Enthusiasm

I saw this this morning.
My own story closely resembles that of the uninsured person in Wolf Blitzer's hypothetical question. I take personal and extreme offense to the behavior in the video. The people in this video would have let me die, or live the rest of my life in extreme pain. And they would do it enthusiastically. If you support these people or their ideas, I have no use for you.

As it was, I spent over a year in extreme pain, until Massachusetts' health care law provided me a path to wellness. I had a herniated disc that was eventually treated with surgery. The surgeon said it was one of the worst he'd seen, he said it looked like a big piece of broccoli sticking out of my spine. I got up and walked around the hospital the next morning after surgery. I walked up and down stairs. For that, I am thankful to this day.

In the video, Ron Paul says I should go to my church for help. For a $14,000 surgery. Or rely on my community? Well, my community did come to my rescue, my community is called Massachusetts. And this is a community that the people on that stage and in that audience sneer at, because it is a community that helped me.

A few more thoughts...
Someone said to me today, well that was just a few jerks in the audience. True, a few people yelled, but there was also quite a big audience applause.

During the 2008 presidential race, a crazy lady in a red shirt stood up at a McCain rally and rambled to Senator McCain that Obama was an arab muslim, etc. McCain did the right thing. Right then and there, he took the microphone from the woman and stopped the craziness. He stood against his own crowd. It was a courageous and honorable act. None of the candidates did any such thing last night.

New Psychedelic Shirt

I want to have a series of zombie face shirts. This would be the 3rd in the series...and I'd like for it to make you nauseous. Click to enlarge.

50 Foot Woman

Did this quickie this weekend. Sharpie and Pentel brush pen, digital color. Check out the show, it'll make you smile.

LD

This morning I dreamt I was driving my car from Worcester Center Blvd (now Major Taylor Blvd) onto Foster St, here in Worcester. The light turned red. I'm parked with the hospital on my left, Centrum/DCU on my right. As the car in front of me blatantly runs the light, I can see it's an older asian driver and I try not to think about stereotypes. He almost hits an oncoming car. I look in the oncoming car and Larry David is driving it. He's looking incredulously out the window at the asian guy. Soon, while I'm still waiting there, Larry David runs across a crosswalk and someone almost runs him over. I yell out the window, Stop following the law!

...Which I thought was clever.

Then I go into a public bathroom and use the stall. I don't think I am pooping, I'm just in there. It's busy in there and I somehow see a buddy of mine in the next stall. We start talking and I tell him about the whole Larry David traffic thing. We talk about that for a while and as I walk out I turn to see Larry David is sitting, pooping into a urinal. I look back at the stalls and realize he's prob doing that because he got frustrated/desperate to poop but we were talking in the stall. Yet we wouldn't have been talking in the stall if he hadn't been driving around Worcester earlier. Yes, I am creating Curb episodes in my dream.

Larry David, his wife, Nicole and I are walking downtown afterward, because now we're friends of course, and I suggest we go look at the monuments. I laugh because for some reason, I again think this is clever. No one else does. I then become extremely self-conscious about having a Massachusetts accent.

His wife suggests we go to the Boynton, but Larry David says 'I don't know, that's where we said dirty words when we were young.'

Then I woke up and wrote it down as best as I could remember. I wrote it in TextEdit and cut and pasted it into my blog. I made a few small changes and fixed typos. Then I clicked 'Publish Post'.

Then you read it. You were a little disappointed by the ending.

Quorra

Finally getting a start on my sci-fi babes calendar...I've posted a few sketches so far, but it feels like it's moving so slowly. Here's an Adobe Illustrator sketch. I want to paint this in oil, we'll see how that plan goes...I have a new method for creating halftone with paint. You can see that white halftone glow behind her.

Tiki tiki!

Got asked to customize some Vans sneakers for the upcoming Skate of the Art show at the Dark World Gallery here in sunny Worc. All the sneakers in the show are up for silent auction. Proceeds go to the Worcester Animal Rescue League, so don't feel guilty about overbidding. The woofs and meows appreciate it.

Here's what I'm offering...click to enlarge.

New Morticians Shirt

My buddy Pete plays in a great rockabilly sickapsychobilly band called the Memphis Morticians. Great stuff, and every once in a while I get asked to do a shirt for these cats. Here's my newest one. Based on an old illustration I had hanging around, I redid the lighting and the girl's face, the old one always bugged me.

 

Here's their merch page, this'll be up pretty soon.

Quick sketch of Leeloo

For the scifi babe calendar, just a small thumbnail. Too busy to put any real time toward this right now.

I always liked that first few minutes where she's out on the ledge in the strange new world. Great character. I'd make sure that teh background is pushed way back, atmospheric, smoggy. The focus is on her.

Spaceballs!

Just finished this...finally. It's been hanging around forever, but I wanted to make sure I got the details right...

Lord Helmet's outfit is both the most complex and the laziest costume I've ever seen. Tons of details over ill-fitting spandex. Hilarious.

Come see it on Thursday, August 25. It's free!

Here's something else I noticed while poring over the movie, frame-by-frame. Yup, that's Optimus Prime.

Oola

Okay...what the hell is an Oola? She was Jabba the Hutt's green slave girl, the one that got eaten by the Rancor monster and had to be replaced by Princess Leia. I always liked this character, the actress had a very beautiful, expressive African face, and seemed somehow related to Bib Fortuna. Unfortunately, she had a very quick and tragic end. I've always thought Lucas threw her in only as a piece of ass and then threw her away just as quick. Not cool.

Why am I writing about this? I'm working on my 2012 calendar. You know, the one with all SCI-FI BABES instead of random portfolio crap. I want a month of Oola. Here's some sketches:

Oola-la...