CURRENT EVENTS

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10.14.07

Added three bits under Illustrations, a zombie pic and two previously incomplete posts. Still trying to paint on illustration board, but, true to my form, I immediately became discouraged with my results and have been reluctant to dive in again. What an asshole.

I've been scripting out and thumbnailing a comic, though, in addition to redoing the water-damaged first page of a humor strip I started a ways back, part of a CD insert for my friends' band.

I'm actually surprised this site has had as many visits as it does. I've been keeping a log and there seems to be at least a few hits every other day. Oddly, my artwork has popped up in Google searches, and even a few friendly people have contacted me with praise.

Halloween is coming and the Ghostbuster costume needs to be donned again. The Proton pack, however, is in terrible condition after being stored outdoors, under the stairs in a plastic bag for two years... I shall have to rebuild it posthaste! Stronger! Better! Faster!

Some 19 year-old girl was crushed to death on her bike by a cement truck, across the corner from where I used to live downtown. I don't know why I'm fixated on it, I read the paper every day to see how many more 20 year old kids are being killed in Iraq, but for some reason I can't stop thinking about how weird it is that you can be snuffed out so quickly, you wouldn't even know it. Years ago, not long after I started working at a Frito Lay plant, some 20-ish year old guy dropped dead in church, for no reason. I didn't even know him and it still gets to me.

Ah well, back to business as usual.

"Life is like animal porn... It's not for everyone." -Doug Stanhope

Listening to: Been drawn back into Godpeed! You Black Emperor, as well as still digging the new White Stripes. A new PJ Harvey is out, and in my impoverished state, I may just have to rob an elderly rotarian to acquire sufficient funds with which to purchase it.

Reading: Zombies, anyone? A coworker lent me six trade paperbacks of 'The Walking Dead', a fantastically well-written and drawn zombie survival comic. Also finally finished 'The Zombie Survival Guide'. I have books on my shelf I've not yet read, others I've not yet finished, and still many I don't have that I'd like to read, but I'm not sure what I'm in the mood for. Maybe I'm about due to reread my entire Calvin & Hobbes collection.

Watching: I finally succumbed to the Netflix demon, and it is SO choice. Seeing great movies, as well as some old favorites. Just watched 'Croupier' with a young Clive Owen, as well as Louis CK's shortlived show 'Lucky Louie'.

Foodening: Nothing totally fantastic lately, my enchilada/beans/rice are at their peak, and I have been treating myself to pancakes on my weekends. Been craving some Mediterranean lately...MMmmmm...Falafel.

Playing: VALVE ORANGE BOX. OMG IT IS TEH LEET HAXXORZ!!! Portal, Team Fortress 2, and Half Life 2 Episode2, all on one deliciously gleaming disc. This, plus the Legend of Zelda for DS has my gaming needs filled up like a twinkie-stuffed turkey wrapped in bacon being pnuematically forced into Rosie O'donnell's gaping maw.

Terror Level: Right now it looks like the only way to stop the war in Iraq, is to go to war with Iran. Kind of like how Afghanistan has now faded into the background with less troops and casualties, Iran will make Iraq look like a fucking McDonald's Playland. Maybe I'll get drafted, have my legs blown off, then while I'm laying in Walter Reed Medical Center and President Douchebag comes to visit me and tell me how much he appreciates my sacrifice, I can knock out a significant number of his teeth, as well as maybe an eye before the Secret Service shoots me dead in my hospital bed and... Whoa, where did that come from? Anyways. Fuck you, politicos. I hope you all get face cancer. All of you. You've all been in bed together since the beginning and I hate every last one of you. There, I feel better now.

Work: SO, now the other company HAS taken over the old company, it's official. It's still work, it's still a day job, but most things I've seen/read/heard indicate that things will be much better now. There is indeed light at the end of the Rectum of Despair, however it doesn't make it any less depressing for me that I have been there five years now. I must now make it a daily habit to ingest massive amounts beer, bourbon, and anti-psychotics or otherwise spend all day weeping in the corner. I kid.

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8.21.07

Just a minor update, a few illustrations. Not being 100% productive, but still managing to get some done here and there. My big weakness is my inability to do detailed, illustrative painting. So now my future efforts in illustration will be done using acrylics on illustration board. In the past I have tried, immediately become frustrated with my efforts, then stopped, and I go back to my comfort zone of ink and/or B&W. So, we'll see what happens. Hopefully I will stick to my guns.

Katherine and I have been pondering seeing about getting a house. I'm not sure if it's within our means, but it wouldn't hurt to know.

I've also been pondering putting up another site, instead of redo-ing this one. I'd like to have a seperate site specifically for portfolio purposes (Wizards of the Coast, I'm looking at you.), so I can send a link of my work to potential employers, and they can see what I do without wading through juvenile comic strips, inane details about my life, and dead baby jokes.

I'll be 31 this year, and with the creaky knees and general demeanor of loathing, comes a sense of urgency in regards to my artwork. I feel like I want to stop fucking around and get things done.

We'll see.

"Paris Hilton is a cunt who should die of AIDS." - Patton Oswalt

Listening to: Really into the White Stripes right now, the new album is fantastic. New comedy from Brian Posehn, Todd Barry, Patton Oswalt, has me in stitches. Seriously. I laughed so hard I herniated my rectum and they had to transplant a rectum from a dead baboon.

Reading: The Zombie Survival Guide, by Max Brooks. We all know it's coming, I just want to be ready.

Watching: Picked up the second set of American Dad, great stuff. Was hideously disappointed by the series finale of Deadwood. <spoiler>I can't believe Swearengen and Bullock let Hearst walk right out of town after all the shit he pulled. Watched Heroes online and loved it, but again, disappointed by the season finale. Finally saw Hot Fuzz, christ those guys are brilliant.

Foodening: Had Crazy Burritos the other night....<drool> Haven't been cooking much lately. Right now I would take human life for a McMenamin's gardenburger, or fish and chips... Or some really kick-ass pizza. I must be hungry.

Playing: Stopped playing BF:2142, but I may go back some day. Going to reinstall BF2 so I can play with my Vancouver friends online on Wednesdays. The only game I'm playing nowadays is Dark Crusade, and Tower Tetris on my DS. I had a meltdown and did/said things that indefinitely stopped our D&D game. As much fun as it was, there were underlying issues that kept adding up for me. When scheduling again became an issue, instead of being mature and riding it out, I basically said "fuck it" and started looking for another group. Oh well, less time gaming =more time doing artwork that may someday be published in a game book. I seem to be on some kind of destructive bent lately, having also exploded on this idiot redneck asshole on a forum I frequent, and thusly vowed to self-ban after telling him what a cunt he is. Reverting to my old, lonewolf self, I guess.

Terror Level: The shit that they are getting away with borders on science fiction. The entire administration should be tried and, well... You know. What can I say here that hasn't already.

Work: Fucking hell. For months there has been legal hangups about the aforementioned takeover. Finally we get a definitive answer... then it gets appealed and now it looks like even more time will pass with no new information from either company about what is going to happen. I really feel like leaving a burning bag of dogshit in front of the FTC's office right now.

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3.21.07

Here we are, almost four months into 2007, and finally a bloody damn update. I've added a few new pieces to the Illustration tab, and after a few months of having some site troubles (portions of it were not viewable by Internet Explorer, but did fine under Firefox... Yay, Firefox!) I seemed to have corrected them in a caffeine-stupor.

Art for me progresses slowly, if at all. I'm feeling incredibly unproductive, and I'm beginning to understand why some artists and authors lock themselves in a cabin for months at a time to Get Things Done. I blame myself, I have a lack of discipline and confidence and it is no small coincidence that my most productive artistic years were presided over by a god of an art teacher who pushed my efforts and attention where I would not have on my own. Nowadays, I'm so disgusted by my lack of drive I just want some greasy mafia characters to break a toe for every day I don't so much as doodle a perverted Family Circus cartoon.

Things are great with Katherine and our furry boys. At times we consider adding to the brood, then something inevitably gets chewed in half or shat upon and we come to our senses. That doesn't stop us, however, from torturing each other by sending email links of craigslist and Humane Society pet adoption ads to one another.

That's all I have, the tea is wearing off and boiling more water seems like a Herculean feat at this hour.

"Without deviation progress is not possible." -Frank Zappa

Listening to: All the old standbyes, I've nothing new but I am lamenting the absence of some CD's that I sold a while back and I may need to reacquire them.

Reading: I just finished "Destined for Destiny:  The Unauthorized Autobiography of George W. Bush", written by a couple of The Onion's writers. Funny, and gets the point across, but at this point it's preaching to the choir. I'm not sure what to read next, but I have an old copy of Frankenstein that I've been meaning to read and I've been having odd dreams and premonitions that indicate I may soon need a fair amount of knowledge in regards to methods of combating animated tissue-beasts.

Watching: Working our way through the sixth season of the Simpsons, and just took the excellently funny Ali G Show, The Office(British), and Extras.

Foodening: I'm making enchiladas a lot at home now, and I seem to be doing better. We have developed a rather expensive addiction to a nearby Thai restaurant, One Thai. We are considering asking them if they can set up automatic withdrawal with our checking accounts.

Playing: Have made Commisar Gold in Battlefield:2142, and it is a blast to play. Unfortunately, our D&D group fell apart a few months back. Schedule changes on my part made it difficult to try and play, then my weekly work schedule has been getting gouged and I can't plan on anything except for being tired and pissed off all the time. Hopefully it will come together again soon, certain muscles associated with rolling dice atrophy quickly and are difficult to rehabilitate.

Terror Level: So I guess sending a whole bunch more guys over there will fix everything, but I think it will be like pouring more goldfish into the tank... It will just make it easier on the cats.

Work:  The company I work for will cease to exist. It is being absorbed by a larger, more successful, better managed company. There is finally light at the end of the Rectum of Despair, now it is a race against time to see if I can make it long enough to witness any of the positive changes.

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10.05.06

 Despite being nearly eaten alive by Katherine and her shark minions, I have managed to do a little update here so it does not become completely boring. I've posted the first of what will hopefully be a series of character portraits from my ongoing Dungeons & Dragons campaign that I am running. Also some old sketches I did when i was a cashier at a store that did about as much business as an East Indian Sizzler restaurant.

     Things are going well, Katherine and I took a surprise trip to the coast for a few days and treated ourselves to some of the best food we'd ever had. I'm sorry little salmon, halibut, and prawns... may you be reincarnated as something less delicious, and perhaps more dangerous to humans. Velociraptors...Mmmmm, yeah.

     The Fabled Wizards of the Coast Portfolio nears completion, much like the second Death Star. Hopefully, my portfolio will not be blown up by a bunch of selfish, fascist dickheads who only got lucky because they crashed an A-Wing into our Space-SUV.

     That's all for now.

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08.03.06

 Just so you know I'm not dead... I can't believe it's August already. I feel like a six-year-old kidnapped from a Walgreen's and held in captivity for seven months. Again, I have no new postings for this website. It's not that I haven't done any artwork, I have, but I haven't set aside the time to scan it and upload it onto the site.

     I honestly haven't done much at all. I keep hoping that my soul is just on sabbatical, that in comparison to all the art I HAVE done, my efforts are due for a vacation, regardless of the fact that they haven't earned me such in my opinion. I will try to maintain more attention to this site, as well as posting a portfolio of many ballpen drawings done at work on the sly when I should have been working. Hah! Take that, corporate America! You thought Jason was hard at work at the register, but he was actuslly sketching alien heads! Boowaahahahahahaah! My plan is complete, fools!

     I maintain the hope that my return to my drawing table will be a triumphant one, much like some irrelevant 80's hair band that had all the money, blow, and hookers it could want back in its heydey, then disappeared...Only to return a decade later to play smaller clubs so that greying, overweight, department supervisors could dig their (signed) moth-eaten concert T-shirt out of the attic from under the kids' disintegrating Halloween costumes, only to be mocked by the younger concertgoers attending only for the irony and desire to see the lead guitarist's hair plugs.

     It is also my hope that a terrible pyrotechnics mishap does not kill hundreds and once again plunge my "band" into obscurity and sloth.

     I once again did a tattoo design for someone who, upon its completion, decided they are a total wuss and did not want to have it done.(No offense, Hertz ; P ) My recent return to tabletop gaming has me plotting to illustrate my enthusiastic players' character portraits, and there is still the oft-delayed Wizards portfolio that consumes my attention.

     Things are better than ever with my Lovely, and work has become tolerable due to my exodus from the cashiering scene. Two of the cats are shaved, and they provide more love, company, and positive energy than any rugrat ever could for me.

     Sure, the world is on the cusp of Apocalypse, the Middle East is, well... The Middle East. Both Paris Hilton and Kevin Federline have released musical efforts that signal destructive powers beyond biblical proportions... But we have no choice but to move on.

     "My gran'ma always used to say: Some turds float to the top, and others sink to the bottom, but in the end they all get flushed."

-Junior, Reno 911

Listening to: Breaking out the old Rage Against the Machine, as well as Godspeed You Black Emperor! and Radiohead. The new TOOL album has me giddy like Dom Deluise in a Krispy Kreme store. I try to get new music but invariably end up buying comedy albums, as proven with my recent purchase of Lewis Black: The Carnegie Hall Performance. Holy shit.

Reading: I reread Ender's game, with the intention of going through the whole series, but EG is just too good and I fear it may be ruined by subsequent books. I'm reading a lot of Dungeons & Dragons rule and source books for my ongoing game in which both my players and myself are having a blast. I've been reintroducing myself to comics by way of trade paperbacks... Much cheaper than individual issues, and certainly better to be able to read the whole story through instead of once a month. 100 Bullets, Hellboy, The Goon, Preacher... Good stuff.

Watching: No actual TV for me, but the lady and I love cozying up to the Mac with a DVD. I've been hijacked into watching Sex and the City, which has its clever moments and a David Koresh-esque way of brainwashing you into watching more... But I find most of the characters to be shallow and detestable... Maybe that's the appeal. Deadwood season one, which I had seen and loved, was lent to me and is also being enjoyed by Katherine in preparation for season 2, which neither of us have a clue about, cocksucker! Reno 911 has provided some cheap laughs as well.

Foodening: Reheated Thai from Thai Monsoon... Holy fucking shit.

Playing: First Sergeant in Battlefield 2, Oblivion consumed me for a while, but I had to take a break. Halflife 2:Episode 1 was fun, if short. Playing Dawn of War in anticipation of the upcoming expansion, Dark Crusade - - NECRONS, Beeyotch!

Terror Level: If my brain were capable of simultaneous awareness of every possible degree of suffering, doom, and violence being perpetrated across this globe... My central nervous system would fire out my ass like a midget out of a circus cannon. So, for that inability, I am grateful.

Work: Gone are the days of cashiering. I now am a grocery-stocking monkey, who occasionally assists the scanning coordinator in her duties. It is not the soul-crushing, cry-before-leaving-for-work despair that there was before, but there is just the right amount of suck for me to completely appreciate my home life and the wonderful beings I share it with.

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01.02.06

  Ushering in the New Year is like passing a kidney stone. Painful, arduous, and a panicky fear that there will be more. But at least you have a cool story to tell when you are drinking, which is the very practice which probably induced the growth of said stone.

     Pessimism. It sometimes oozes out of my pores like garlic does. Two days in and I already feel behind. I should be at my drawing table but I've got The Fear, so it's all I can do but to be on here and post four year old drawings done during a very productive period where I was very determined. I have nothing new to post. I have about 10 different pieces in various stages of near-completion but none of them interest me. My friends and family can tell me I'm a good artist until plaid lobsters jetpack out of my eyesockets, but I don't think I'm good enough to make it professionally and so do the publishers I've sent portfolios to. I'm not giving up. I read too much Henry Rollins back in the day and enough of it is still rolling around upstairs to keep me good and pissed, and when I'm not the ghost of Bill Hicks kicks me in my kidney to remind me that I won't be behind a cash register for the rest of my life. I think about going back to art school, but then I don't want to be up to my scalp in student loans. The government-sponsored trap of loans, mortgage, and expense. Most of the people I know with art degrees are in the same slump as I am. Is it me? Or is it that many artists lack motivation? Survival of the fittest? Artists that lack self-direction do not survive artistically? Maybe I don't really want it badly enough. The most art I have been doing are goofy little sketches on the daily break schedule, which are duly wiped off the dry-erase each day. The ideas I have now do not interest me in the least. The idea of putting together a nice, professional portfolio terrifies me more than updating my resume and looking for another day job. Ugh. I'm sorry, this probably isn't interesting at all. Get off my ass. Get busy living or get busy dying.

     My throat is sore and I just want to sleep. Just to clarify, I'm not all Droopy McDepressington, I'm happy and have much to be thankful for, but the frustration I feel towards my own inability to move forward is astounding.

"The end of art is peace. And the pursuit of art is like the pursuit of religion in the intense preoccupation it demands." - W.B. Yeats

Listening To: The usual. I've been walking to work and dangerously wearing earphones, something I don't like to do as I prefer to be aware of my surroundings, but it's been nice. TOOL is good for December and Nina Simone just finished, what now?

Reading: Still working on Kingdom of Fear, and I just got my new PC Gamer in the mail, but nothing too interesting in there.

Playing: DOW and Splinter Cell, but I've been thinking about reinstalling Sid Meier's Pirates and plundering until I can plunder no more. The temptation of throwing away my entire life and playing World of Warcraft or Star Wars Galaxies is still something I am strong enough to deny.

Terror Level: Paralyzed. Failed my saving throw.

Work: I dropped my medical benefits for this next year to have extra money to save, so hopefully nothing bad happens.<gurgles, clutches at chest, collapses to floor, eaten by cats.>

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12.23.05

This is pretty much the look on my face whenever I realize, with grim certainty, that I have been at my current job for over three years and I am also losing my last year as a Twentysomething.

     The lady and I have spent over the last week in a fetal position, our bodies wracked with some terrible virus that makes the first hour of The Stand seem like Disneyland. Or is it the other way around? I can't tell. Fever, NyQuil(Walgreen's economy version), and hallucination has left my brain vacant, unresponsive, and useless like Pauly Shore. The cool thing about being sick is that I can be a bum and lay around the computer without the nagging voice in my head advising me I should be doing otherwise.

     The WOTC portfolio has seen little progress, I blame it on my annual cycle of lethargic depression that coincides with That Day in December. Call it christmas. Call it Holidays, Hanukah, Kawanzaa, I don't care. I am repulsed and angered by the notion of its mandatory participation. People say "Merry christmas" to me, I tell them I don't recognize christmas and they stare at me like a dog that's just been shown a card trick ( the dog/card trick line belongs to Bill Hicks). In a way it's hilarious that the two camps are arguing over the happy holidays/merry christmas garbage. It's like arguing over who was the best bailiff in Night Court... It doesn't matter. It was a crappy show, end of story.

     My computer, bless its little Athlon heart, has cost me more money and lent me more grief in just this last year than any teenage daughter could possibly do in the span of 5. So, I've spent most of the last two weeks meddling with it and restoring it to the fine beast it once was.

     My hair is blue for some reason, my nipples and navel studs have been acting funny ever since a steam bath in Alaska, and the washer in our apartment has been inactive for the last week contributing greatly to the sentient pile of towels, sheets, and boxer-briefs that threatens to devour us all, starting with the cats... But things are good. I hate my job but things are good. I'm not being shot at yet, and there are many good people, loves, and pleasantries here. Things are good.

     I was thinking how cool it would be if after Bush gets impeached, just before he steps onto the helicopter, he turns, raises his hands in the traditional Nixon salute... and has his fingers cut off by the helicopter blades. Maybe he'd get a bed next to some guy from Iraq who got his legs sheared off at the knees by an IED. It would make for interesting conversation.

"There are no jokes. Truth is the funniest joke of all."-Muhammad Ali

Listening to: Notably less, since I lost the entire musical contents of my hard drive(all legal, you federal filth), but still my favorites. PJ Harvey has been on heavy rotation as has Primus' Brown Album. Puddin' Taine!

Reading: A friend lent me some Planetary tpb's and I am enthralled. Gave up on Bruce Campbell, some other time. Enjoying Kingdom of Fear, by Hunter S. Thompson, and the Dawn of War forums at Relic online.

Playing: Not much... Too many 'puter problems. But a friend lent me Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory and I am very much enjoying sneaking about in the dark and interrogating hapless guards at knifepoint.

Terror Level: I guess I'm supposed to be worried about Avian Flu, I think that's the latest smokescreen.

Work: ...like having molten-hot lava pumped into my rectum until it comes out my nose like milk would if I was laughing really hard, but I'm not laughing, so it isn't coming out my nose... There's just the lava in the 'ol bunger.

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12.4.05

 Hello kids! Well, I just got back from a week in Bethel, Alaska with my lovely and her mother. Very gorgeous, very cold, and a very desperate pocket of humanity. Ravens the size of hell-chickens.

     Currently trying to put together a submission portfolio for Wizards of the Coast, it will be the first I have sent out in years and my motivation is not strong. The vicious circle of being drained from working at a cash register, leaves me weak and desiring only rest, which disables my desire to do creative work on my own, which lengthens my stay at said register job, which deepens my resentment for the cash register and makes me want to leave so much more... I don't know where I was going with this.

     A few additions/changes to the site, but I can't seem to get the comics much more legible than they are. I'll keep meddling with it.

     Just put a coat of gesso over a large horizontal surface for painting... Didn't like what was already done on it...

     Hopefully my New Years resolution will involve getting my art out there and visible, and cranking out more in general, along with the usual liver calcification and spiraling barrel-roll into depression.

     Hasta la huevos!

     Jason 12.4.05

LISTENING TO: PJ Harvey, Ween, Radiohead's 'Pyramid Song', and a smattering of Godspeed You Black Emperor!

READING: Just finished 'The Goon' trade paperback, very cool. I loved Bruce Campbell's 'If Chins Could Kill', but I'm having a hard time with his newer book, 'Make Love!*the Bruce Campbell Way'... But I'm going to dive in and try and finish it.

PLAYING: Warhammer40k: Dawn of War and Winter Assault expansion... Waiting for a good price dip to get F.E.A.R.. I've had GTA San Andreas for months and I just can't commit to playing it. I loved Vice City and San Andreas seems even better... BUT IT'S SO DAMN HUGE, IMPOSING, AND TERRIFYING WITH SO MUCH TO DO! I guess that's what an altar boy feels like his 'first time'.

TERROR LEVEL: Terrified beyond the capacity for rational thought.

WORK: Maintaining a nominal degree of resentment, frustration, and outright malevolent hatred.

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