One moment please, nostalgia coming through

I spent as much time as humanly possible hanging out at Cafe 101 in Lafayette, LA in the years between my 17th and 20th birthday (I spent the evening of my 21st eating pizza with Richard Grant at the Papa Johns that took over the space after the cafe failed). The moments not spent going to shows at Metropolis, chasing girls, doing drugs, or working were lived there. My work study at USL was in the English department, and on my runs to the campus post office, I always managed to swing way out of my way to grab a cup of coffee (in my personal George E. Ohr mug, kept behind the counter) and catch up with the folks. It's that place for me, the place where I met the people who taught me the things that made me the person I am. The coffee was okay, a little better once they started roasting their own. I've since had much better. But the people and the space, the open mikes that we had, the stupid shit that we did, that is irreplaceable.

Okay okay just one more

Garfield Fan Fiction. Yes, it exists. No, I don't know why.

more wordles

"Ça Plane Pour Moi," by Plastic Bertrand


"Surfin' Bird," by The Trashmen


"The Classical," by The Fall

atomized Moby-Dick

Wordle is a web gee-gaw that generates awesome clouds of words from submitted text. I fed Wordle the text of Moby-Dick:

(click, of course, to increase girth)

Thanks, Bully!

Chris Sims is a really funny guy

So, I read Chris Sims' Incredible Super Blog pretty much daily. It is a treasure: smartly written, funny prose, mostly about comic books that should by all rights be consigned to the dust-heap of history. So yeah, geek-city. Anyway, today's entry contained a real gem, which I would like to share with you:

For my part, the evening started in the hotel room, where I mixed up a Wake-Up Call (Kahlua, Cream Liqueur, Vanilla Rum and a Starbucks Double-Shot) to recover from a long day of conventioneering and Dr. K pointed out that the actual name of that drink is something that ends in “-tini.” I told him that if I was going to make a Girl Drink, I should at least be allowed to give it a manlier name. It was then decided–and this took me, Dr. K, Chad, Trey and Jay–that by that rationale, a Strawberry Daquiri with extra whipped cream, cherries and a pineapple stick should be called a Cock Sword Machinegun Pickup Truck Volume 2: The Metal Years. Tell your friends!

Can we please go out for Cock Sword Machinegun Pickup Truck Volume 2: The Metal Yearses this weekend guys, please?!

Two Exercises

I have recently decided to start trying the exercises in Jessica Abel and Matt Madden's Drawing Words and Writing Pictures, the wonderful new comics-art textbook from First Second. Since I have this blog thing, and part of the point of it is to show people stuff I do, here are two results that I like:


(Draw a person staggering)


(Draw a person running)

I got a whale tattooed on me for my birthday

Why The Incredible Hulk is a cinematic masterpiece

There was this one part where the Hulk throws a forklift at a guy. And there was this other part where the Hulk rips a police car in half and puts the halves on his fists to use as brass knuckles so he can whale on the Abomination. Yes, you read that right. Rips a police car in half. Oh, and also, Ed Norton is a gifted actor who makes me not mind so much the parts of the movie where the Hulk is not hulking around, smashing stuff. William Hurt? Good stuff. Thunderbolt Ross to a T. Liv Tyler? A good actress, giving emotional depth to a part in a comic book movie. But the Hulk, smashing? Yes. Very nice.

The Hulk, for me, represents the sense of rage and powerlessness that is a symptom of living in a world run by avaricious, shortsighted jackasses. Individuals living today cannot escape a feeling of hopelessness in the face of the fact that the ruling elite, those that have power over us, are to a man lunatics and assholes. In a strange sense, despite his brutality and the swath of destruction that his presence invariably carves across reality, the Hulk embodies a primarily creative principle, that of the ability of the individual to enact change in a world that tends towards moral decay and despair. It is important to remember that the Hulk is more often heroic than not. Even in his darkest moments, where he seems to be the twisted embodiment of Banner's unfettered id, this sense of boundless power arising from rage at the way the world is is still a fundamental aspect of the portrayal of the Hulk. Anyway, that's me rambling on about why I love the Hulk.

It is my effing birthday

So, I'm just posting to kill time before people buy me drinks and give me things.

Things that are important today:

• The new Hulk movie is out this weekend, and it will probably blow. If you need solace, or an explanation as to why the Incredible Hulk is worth your while, you should read the best Hulk strip ever.


• Boris is the most important band doing music made with guitars currently in existence.
  


• Speaking of guitars, Moog's Paul Vo has created what may be the greatest innovation in the history of that instrument since Les Paul invented the electric. If it's as amazing as it seems, it may actually change the face of guitar-based music. Or it's the next Chapman Stick
  
• It's my birthday