Another freaking awesome piece by God-Awful. This one may be going on my arm (the other one).
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“Families are about love overcoming emotional torture.” Matt Groening
I swore I was going to try and do something productive, but apparently that’s not happening….er…..yet.
Whilst at Half Price Books the other day, there was an unauthorized book about The Simpsons that I got for $3.00. While at points in time I was a super-fan (we’ll get to that), I had always wondered how the whole transition to prime-time actually occurred. The book is actually explaining all that, so I’l tell my personal story about how I started watching.
Back in the 80’s, mid way or so, I lived in New Zealand, and one of the TV shows that showed there was The Tracey Ullman show. It wasn’t too odd seeing Tracey Ullman as she was pretty big in NZ around that time if I recall, due to one of her other shows, Three of a Kind. However, that was my first experience with The Simpsons. Crude, and really funny. After those shorts had aired, my mother brought me a book called “School is Hell”, which after I think started picking up the other LIfe in Hell series books.
Very shortly after, we moved back to the US. While this was a time where I would still go hang out with my parents, we caught the 2nd Animation Celebration which had some of the Simpson clips in it.
Then, even more shortly thereafter, I was a sophomore in High School and I found out that The Simpsons was coming to prime time. I couldn’t believe it! I was telling the guy that sat next to me (or behind me) in homeroom, and he said, “That’s so dumb, that will never last”. (This being possibly the only reason that I will ever go to a high school reunion. To give a Nelson-esque “Ha-Ha!” as an I-told-you-so)
The Christmas special was a hit (as we all know), and history was made. The marketing frenzy was pretty outrageous. I didn’t ever own a Bart Simpson T-shirt, but I thoroughly remember the furor over the attitudes presented in the show. Meanwhile I was finding that the local Houston Public News was running Life in Hell, which I still love.
In fact, I had gotten a “School in Hell” T-shirt that I was made to wear inside out at school when I was unceremoniously busted by the High School Band teacher. I didn’t think anything of it, it wasn’t a statement, it was a matter of fact.
One of the things that I did unearth in my brain as a result of the book was an old (treasure?) that I haven’t ever seen anywhere else. I was part of the “Life in Hell” fanclub, I think, and had ordered it waaaaayyyyy back when. Sorry, I threw away the old newsletters (one of which i remember had a lesson on how to draw Bart).
Much like Mark Hamill in Amazing Stories, here is a piece of glassware that managed to survive some 25-odd years…..wonder what it’s worth now? (Not for Sale)
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“I know this all sounds weird, but this is the way the world works.” Robert Boyd
It’s a small weird world I suppose.
Thanks to Google Reader (which is going to disappear at some point) I happened upon the blog of an interesting guy whose name rang a bell – Mark Evanier.
I like substantitive blogs, and Mark’s a great writer. I don’t often use the work prolific, but Mark is writing ALL the TIME. He’s got a lot of cool stories about people he’s met doing his writing (sitcoms/cartoons/stuff) and things that he’s done over the years. Totally recommend his blog.
His name jumped out at me because he worked with Sergio Aragones on Groo the Wanderer which was one of my favorite comics when I was a 13 or 14. Or youthful, or whatever.
That led me to another jolting memory, my name actually made it into an issue of Groo! I’m proud to say that my name appeared on the letters page in issue #11. I can’t find a copy of it which I’m sure I had a few, but they’re lost in the ether of adulthood. Each issue of Groo had a hidden message in it, and my name was one of the ones used to compose the message in that issue. It’s a day for memories for sure.
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“Cooper would always kid me about my hats. He’d tell me I should get a bigger hat.” Clint Walker
Wow, was digging through some old stuff and found an old catalog that brought back some memories. I first ran into an ad for the Nicholas James Group in an issue of Juxtapoz I think. *Edit* Actually, I know it wasn’t Juxtapoz, it had to have been Hypno Magazine, which doesn’t exist any more. *End Edit* The image that caught my eye was the rather (now) iconic devil/wrenches that Chris Cooper (Coop) is known for.
I ordered my first hat (which I still have, although it’s awfully beat up now) for $26.00. $26.00? Was I a millionaire?
The catalog is labeled 1994, which must be a little after I already had the hat. I think I had planned on getting another ballcap, but the company folded soon thereafter.
To me this is notable because it possibly was the genesis of my descent into hot rods, twangy guitars, devil girls and rockabilly. I still have a Butthole Surfers T-Shirt that I bought solely because it had the COOP “Ground Control to Major Hard-On” image on it. This was in the early 90’s when devilish imagery (or large breasted alien girls) was hard to find – especially in Texas.
It’s been a while. Thanks NJG and Coop for sullying my soul!
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“Yeah, I know I’m ugly… I said to a bartender, ‘Make me a zombie.’ He said ‘God beat me to it.’” Rodney Dangerfield
To break of the monotony of not posting anything, here’s a freaking great piece I just got done by God-Awful –
It’s gonna take a while for me to get back into blogging-gear. I turned on two-step authentication which delays blogging by just one more step.
Although I do have some pretty exciting news that I’m sure I’m going to blog about in the next month or so. So there’s that….
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“If you can do a half-assed job of anything, you’re a one-eyed man in a kingdom of the blind.” Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Have been unbelievably busy lately. Since my last entry, I had the back fence replaced which temporarily turned by backyard into a cat haven. I had no less than five stray cats all asking me for food. I quit feeding even the one cool cat and they’ve all more or less disappeared.
Since my backyard has somehow become the focus for 2013 (again), I’m in the middle of trying to build my bat house (finally). I posted the plans [HERE], still trying to figure out if I need vents or not. Because I’ve become a blogger without a blog (relatively speaking) I didn’t take any pictures, but it took about five hours to score all the boards and my body is about ready to give up on me.
Bartender! Bartender? Yes, an Old Fashioned please?
Lastly in other backyard related news, I think I’m about to put a beehive in my yard. Make my own honey, candles, and bee stings.
Pictures to follow….maybe?
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“Before enlightenment; chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment; chop wood, carry water.” Zen Proverb
Extremely derelict in blogging duty. No matter. I finally got that tree chopped down that I have been bitching about for years. All that’s left is a pile of wood chips. In other news, there’s a huge hole in my rear fence that the dogs back there pushed through. The cats have scattered (in fear, rightly so) and now I find myself at the rather discomforting quandry that I must contact the actual owners of the house behind me and propose that we go half on the fence. Otherwise the damn dogs are going to push through every day (like they have for the last two).
Hooooommmmeeee ownership. Yeah.
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“We’ve hit a little bump, and we’re going full speed ahead.” Chuck Amato
Holy whackadoodle. Time flies….and then it crawls.
I’m not sure what kind of trouble I’m getting into, but it definitely seems like the kind that keeps me from blogging.
I managed to fire up Pro Tools again, and determined that it’s so complex that I’ll never know what the hell I’m doing, but simultaneously user-friendly enough that it won’t matter. Got what I needed to get done, and now there’s a folk song (slash) limerick that I’ll be recording soon enough. Who needs three chords when you can play just two?
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There’s been a warp in the space-employment-time-flux-thingamagjig. I’m more or less a “dead man walking” at work which is quite the curious feeling. It’s a lot like knowing the exact date of your death, but everyone else around knows it too and tries to pretend that they don’t. Some (I’m sure) will be glad to get rid of me and my half baked theories that manage to hold up long enough to prove them wrong (or myself right) and resolve the issue. They’ll breathe a sigh of relief knowing that it’s only a matter of time. No matter
~?~
I did something nice for someone on Valentines day, I bought some flowers. The weird part is that I had my keys in my hand with my car alarm remote and ended up accidentally dropping them into the bucket of flower water. Those inside the flower tent were roundly greeted with a choice expletive from my mouth-hole. My alarm unit has held up so far, but I fear internal corrosion now. It’s a hard life. Sometimes bad decisions require nothing more than a firm hand and a blast on the gas pedal.
~?~
I’m not quite sure why this has turned into such a brain expanding year, but it continues to be.
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“Charlie Brown is the one person I identify with. C.B. is such a loser. He wasn’t even the star of his own Halloween special.” Chris Rock
Holy crap, you people got lucky. I just realized that about 60 posts that I had imported from another blogging service were still public/visible. I took care of that, you won’t have to go back and read those. Not that anyone is ever really digging into my blog any earlier than 2009 anyway….
But these were pretty bad. Stories of defeat, alcohol, guitars, death, depression, overcoming the hurdles and then finally redemption. Redemption, or at least the very least my blog posts became readable and I started taking it semi-seriously. I left a few posts here and there, but starting here, you can work your way forward. Not worth clicking, but you can see the progression. Lookit me now, custom header and everything. Big time. Thanks Abe Lincoln.
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As I was looking through some of the old blog pictures, I ran across some of my teen pictures. And wow, do I really feel old now. That stuff about feeling better when you get older, “I’ve never felt better in my life!” is a bunch of deluded crap. Or boomers trying to convince themselves it’s true. The only reason I feel better is because I work out now instead of letting my youthful metabolism do all the work. Shoot. This is getting depressing. Let’s try something else.
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Since I’ve been unusually quiet about guitar related matters, I’ll should note that my buddy let me try his copy of Rocksmith. This is the guitar-hero type game that you plug in your own guitar and play along to. He kept telling me how much he was playing, like hours a day. Anything that gets a guitar into your hands for hours a day is freaking great as far as I’m concerned. So I tried it out. Since I’ve (depressingly) been playing since the 80’s, I managed to barrel through a few of the songs in his game until it adjusted the difficulty mid-song. Seeing a C#7 chord get thrown in out of the blue (a chord I don’t think I’ve played in YEARS) was pretty crazy. It ramped up the speed and chord/single note difficulty on me until I just jacked the entire song up. Then it backed the speed down until I could just keep up. I liked that, although the main reason I ended up picking up the game was for the technique drills and scale practice. So far I’ve had the guitar in my hands for stretches up to two hours. It’s a really nice practice tool – even for players like me who have been playing for years (and admittedly have some rough spots technique wise). I’m getting a little lag on my system which is throwing me off a bit, but it’s still working out okay.
Rock on Peoples!
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“You stay alive, baby. Do it for Van Gogh.” ~ Frank Booth
Wake up, bleary eyed. Dried out from the alcohol, grab a pint glass of water. Slug that down and turn the espresso machine on. Lie down.
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Get up, shake off some of the haze, drink some more water. Make espresso (dripped for 22 seconds, getting better). Foam some milk, add to espresso. Sit down at the computer. Remember a conversation from last night that reminded me of some great songs on SuperUnknown. Check MediaMonkey and realize that my library got all jacked up when I was rearranging everything (making backups of important stuff – when’s the last time YOU did that?). Grab the CD, pop it in, re-rip it at the insane quality bit-rate setting. Start to play it. Realize that I’ve never EVER heard the quality and separation this good before. I used to listen to it on cassette on the crappiest car stereos in the world. At my desk, my Alesis monitoring speakers are crystal clear. Nice.
Sip the black elixir. Try to recall what it was that I committed myself to. Wait. Crap.
CRAAAAAAAP.
It’s becoming clear. I committed myself to performing in the next Boylesque show. WhatHowWhy? Ouch. Time for some more espresso.
I slowly shake my head with a mix of wonderment and maybe lingering regret. Well, many, MANY of the manly burlesque guys are already going to be performing in the first show. I heard through the grapevine that it was happening and someone said, “Aww, dude, you should do it!” Apparently that wasn’t enough of an arm twisting. I forgot all about it. Then the show lineup got posted. Wow. That’s a lotta guys. Somehow I got skipped out in the first round draft. I figured out why, it’s because I’m generally in the background, I still don’t get to as many shows as I used to. I still feel tied to everything because I post the shows but I still walk around a lot of the shows with Office-Standard-Avoidance-TI4 mode. You know, the “I kinda know you, but don’t really know you so I’m not going to make eye contact or say anything to you even though we both know each other but not well enough to strike up a conversation.” Don’t blame me, blame society.
So I tried to spread myself around a little last night (wait, which part of the night was I showcasing my particular moves?) and ran into the producer and started discussing the Boylesque. After my initial reaction of seeing the flyer I was like, “Well, what song would I dance to? First off the top of my head was Rumble by Link Wray.
Cerebrally, I have to imagine that all these guys are thinking about all the normal things that women burlesque dancers think about – anxiety, body issues, performance ideas…etc.
This should be interesting.
The producer already has some ideas for me. *Sigh*
