Olden days - a punk-ass, Lisa Loeb-style post

 Francisco Pulpo in the Studio by a younger Miles, damnit. 1994/5!!!!!

So what the hell am I doing? Here's a mid 90's era drawing that I was thinking about tonight. I think I need to rebuild some concentration/focus and bring something bigger to the party. I did some drawing today (2010, people!)  and found myself rusty as all get out. Muse, I invoke thee. Let's get it on. I don't want to kick off without having raised a bigger ruckus. Why am I adding up to less than the sum of my parts?

Majax on Deck

Majax is on his way with a new sword based on the mercifully simple-to-draw Roman gladius. Anyhow, Majax, the sensitive family-man star of the first Arms and Ether comic book, is loosening up for his debut in this week's Arms and Ether strip. If you're lucky, it'll be up by tomorrow evening. Imagine the betterment of your weekend!

UPDATE FRIDAY NIGHT 12:30 A.M. Well it's "tomorrow evening" and I'm getting my ass kicked by this strip. !@#$. I've lost the simple structural understanding of the characters I thought I'd finally grasped. !@#$%. Tired. Cranky. Complain.

UPDATE FRIDAY NIGHT 1:30 A.M. !#$%^. I think I have to give up for the night. I've got the black and white line work more or less done. Grrrrrr. Not happy. But, I'll @#$ around with color tomorrow, hopefully with a bit more intelligence and perspective. 

#@$%^@ it. Here's some more 2nd Generation Mod music.

Punk-assed Perspective Procrastination

Miles Inada, Portrait d'un Punkass de Perspective, c 1763

Because I'm not Piranesi or Jack Kirby, perspective can get me down--especially when I'm not in proper fighting trim. It's called being a perspective punk-ass. So, I'm still not done with the latest Arms and Ether. I have to draw a. . . table. . . and . . . a computer. . . impossible! Weak. Fail. Etc.
Oh, and I also don't want to pay the @#$%ing bills which I've been putting off. !@#$%

Saw Derf on a documentary about Jeffery Dahmer with whom Derf went to Jr. High and High School. Crazy. I'm going to check out the comic he did on his experience with Dahmer, My Friend Dahmer. You should probably check it out too.

Listless

Julie might be out of a job next year, along with many other improbably gifted and dedicated public school teachers. That's bleakness of a high order because these people are good at what they do, and what they do is good for this place.

Probably a good time to listen to some Billy Bragg. UPDATE: Here are the chords to It Says Here, if you want to bust it out.
It Says Here
Billy Bragg
Chords (as per Miles)

G C G D Intro
C G D Verse
G Em C G Bridge 1
D Em D Em Bridge 2
G F C Instrumental before finale

Monday

A brief post in honor of the long-lost snow that has been so blow-torched from our lands this weekend. Farewell. Return with your ghosts, your stars and your bearded pumpkins. . . I love you. . .

And thanks for any and all Arms and Ether comments. I'm still collecting them, so keep 'em coming. As they come in, I add them to the Feedbag post. One comment I had in conversation was "don't you want to find a way to tie all this stuff (blog, strip, etc) together?" A good question. The answer is yes, but feels complicated--I'm hoping for an organic evolution in that direction. But what comes from mere hope? More later, obviously.

Time to pass out. Fighting off a lil' sinus infection and the 9-year-olds, pizza and ice cream cake have taken their toll. Tomorrow is Sam's actual 9th birthday (groovy) and L'inauguration. Let's get it on.

Friday down in flames

Sometimes you expect big things from a day and it doesn't deliver. I thought this would be a big day to get some Arms and Ether goin.' No such luck. Meetings. Yay. Grumble. I did eat a lot of pizza though. Ugh. For the love of . . . Here's some of what I'm cookin' up.
1) I want to sell shirts and books on the site. I'm looking at cafepress.com, but I think I'll also get the fine young men (Alex Falkenstein and Jess Gleasman) at basement-ink to do a run of higher quality screen print shirts as well.
2) Fontlab with Scanfont is looking good so far. I just need more TIME.
3) Arsenal's playing Wigan at 6:00 a.m. tomorrow. Don't think I'll be up for that one. Darn.

Grrr

Annoying day. Meetings and obligations from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. Grrr. All for a good cause. Just not mine.

No Excuses

Because I'm a man. A man with a Pikachu on his bag.
Use Thunder Attack!
Pi-ka!
Pika-CHUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!

I really have very little idea what the hell happened over the last week. Last week of classes, so lots of teaching and teaching-related nonsense. Exhaustion. Definitely some exhaustion. Patches of despair. I think exhaustion was the main thing. Also, on Friday we bought a nu-2-u car, (2003 Toyota Corolla. I'm sensible, damnit), so I inherit "The White Man"--our 3-door '92 Buick Park Avenue. Look out world. I'm comin' for you.

In "The Office" on a Saturday

Getting to work on the web site illustrating (stupidly and unnecessarily) a "Making of Arms and Ether" section. It's sure to impress. Let's see, regrets about being bad at drawing, minor annoying ear ache, heavy mental fog . . . Now would be a good time to go play soccer or basketball. I'm missing that glorious forgetting that comes with all out sportin' fun. Perhaps a xiao bike ride would be good. Dawdle. Glurck. Before I go, I'm going to finish drafting out the 11 drawings for that Arms and Ether section. See, I'm disciplined. Har har.

Tonight will be good to hook up with the 8-bit Ghost hisself--Scott Raedeke. He'll be doling out the ActionScript preachings, and I'll be witnessing. Revelatin.'

For He Has Not Rhythm

So tired my pores hurt. Fatigue = lameness. Drawing, like handwriting, pulls me into a solipsistic dialogue with how I was taught to draw. Bleh. Feel miles away from doing anything useful, original, exciting, or interesting. Score! Taking Sam to the dentist at 10:00. May not be useful, but at least it's original, exciting, and interesting. 3 out of 4 is not bad at'all.

EAT

It's lunch time. Prep for class. Ponder meaninglessness of existence. Regret various aspects of the past. So forth.

Real Life & Anti-Romanticism

Thucydides is an anti-romantic. If anyone finds a less romantic sentence than this, please let me see it (5.116.3-4):

Reinforcements afterwards arriving from Athens in consequence, under the command of Philocrates son of Demeas, the siege was now pressed vigorously, and some treachery taking place inside, the Melians surrendered at discretion to the Athenians, who put to death all the grown men whom they took, and sold the women and children for slaves, and subsequently sent out five hundred colonists and settled the place themselves.

Bleak enough by itself, these are the concluding words in the chapter containing the famous Melian Dialogue, in which the rag-tag rebel Melians tell the Athenians to get stuffed. This is the way 300 would have ended in an alternate universe. Clearly superior power overruns outnumbered, noble, brave, and honorable crew of desperate men killing all of them and enslaving their families.

Last few days spent dealing with water heater replacement and school silliness. Please return soon, Muse, you are sorely missed.

Crap-rock The Suck-@#$

3:30 a.m. and all I've got to show for it is this tediousness. Lots of restarts. Still not close to being done. . . and it sucks. Argh. It's nice to see that my modeling abilities haven't progressed in 10 years.
Great Job!
Got to get up early, take Sam to school and have a bunch of meetings. ^$%&# and #$^*!@. Guess this counts as the Friday post. @#$%^.
Oh, the @#$%ing ignominy.

I'm pretty sure my Fine Arte ranking just took a big hit.

The Public Eye

One of the odd things about doing le blog is that it's semi-public. As a teachin' man, I'm constantly in front of an audience. A small audience, true, but it's very different from being holed up in a dark room pushing lead and polygons around. Sometimes I hates talking to people. Leave me in the cave. On the other hand, having somewhere I have to be can be a nice kick in the ass to stop moping around. I'm looking forward to taking a hike up Grizzly Peak in the spring and taking a long nap in the sun.

Gray again. Gray.

It's 3:15 p.m. a bleak time in anyone's life. Slept in til 10:00 today. Thanks, baby. Still groggy, though, of course. Sorting through Legends From Camp material today. Hmmm, should have done this oh, about 4 years ago. Too bad, so sad. Okay, so I didn't get my act together until today, but I didn't have a total nervous breakdown 4 years ago either. I came very close, I bet. The Moral? Growing up is a gradual never-ending process. And then you die.
Here's a concept drawing I did for Legends From Camp, back 'round 1998 (!). Since starting this web project, my mind has shifted back and forth between, "Oh my God, look at all the stuff I've done!" to "Oh my God this is all the stuff I've done?" Go figure.

Helpful Hints

Kids, it's important to market yourself effectively. To this end, you need to have an appropriate publicity photo. The image at left is an example of a clear and alluring head shot sure to leave a strong first impression with the people you need to impress.
I've finished the first pass through the Lithia job, and now I'm friggin' with my web site again. Actually, I'm going through all of my @#$ing disorganized $#@% in order to dig up the rest of the images I'd like to post in the Vault section of the web site.

Saturday, come love me

I'm working on a quick flash job for Lithia Motors today. Glory. Then the site. Then DMF. Then USEM. This blog is making my life look bleak. Working on little things here and there. Fugreheth. I love how long my Macbook Pro takes to open and close programs. It's awesome! Computers rule! Kids, don't complain about computers. It's weak. Like me. Like our society. Er, uh, etc. . . Still, I'm a big fan of Microsoft products such as Word. The "Word" computer program allows you to "process" your words and create published documents from your own desk. You also receive a genuine advantage by using their operating system, "Windows." Macintosh products are more expensive, but made of silver. Outstanding.

Embarrassment? Shame?

11:00 a.m. and I'm feelin' uptight. Swimming in trivia. Bunch of @#$% to do for school. Bleh. All aboard the Great Northern Railway!