently read comics.

Still, it's a great idea. I think Hold My Life would work as a subscription-based comic that you could view on a cellphone or pda. I just need to get more episodes done. It's a mainstream story, accessible to a non-comics fan, (my friends who aren't comic book readers seem to be getting it) and best of all, I'm told (hey Barry) that it can be done with Flash, which is a must. I'd have to modify the dimensions of the display to match that of a cellphone, and the text would have to be a lot bigger in proportion, but it's doable. I'll have to look into that as a possibility once I've got some more episodes under my belt. Right now, with only two episodes done, it'd be completely ridiculous.

I can't help but think that comics publishers are missing what could eventually be a very lucrative boat with cellphones and handheld computers. It's sailing off right beside the webcomics boat, which they're also missing. Marvel and DC both pretty much ignore the possibility of comics going digital. As near as I can tell, a majority of comics fans seem to dismiss that possibility too. They love having the actual paper comic book in their hands.

Then again, the folks reading comics seem to be, little by little, losing interest. There are books whose sales are going up, and trades seem to do well, but mostly the trend still seems to be that of a gentle decline. Thankfully, it's a more gentle decline than in the past. I think we're just losin' em to attrition and inflation.

If the old fans are slowly giving in to apathy, and there still don't seem to be enough new fans coming into the hobby to replace them, then maybe it's time to cultivate a new audience. Comics on cellphones and handhelds would be a perfect way to expose that new audience (or a bunch of lapsed comics fans) to comics.

Then again, maybe it's just another unrealistic pipe dream of mine.

I Miss The X-99

2005-03-27T14:05:00.000-08:00

Managed to get quite a bit of work done on Hold My Life yesterday and today, which is good. I'm getting some momentum going now. The stuff's looking pretty cool, can't wait to get it posted.

The bad thing is that it won't be today. I have to stop soon to go eat at Kevin's. I always hate having to stop when the work's going well. Especially today. Next week's gonna be crazy, and I probably won't get any real time to sit here and work until Saturday.

Maybe by then, I can get the X-99 chair back from Rhonda. She absconded with it, taking it into the living room so she can sit at the table and draft as she prepares for her NCIDQ test. This leaves me sitting in this crummy wooden chair. It isn't very comfortable.

Glen Phillips

2005-03-24T15:50:00.000-08:00

I'm listening to Glen Phillips new album now, it's pretty good.

Rhonda will love it. Everybody will give her crap over liking it, too. :-)

Polk Street Music District

2005-03-24T15:18:00.000-08:00

Man, I can't get enough of this blog today.

Next week, the Polk Street Music District will spring to life once more at Kricket's bar. We call it the Pit. It's a term of endearment, I swear.

The Flappybats have been working dilligently on our set since...well since the last show, at the end of February. As it turns out, we were playing on February 18, the tenth anniversary of Bob Stinson's death. As usual, we did a bunch'a Replacements songs, but this time, we did 'em in Bob's honor. It was too much of a coincidence to just let pass unmentioned. I like to think that Bob was looking down on us from above, saying "You got it wrong, idiots!!"

As I mentioned before, we went and saw Westerberg the very next Friday, which only rekindled the desire to play that 'Mats set again. You'd think that seeing the same guy play two days in a row, and playing a good dozen of his songs over and over for the month prior, one would get a little burned out on him. Didn't happen. I'm a geek. Can't help it. Don't care to try.

Next month, we'll cover Ramones, the Jam, maybe Johnny Thunders...who knows. But this month, it's the much awaited (on my part) sequel to our Replacements set. I have high hopes, because I think we're getting some of these songs down, and that's fun.

Here's what we've been working on, in no particular order:

Little Mascara

Left of the Dial

The Ledge

Another Girl, Another Planet

Portland

Talent Show

Valentine

In Between Love & Like

Seein' Her

Skyway

Can't Hardly Wait

I'm sure we'll find some way to humiliate ourselves.

This will also be Mustard's first anniversary show, as the band was formed on opening day last year at the Diamondbacks first home game. it's also where they get their name, from the Mustard, Ketchup, Relish races... anyway, The quadruple-bill of Flappybats, Mustard, Twang and Los Tigres De La Noches will be there for sure. We're also told that our friend Rob's band will be there, as well as the usual solo acts.

It's a fun time. If you live in Phoenix, (does anybody read this thing?) go to the corner of 1st Street and Polk and listen for the godawful caterwauling and bad guitars, blaring out of tune. That sound you hear will be us, living our pathetic rock n roll dreams.

Paul Westerberg, and the Flappybats/Mustard Tour...

2005-03-24T11:42:00.000-08:00

I should've written about this in February.

It was a brilliant plan, for which we have our friend Frank (a.k.a. Francois Mustard) to thank.

Growing up in rual 'middle of nowhere', I never had the opportunity to see the Replacements live, or any of Paul Westerberg's solo tours after the band split in the early nineties. When he retreated to his basement in the mid-nineties, I figured I'd never get a chance to actually see this guy perform onstage. He'd often said during that period that he just couldn't get into the idea of playing in front of an audience again. Something about feeling like a gravestone standing up there with a bunch of strangers.

Needless to say, when a tour was announced for this year, I geeked out. Finally, a chance to see another Replacement onstage. We'd seen Tommy Stinson last fall here in Phoenix and he was great. I can remember after that show thinking "if Tommy is that good, imagine how good a Westerberg show would be."

A bunch of us had decided to go to the show here in Phoenix (Tempe, actually, but who's counting?) at the Marquee Theatre. Actually, the entire First Street and Polk Music District decided to go... the Flappybats were all in attendance, all of Mustard, Twang and Senor Llave (or is he calling himself Los Tigres De La Noches this month?) but the road trip was all Frank's idea.

Y'see, as it turned out, PW had a show booked in Anaheim the day after the one in Tempe. So Frank, diehard advocate of the road trip that he is, suggested that we make a 'roadie' of the weekend by driving to Anaheim and catching that show, too. We could head out Saturday morning, stop in LA and hit the strip, and then make our way to Anaheim, to disney world (he was playing the House of Blues there) and catch the show before driving back home. Food, smokes and a guitar would be brought along, for the purposes of writing an original tune. We'd call it a tour.

The show in Tempe was awesome. Westerberg seemed rested from having a day off prior to our show, and he was in rare form. The band was tight, too, picking up on any little cue and playing like they'd rehearsed the entire show like that. Westerberg is 45 years old, but he was playing and singing like someone half his age. This was a flat-out amazing show. They played an even mix of Replacements songs, mixed in with older and newer solo Westerberg songs. Even his Grandpaboy alter ego was represented. He even busted out Here Comes A Regular, for pete's sake. Just a great show all around.

Afterwards, we hung out by the bus with our guitars, hoping he'd come out and sign 'em. The security guys kept saying he wasn't coming out, and that we should just go home. Blah blah blah, we knew the drill. They just wanted to go home, and the fewer of us that were around meant the quicker they could get outta there. Me, I didn't care. I know enough about PW to know that the ritual of meeting the fans was a staple of his live schtick these days. Not a lot of performers would bother, but Westerberg's wired differently than your average rock n' roll star.

About five minutes after that announcement, Paul walked out, made a beeline for the caution tape that was separating us from the general area of the bus, and ripped it down. Walking back up, he took a seat on the steps up into the bus, where he graciously hung out with the 25 or so fans who'd stuck around. People had brought old Replacements bootlegs, albums, anything they could find to get him to sign. As I mentioned, we brought our guitars, a million dollar bill, a videotape, and the pack of Winstons that he'd tossed out into the crowd midway through the show.

It's no secret that I am a geek. I get up there, thank him for putting on a great show like, five times in a row, and ask him to sign my acoustic.

He takes one look at my Ovation and says "God, an Ovation... how d'you play this thing, they keep slidin' off yer knee."

I said something like "Well, ya don't play it sitting down is the trick"

To which he replied, y'do if you're playin' Glen Cambpell"... then he started noodling around a bit on the guitar. Geek that I am, I'm awestruck. My acoustic is now supercharged. I also had him sign that pack of Winstons, before handing him a videotape we'd made of our band, the Plastic Flappybats, performing at the Pit. I handed him this with the warning, "we aren't very good, but we try"

We got some great pics, my favorite is the group shot of all of us and Paul. Greg posted 'em here

Paul mentioned that if I'd told him we were good, he'd never have watched the tape. I can't imagine a scenario where I would've told him that we were good. We are, after all, a Replacements cover band. I wish I'd gotten to tell him that the week before, we played a set of Mats tunes in Bob's honor. February 18th was the 10th anniversary of Bob's death...

Anyway, we all left, basking in the glow of seeing a great show with a bunch of friends, and meeting Grandpaboy himself. Day one was done and gone, and Saturday, day two of the Flappybats/Mustard tour began at 10:00 in the morning. A little tired, yes, a little out of it, yes, but we rallied.

I don't wanna talk about the Pelt Outpost in Quartzsite, or the ginormous trailer park that seemed to stretch on for miles in that place. Or the public shower. In fact, the less said about Quartzsite the better...

The roadie was a smashing success. We made it to LA about 3:00, and after a brief adventure at the cemetery where Dee Dee and Johnny Ramone are buried (well, Dee Dee is, Johnny just has a memorial there) we ventured on to the strip, there to have dinner and a drink or five at the Rainbow. The original plan was to go to a couple of the bars there, but the doors didn't open at the Whiskey till 8:00, and the show was at nine.

The Rainbow was nice, though. Good pizza, and they had my favorite beer, Miller Lowlife. Drinking beer in a bar, it was just like being at home.

We made it into the House of Blues just as the band was taking the stage. Another great show, in front of a packed house, and another blurry meet n' greet. We stuck around, got in line, and waited for a good hour after the show, which paid off, because we eventually did make our way back there. Greg got his shoe signed, whereas Frank, Rhonda and I had him sign our tickets. They didn't allow cameras into the venue, but luckily Rhonda had her camera phone.

The pic's blurry, but then again, so were Paul and I by that point in the evening. Again, I can't say enough how cool it is for a performer to get onstage and play for two hours, and still have the patience to deal with geeky fans like me asking if he'd seen the videotape I'd handed him the night before. Turns out he hadn't.

Oh well...

Clearing out the cobwebs

2005-03-24T07:56:00.000-08:00

Okayyy, I'm back.

Y'know, we moved in December, and initially, I figured I'd take a couple weeks off from the blog and the site, get settled, and I'd be back up and running by mid-January.

Right.

Anyway, at some point, I realized that I'd lost any momentum that I had going on the webcomic, which is a problem I don't want to face again. Ever. And here I'd just gotten a nice little plug from Warren Ellis on diepunyhumans.com, so naturally I'd decide to take three months off and brilliantly squander the boost in traffic that said plug had garnered me.

Nonetheless, that's past. And I'm back now. Sorta. But not just yet. A proper launch of Karmic Calamity and Hold My Life are both on their way, and it'll be worth the wait.

Sometime between December and February, we decided to call our gallery (which isn't even built yet) Karmic Calamity as well, which would necessitate a major redesign of the website. Then we started talking about having the business be a newsstand as well as a gallery, for which Karmic Calamity would be a horrible name. Karmic Calamity Newsstand? Ummm, maybe not.

We're just beginning to work on the business plan for the Newsstand Gallery idea, so that, when it happens, will necessitate a redesign for the website, but in the meanwhile, I can go forward with my plans for Hold My Life. That alone will take plenty of my time.

So here's my plan: I'm going to use the San Diego Comicon (July 11) as my target date, and work offline on the webcomic. Basically, there's a lot of development stuff, backstory and miscellany that only exists in my head at this point. Not the least of which is the blog that I have to build for Penny. Interactivity is something that I always wanted to incorporate into Hold My Life, after a friend of mine (Barry) suggested it. As soon as he mentioned it, I realized that Penny being a blogger could open up countless story ideas and innovative ways to tell her story... all I'd need is a blog for her, and I could cross link between webcomic and blog... I could also link to other sites, which would be kind'a like the old Editor's notes that we used to see in comics. I love the idea, because it creates another level of content for the comic.

There's also a lot of writing and drawing that I need to do in advance, just to get some work 'in the can' so to speak. That way, when I do officially launch the webcomic, I can avoid massive downtime or delays...

So, In the meanwhile, I'll probably be spending more of my time working on that than posting here, which is unfortunate but necessary. If I do everything right, though, I'll be able to launch Hold My Life as a valid webcomic by summer.

Warren Ellis

2004-12-05T09:49:00.000-08:00

If you don't know who Warren Ellis is, well, you should.

Anyway, he's one of my favorite writers working in comics today. Last week he'd posted a message on his Bad Signal mailing list, wanting to see people's webcomics. At first, I thought I shouldn't send it because, well, I only have two episodes up. Then I decided that I needed the traffic, and when better to try to hook someone on a comic than right at the beginning?

So I sent it. He was kind enough to say nice things about Hold My Life on diepunyhumans, and provided a link to Karmic Calamity. Thanks, Warren. I noticed my traffic went up substantially afterwards. Hopefully there's a couple of you out there interested enough to check back on Penny's story.

So... now what?

2004-11-19T17:00:00.000-08:00

Sold the house this week, which has resulted in a strange feeling of 'now what?' It's odd, knowing that sometime in the near future we won't be living here, and that it'll be someone else's house soon. This was the first house we'd ever owned, I guess I'm really just a big old sap, because I'll always have a soft spot in my heart for this place. We saw this place when it was nothing but a piece of land marked off by a couple of stakes and some twine. We watched it being built. It's kind of like our kid.

Well, a kid that we really wanted to get rid of so we could buy a better one. Do people ever do that?

It's awesome that it sold so quickly. Having people call every twenty minutes throughout the day wanting to show it was starting to wear on my nerves.

The thing is, the whole deal doesn't close until December 16, which leaves us in a kind of limbo as far as our living situation goes. We have to figure out exactly what we're gonna do, and then make that happen. All this around the holidays, a time when you don't want to be running errands or moving. The good news is that the buyers intend to make a rental property of the place, so we might be able to actually rent our own house back from them until our new place is ready next spring. Neither of us is jazzed about the prospect of moving twice in six months. But, on the other hand, it would be really cool to just be able to live downtown. Much more convenient, and I really am ready to be done with that commute. There's lots of things I could do with that hour and a half that we spend in the car each day, and I'm starting to think that, if we're going to own a gallery downtown, it might make more sense to become more familiar with the neighborhood and the community of galleries that are in our new neighborhood. It'd be easier to do that if we got an apartment in that neighborhood.

We'll probably just have to wait and see what happens with the buyers.

Still, I don't want to have to move twice.

Return of Chore Boy

2004-11-16T08:09:00.000-08:00

When will it ever end?

Last night was all about those last two chores that we couldn't get done over the weekend. Steam Cleaning the carpet, and touching up the paint on the inside of the house. So, for a few hours last night, it was me and the rug doctor. Rhonda did the paint touch ups and repainted this little wall for some reason that shall remain a mystery to me forever. It had been beige, then she painted it yellow to match the kitchen. Then last night, it became beige again. I think that wall has been painted at least fifty times in the five years we've lived in that house. The cat hid out under the bed in the bedroom. He hates any sort of carpet cleaning or vacuuming device, so last night was a bad night for him.

Anyway, we're done now, we can put the house on the market and get rid of it. Thankfully, we aren't dealing with carpet in the new place.

Maybe now I can get back on track with Hold My Life. Second episode is completely done, just waiting for me to put it on Karmic Calamity. This week, for sure.

Birthday Gal

2004-11-12T15:25:00.000-08:00

Tonight's Betty's birthday.

For those of you who don't already know, Betty is the bartender at Kricket's bar, which is nestled inside the Ramada Inn on First Street and Polk in scenic downtown Phoenix. Krickets is our local bar, the one we find ourselves at most any night of the week. Or every night of the week, depending on what week we're talking about. And, as far as I can tell, it's the only bar on the face of the planet that would ever let us just take over once a month and play.

Betty is the best bartender in the world, and an all around cool chick. Hope she has a good birthday.

Returning to captivity once more...

2004-11-12T09:33:00.000-08:00

Well, I'm back at work today, Chore Boy won't be reappearing until tomorrow.

I didn't get around to Denny O'Neil's Iron Man run, which is a total bummer. I haven't read that run since the books originally came out in the 80's. I sold a bunch of comics in 1990, and my Iron Man run was one of them. It was a big mistake, selling those comics, I know that now. At least now, I'm able to replace a bunch of those books that I got rid of 14 years ago.

I've really been looking forward to reading these books once more, I remember them fondly, even though it just tore me apart reading them at the time they were published. Denny O'Neil put Tony Stark through hell during this run. In the span of a few months, Tony Stark lost his company, his personal fortune, and flat out gave the Iron Man armor away. He lost, quite literally, everything, even losing his starring role in the Iron Man comic for a time. I don't know how much lower a man can sink than to be relegated to the part of 'supporting character' in your own comic book. The entire story spanned over three years of monthly comics, and there wasn't a single character in the book who was left unchanged at the end.

I can remember every single month, getting that book and thinking "this is the issue where Tony turns everything around again. He'll get the armor back now for sure!" I was naive, what can I say? I was also wrong every single month for quite some time, but man, I was along for the ride every single month, and when we finally came to the resolution of the story, it was a truly great payoff, and one that was well worth waiting for. Even if it did result in one of the goofier armor designs of Iron Man's long history. The freelancers currently writing for Marvel could learn a lot about writing comic books from this story, or any number of stories that came out of the Shooter Era of Marvel comics. Unfortunately, I don't think they're interested.

Well, at least it's Friday. Maybe I'll have time to get that in this weekend sometime.

Chore Boy (conclusion)

2004-11-11T16:05:00.000-08:00

And so, as our afternoon draws to a close, we find a weary and smelly Chore Boy winding down for the afternoon.

I was able to get some of the stuff done, and I managed to get the house straightened up so Phil could take pictures for the listing of the house. We even got all the paperwork taken care of, so we can put it on the market say, Monday-ish after we get the rest of our stuff taken care of.

The question is, will I get to read a single comic book today? Hard to tell, it's 4:00 and I've still got a Chicken Pot Pie to craft. It's looking pretty grim for Chore Boy.

Chore boy, part deux

2004-11-11T12:26:00.000-08:00

The adventures of Chore Boy continue! After joining forces with the enigmatic being known as Handyman, Chore Boy sets out to defeat the forces of... uhhh, stuff breaking and, oh screw it I'm too beat to come up with good stuff here.

We hired this guy, Billy, to fix our jacked-up door that leads to the garage. Billy was cool, he saved us a couple bucks by fixing a door that we thought we'd have to replace, so I asked him to look at that bathroom fan that had been vexing us so this past month or two. He was done with that in a half an hour. Paid the man (gladly) and he was off. I wish I would've taken pictures,but he probably would've thought I was a freak.

Anyway, I patched cracks, and was planning to patch more, when Phil called. Something about taking pictures of the house. Great, now I have to clean. That stack of Iron Man books is just getting farther and farther away.

Will Chore Boy get to read a comic? Tune in later to find out!

Chore Boy

2004-11-11T07:16:00.000-08:00

Man, being a grownup is such a drag sometimes. We're putting our house up for sale, which means there's little things that have to be 'taken care of' before we can list it. Little cracks in the stucco outside, we have a couple of ugly little trees that need to be trimmed, the sort of stuff that doesn't take all that long, but when everything's combined, it makes for a day you want to have to go through. Well, I don't want to have to go through.

So, basically, instead of being able to spend 8 hours reading the complete Denny O'Neil Iron Man run, I'm chore boy today. Wonderful.

Waiting for the Trade

2004-11-10T11:32:00.000-08:00

So, now I've got all this Ebay crap flowing in on a regular basis, and of course, I'm reading this stuff as it comes in. I just finished a 50 issue run of Marvel Team-Up from the mid to late 70s. Started out with a couple issues of Bill Mantlo/Sal Buscema stories, which were cool enough, but the meat of this run is an extended arc of stories written by Chris Claremont. Most of those were drawn by John Byrne, with Sal Buscema ably finishing up the run. It's a great bunch of stories, from a great era of Marvel Comics.

I think this is gonna be the first thing I review over in the reviews section on Karmic Calamity.

2004-11-02T14:55:00.000-08:00

I decided a couple of weeks ago to take a break from new comics for a little while, and devote the money I'd normally spend on new comics to buying back issues on Ebay. Going all 'back issue' is something I do from time to time, usually whenever I'm feeling particularly underwhelmed by what the publishers are putting out there on the shelves, or overwhelmed by what they're charging for them. This time around, it was a combination of both factors... but that's a self-involved rant for another day.

The comics category on Ebay is a very strange land. Go there, and you'll see brand new comics, even some that aren't even out on the stands yet, listed with the starting bid above cover price. Brand new book. One that you could go to a comic book store and pick up for cover price. One has to wonder if the seller is on crack, or if they're just expecting to prey on a buyer that is. I mean, really... who wants to pay $4.95+shipping for the latest issue of Brian Bendis's Avengers? To be quite honest, I don't even want to pay cover price for that, which is why I'm on Ebay in the first place.

The truly bizarre thing is that, while people are listing brand those brand new comics at inflated prices, they're practically giving away back issues, comparatively speaking. I decided to concentrate my search on late 1970s to late 1980s stuff, paying particular attention to the Marvel Universe of that era. This has totally paid off for me. By concentrating on that era, and only bidding on complete lots of 20 or more books, I've been able to scoop up some good reading for anywhere between 11 to 75 cents an issue. For example, I recently got Fantastic Four #147-222 for around 25 bucks, and followed that up with a fifty issue run (#49-99 in case you're interested) of Marvel Team-Up for $11.25. Hours and hours of classic Marvel stories, purchased (in these two cases) for less than cover price. In the past month, I've bought a total of 216 comics for under a hundred bucks, and that's including shipping.

To me, it's kind'a like hitting the quarter boxes at the local comic book store, only here you can find a complete run of books, and here you can conduct your search from home, or even better at work when you're bored out of your mind. The average Quark Monkey can spend upwards of about six hours a day on Ebay on some days, plenty of time to dig through all the active auctions for that rare run of Power Man and Iron Fist from 1985. The only problem is that some of this stuff is so cheap that I've found myself bidding on comics that I really wouldn't buy if I was in my right mind. For example, Sunday night I bid on 30 issues of Dazzler... and won. Now, I'm not a huge Dazzler fan, but I saw that someone was gonna get these books for like, seven bucks, and I just couldn't help myself but put in a token bid of my own. Before I could stop myself, I had put in a maximum bid of nine bucks, figuring I'd be outbid before the end of the auction. Within seconds I was staring at a screen that said "congratulations, you are the high bidder!" Ten minutes later, I was staring blankly at the monitor, realizing what I had just done.

I'd bought a bunch of Dazzler comics. I don't remember much about Dazzler, but the one thing I do remember about it was that it sucked. And now, I was about to be the owner of 30 issues of this thing. At least I got 'em cheap.

Ah nostalgia. I think from now on I'm gonna stick with Power Man and Iron Fist. Maybe Rom.

Election Day

2004-11-02T14:31:00.000-08:00

Longest day ever, and I'm trapped here, in my horrible gray box, bored out of my skull.

Great.

Gee, karmic calamity is a nice website, too bad nobody ever updates it, huh?

2004-11-01T11:25:00.000-08:00

Having a real life is a drag. Being a grownup is a drag.

Okay... I got sidetracked for a couple of weeks with Halloween preparations, and preparing for our train-wreck of a live show this past Friday at the Pit. Also, my friend Barry told me that I seemed like a self-important asshole on my blog. The truth is, I asked him if I seemed like a self-important asshole, because I'm self-conscious about that sort of thing, and I knew he'd be honest.

Afterwards, I realized that I actually am a self-important asshole, and decided to continue.

Anyway, new episode of Hold My Life this week. It's done, I just haven't had the opportunity to post it. Also, a couple of additions to the website, spectacular Ninja Ducks Episodes by Greg, and more self involved blathering from me, right here.

New Character Weekend

2004-10-10T11:00:00.000-07:00

Finally, I feel like myself again. I think I've got my medical problems taken care of, and am once more back on a diet that includes real food and alcohol on occasion. It'd been weeks since I was able to drink at all, and the other night, I found myself with a good buzz after drinking three beers.

I finally felt up to drawing this weekend. It's been weeks since I felt like I could get into the right mental place to draw, and I took advantage of it Saturday and Sunday by issuing myself a challenge. Y'see, I'd read a lot of comics on those long, sleepless nights I've had these past few weeks. I'd just go into my comics room, and dig out a nice, long run of a particular series, and read 'em in one sitting. I love doing that, but it's rare that I have that kind of time to just sit and read, say, a hundred issues of old Avengers comics or whatever. It passed the time, and helped me keep my mind occupied.

By choice, I ended up reading a whole bunch of Marvel comics, mostly stuff from the 70's and 80's. Classic runs of Avengers, Iron Man, Captain America... the list goes on and on. I even dove into my well-worn 'Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe" collection at one point. Reading those comics really reminded me of the reason I got hooked on comics in the first place. The characters, the universe, and the sense of wonder and escapism that came along with the Marvel Universe in its heyday.

A lot of that sense of wonder seems to be gone now, but that's a subject for another day.

The point is that, immersed as I was in what was my favorite era for superhero comics, I finally found the inspiration to create some characters of my own. I'd always intended to host as diverse a range of my own work on KarmicCalamity as possible, including superheroes. Part of the point of Karmic Calamity, for me, is to show what I'm capable of creatively. Hence, when I sat down to draw on Saturday, the only thing I could think of was 'wouldn't it be fun to just make up some characters?'

So that's who these guys are. They're the beginnings of my attempt to create the sort of superhero, and the sort of superhero comic that got me hooked on the genre in the first place, back when I was a kid. I'll be adding these guys, and more, to my creator page on Karmic Calamity as I develop the project, but for now, I just wanted to put Athena, the Fox and Gauntlet up here because, well, I'm a little geek and I think they're cool.

2004-10-10T10:45:00.001-07:00

Gauntlet

2004-10-10T10:45:00.000-07:00

The Fox. I think I need more reference on crossbows.

2004-10-10T10:44:00.000-07:00

Athena

Best Day Ever

2004-09-30T13:50:00.000-07:00

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!

2004-09-26T19:05:00.000-07:00

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

2004-09-26T18:21:00.000-07:00

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?

2004-09-26T15:06:00.000-07:00

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

2004-09-19T16:43:00.000-07:00

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

2004-09-18T10:05:00.000-07:00

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...

2004-09-14T16:33:00.000-07:00

...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.