This, part deux.

This.

I'm in yer Facebooks, meta-ing yer feed.

STRING!

Great li'l bit about Oakland on the local National Public Radio FB feed today.

Five Reasons Why Oakland is Hella Awesome on the Internet

The best thing EVER:  the When in Oakland Tumbler. oh. my. god. The realness just blew my mind.

Oakland Pedestrians:

When I Start Off on Telegraph in Oakland and End up on Telegraph in Berkeley:

OMG, one more, near and dear to my heart.

When I Have to Drive Through Berkeley:

Oy vey.



















DC Plans Prequel to Watchmen Series

Guess how Alan Moore feels about it?

I tend to take this latest development as a kind of eager confirmation that they are still apparently dependent on ideas that I had 25 years ago.

This zinger is true. Also true: it's pretty likely this money-making measure will turn out meh. But, at the same time, I'm over "no one can touch my sacred cow" and "I had to hand over my firstborn when I signed those contracts."

Alan Moore was gifted to be sure -- Watchmen is genius -- and I'm thankful that genius was recognized, but sadly, this is the way it is for artists, especially when they are first starting out. How much literary and visual work have my friends signed away, sometimes after doing it FOR FREE, just to get their work seen? Yet these are also the folks I know who have found success.

I'm not saying these practices are okay, and I definitely don't mean to blame the victim -- it's more like 80/20 for me. In a lot of ways I appreciate Moore's protests of mainstream publishers' predatory and some would say unethical modus operandi; at least when prompted for a grouse he not only cements his place within the comic canon but reminds us of the realities of being any kind of artist. But business is business, and he's famous because of those contracts -- they afforded him the place in said comic canon he occupies now. When one chooses to play the game there comes a time to let your great work stand, and then let the inevitable go.

Or, if you're going to dine with the devil, best to use a long spoon.

Amazeballs.



"17 countries and it has to be unanimous -- unanimous! I can't even get three friends to agree on a restaurant, can you imagine how hard it would be if none of us spoke the same language and our grandparents killed each other in WWII?"

Here is a terrific interview at Argot & Ochre with my friend, the super illustrator Jon Stich.





































(^^ one of my all-time faves)

This interview (like Jon) is very candid. Even though it is brief, I think it's a great tool for new illustrators, because Jon is very honest about the ins and outs of getting work, marketing it, and selling it.





































You can take a look at some of the prints and originals Jon has for sale and give him some love at his Etsy site.

Cute, and true.



















Bikes of San Francisco

Buy the poster here.

But listen. Stop trying to pretend that you can live in New York and have this overly successful life based on writing alone. It’s a cruel joke! It hurts my feelings! You have to be poor as fuck because every writer, including myself, moves to NYC and feels oftentimes homeless. A good day is when you don’t think ‘maybe I should cook these garbage rats for sustenance’ and a great day is ‘i have 35 dollars I’m going to finally be able to eat something other than canned beans and Four Loko.’ YOU MAKE NONE OF THE SENSE, BRADSHAW.

Carrie Bradshaw Math

Brilliant.

I loathe twitter, but this is making me change my mind a bit:

shitmydadsays

If you're the only one who shits in something, you own it. Remember that.

Class.

As you get older, life only gets funner.

-- six-year old child to Trevor

As much as it is sometimes difficult, I've got to remember to look at year 35 like I looked toward 7.

Found a tenner on the sidewalk yesterday, and had a great time eating Southern BBQ and cornmeal-fried catfish whilst watching Independence Day fireworks from a fancy manse rooftop in Potrero Hill. Today, I've already had a lovely walk with my honey, as well as macaroni and cheese for breakfast with my Sunday NY Times, and am now off to the outdoor store to buy a new sleeping bag for a camping trip with friends to some super-secret hot springs Friday, and then to hot yoga with my favorite instructor and dinner with my sweetcakes afterward. Looking forward to super-secret birthday events on Tuesday and Paul Newman outdoor cinema and wine on Wednesday. Funner, indeed!

Bring it on, birthday week.

While we wait for the Proposition 8 saga to play out in the courts, a little bit of sweet justice:

Prop 8 Campaign Can't Hide Donors' Names

Lawyers for Protect Marriage, sponsor of the constitutional amendment [outlawing same-sex marriage in California] that won voter approval Nov. 4, said contributors have already faced consumer boycotts, picketing and even death threats after the state posted their names and other information in mandatory campaign reports.

They argued that the law requiring disclosure of all donors of $100 or more interfered with the campaign's right to participate in the political process and should be struck down, modified to raise the dollar limits, or at least not applied to contributors to the measure outlawing same-sex marriage.

They want special treatment to have the law "...at least not applied to contributors to the measure outlawing same-sex marriage." Are they for real? And actually, let's be clear exactly what these folks did: they provided financial support to a measure stripping gay couples of their rights to marriage, rights granted by the California Supreme Court months earlier.

So we should just make an exception any time there is any controversial measure up for a vote by which support (or opposition) could result in death threats? Please. There are yuppie tools in my building who would post a death threat on Yelp for feeling neglected by a waitress.

So what's the real reason behind the request for exemption? Could it be that the fallout is more enduring and more damaging than supporters expected, especially as it is becoming more clear to people -- even some supporters -- that is was WRONG and SHAMEFUL to support Proposition 8?

Hmmmmm, and boycotts can be bearable, but not coupled with a recession.

If you're unwilling to stand up for your beliefs, and are afraid of consumer boycotts because of said beliefs, then you are a coward and a slimy, hypocritical liar. And oh yes, I have checked the list and I have made my calls and written my letters and initiated boycotts, as have many of my friends.

And if you're ashamed of it being publicized that you are on the wrong side of history, then simply make the right decision. There is nothing wrong with gay marriage (and it's coming, it's just a matter of time), just like there was and is nothing wrong with mixed-race marriage. Yet the opponents of gay marriage use the same tired arguments that mixed-race marriage opponents did years ago. And just look how the opposition fared in the history books.

It's a sad truth that every Proposition 8 supporter who gave $100 or more to the campaign will be immortalized in history as backward and ignorant. Can you imagine 20 years from now, when these folks' children or grandchildren learn about the history of gay civil rights and their names pop up on a Prop 8 supporter list? That's right, they'll be filed right alongside the fools that preceded them. It will happen -- viva la internets!

/rant

I really can't stand the writing of the author of this article (so much so I'm not naming him for any further free publicity), but I do like the subject matter.

So, what are your greatest rock and roll myths? (And I just have to say, haha, Robert Plant, you card.)

I was quite surprised that the first one that popped into my mind -- the old school yarn of a Bowie/Jagger affair -- didn't make the cut. Glamorous myth, or glamorous truth?

But I must agree: that "half-eaten backstage deli tray by a moth-eaten couch under the green glow of fluorescent lights" is truly the sad, sad backstage reality that kills the glamorous rock and roll backstage fantasy.

Though, in my case, it was more like cheap alcoholic leftovers in a plastic bus tub -- filled now with more water than ice -- sitting by a moth-eaten couch in a room with one window, being scavenged by a local tambourine player/record store clerk and his coked-up friends. Leftovers that were also being offered to me by a roadie who may have been thinking of me as a sexytime prospect. Oy vey.

I'm still disappointed from that complete nosedive of my backstage fantasy!