Blogalopod

I’m sitting at my desk at work, obviously counting something very intently.

SHE walks in.

“IT IS BRENSDAY?!?!” (All caps and a proliferation of excited, confused punctuation couldn’t be more appropriate. For every moment she speaks.)

I reply, without looking up, because making eye contact is a repulsive prospect : like gazing into a pair of face-anuses poised over a choking mess of teeth that can’t possibly chew through anything (can they?). I can no longer be bothered to feign interest or kindness after this woman gleefully wooed me with tales of how her backwoods redneck husband has created a population of “eye-less” and “tail-less” squirrels around her house from his backporch shooting range. Her delight at animal mutilation, and a man not even MAN enough to kill a critically injured animal (were these tales true) killed the last give-a-fuck I could muster for her.

I reply, as usual when she spouts a half-sentence of nonsense which has stumbled through her jagged mouth and out into the unsuspecting world, “I don’t know what that means.”

“MY FRIEND BRENDA AT THE ZOO! IS IT BRENSDAY?!?!”

“I don’t know your friend Brenda.”

“BRENSDAY!”

She acts as if I’m an idiot for not knowing her secret dialect. She is a woman so supremely arrogant and stupid that her own mysterious language, cobbled together from the worst aspects of pop culture and always delivered in her “funny voice” (aka “Incredibly Loud, Constipated Old Man”), is the only language that matters, and anyone who does not know it is a fool and requires reeducation.

I count louder, to reinforce the fact that I am counting, and I am not smart enough to count and listen at the same time.

“ARE YOU COUNTING? SHE DOES TATTOOS!”

“BRENSDAY!”

“THERE’S SO MUCH TO DO I’M TWO WEEKS BEHIND I CAN’T DO IT ALL!”

I’m still obviously trying to count, louder and louder. She knows I’m counting – why doesn’t she shut up about her friends?

“IT’S BRENSDAY!”

I leave the room as quickly as I can, before the urge to kick her chair out from under her becomes too great. I go home early. After a co-worker had tried to look up “Steven Hawken’s A Brief History of the World” earlier today, I’d had enough.

Beckie and I couldn’t figure out what we wanted to do this past Saturday. We’d spent a long day napping, poking around at the computer, and trying to discover some miraculous, new, not-too-far-away thing-to-do in the Hudson Valley, but once tag sale season is over, there’s very little in the way of keeping the late 20-somethings entertained out of the house that doesn’t involve some form of substance abuse. Feet get cold, people get cranky, and it’s a long wait until Craigslist starts to flower with all-caps ‘YARD SALE’ blossoms again.

By 4:30, hunger finally motivated us to move and find food. At 4:32, a bevy of sirens and firetrucks were occluding the only exit from the road and out into civilization. Since we were already walking out to the car when the ruckus began, we walked towards a smoking building at the end of her road, within sight of her apartment. Firefighters were dragging hoses around and smoke was pouring from some windows as they were being smashed out by firemen inside and using long poles on the outside. The sound of shattering glass continued for far longer than the limited number of windows in the building would sensibly permit, and the noise had summoned an elderly lady who called herself “Boop” from the far end of the road, where the nice houses live, who believed that things were exploding. This distracted her from her preparations for “Sunday Thanksgiving”. Her puffy billows of white hair doubled the size of her head and made her body look even tinier than it was. She told us about all of the neighbors she knew and kept on making the sign of the cross with skeletal, restlessly alive fingers.

By 6 PM, the swarm of police cars and firetrucks had barely abated, but we managed to slide past and get food. By morning, news revealed that the squat, concrete building attached to the burning house was actually a hydroponic marijuana lab. Which explained the prolonged sound of glass smashing to the floor as glass equipment was plowed over by the sprays of water, as well as the presence of drug enforcement agents in the morning.

In the daylight, the venetian blinds grinned stupidly like broken teeth, and yellow police tape spun around the building, ricocheted off of a barbecue grill in the back yard, and cordoned off all of the interesting from the grey expanses of Route 44 again.

On Sunday, we once again poked at Craigslist, and found something.

ON SALE LARGE ESTATE OF ANTIQUE DEALER INCLUDING A LARGE AMOUNT OF ALL TYPES OF ANTIQUES, AN IMMENSE AMOUNT, 15 LARGE BOXES OF ANTIQUE COSTUME JEWELRY, NICE COLLECTIBLES AND LOVELY ANTIQUE DOLLS. ALL NEGOTIABLE. ALSO BIG BUILDING SETS, GI JOES, BIG WOOD SLEDS ALL VERY LOW PRICED FOR THE KIDS, AS WELL AS BIG OLD POWER TOOLS, QUALITY MEN’S SUITS, BIG WINTER JACKETS, AND A 1,000′S OF ALL KINDS OF NICE ITEMS. CHRISTMAS GIFTS REASONABLY PRICED AND NEGOTIABLE!!!!

ITS COME AND BROWSE AT YOUR LEISURE.

CALL 845 632 XXXX TO ARRANGE A TIME TO COME VIEW THESE ITEMS. EVERYTHING IS NEGOTIABLE AND WE GIVE YOU NICE JUICE TO DRINK.

FIND SOMETHING WONDERFUL. WE HAVE TOO MUCH TO KEEP.

We called, and set up an appointment to sift through boxes at noon. We discovered that this house was only a few houses away from where I once purchased a Space Shuttle pinball machine from a guy who called himself “Jim Pinball”.

We were escorted up some wooden stairs as a man named Charlie watched football, brought box after box to his low coffee table, and cut the filters off his cigarettes with a pair of black-handled, steely scissors. His son is the top nanotechnology student in the world, and Charlie worked for GE for 18 years before retiring, “doubling accounts” every year and maintaining a “90% retention rate” and other business words. He gives “Mexicans” bonuses and takes them out to dinner when they help him paint and refinish floors – but also believes that they should be shot as they cross the border illegally after a certain, as-yet-undetermined date. He wore a knit cap the entire time he was inside, and when he followed us out to his car.

When we were lamenting the high cost of living in the Hudson Valley, I mentioned that I take graphic design jobs to make ends meet, and was subsequently accused of being the reason that his friend, who coincidentally came up with the idea for Fudgie the Whale, was canned from his job : young kids willing to work longer hours for less money. While I reassured him that the real problem with making a living as a graphic designer is competing with hiring people overseas with a lower cost of living and generally less concern about quality of work, I don’t think that he was convinced.

The dissonance between crates of costume jewelry (which he never gave us a clear answer about the origins of) and a case full of Hummels and rare china sets, left-wing politics and football was unsettling as we creaked on his leather couch and I began sweating through my jeans. I came away with a handful of free brass pieces which will eventually turn into rayguns, and Beckie with a few interesting odds and ends. Charlie knew what he had, even if we had no idea what we were looking at – the names of certain makers, types of metals, how to test them. No one was pulling one over on Charlie – especially those “Jews” who came last week and was very rude to him because he asked fair prices.

Dusty wooden floors and a bearded son who went to study at Starbucks as we sat there, and the tinny strains of opera playing somewhere, somewhere from the depths of the house. No mention of a wife during the two hours we spent on his couch, but words edgewise weren’t really to be had anyhow.

I guess we really didn’t need any. Charlie had us covered.

There were two or three months about two years ago when everything felt good. There was a feeling of infinity, of accepting the place where life dropped me, and of possibility, of running and walking at the same time. The idea that anything was possible, and that I could do or be anything, was very liberating. Especially because it enabled me to be okay with who I was, which is something I’ve never been able to do.

I don’t know what aligned to make this possible. Nothing had changed. In fact, I was recovering from one of the worst defeats of my life. Maybe it was the contrast between terrible and mediocre that I was experiencing, and that elation was only relative to itself – but I think it was more than that.

I remember it precisely : it felt like fresh air, like space. It haunts me almost constantly. I want it back. This feels like starving : an angry stomach and an angry brain seething constantly is no way to live.

I wish that I could say I’ve spent my time away from Blogalopod being crazy creative and producing a ton of awesome artwork, but if anything, it’s been corporate whorage : lots of great clients, making stuff for commercial purposes. “Building a portfolio” is the “don’t kill yourself” word for it.

I’ve had a creative block for a long time, in terms of anything that didn’t immediately bring me cash. I guess that’s the thing you drag around behind you when your day job pays you about 60% of living wage in your county—that constant quest for the other 40% with all of the waking hours of your day, waiting for a resume to hit home with someone, or that dream job to finally come through and be unleashed by its corporate leash holders. There’s an awesome writing-traveling-creative-social media job on the horizon, but it’s a horizon that keeps on creeping back with every step I take.

So I took a few days off to see Jeff Mangum’s first show in Burlington VT (as seen here on Splice). Something about sitting in the church, seeing this guy play, freed up a lot of creative stuff that I’d been hesitating on, or unable to get through my hands. My drawing skills felt crippled, but they found their way out. And I started working on the next series of trading cards I’ve been commissioned to do : Suckpax Series 3.

Most of the rest are kinda pornographic, so I’ve been debating about making them public. I still want to illustrate a childrens book some day. Still, it’s fun to work with someone else’s themes.

Comics and custom toys are on the art-roster, and it feels pretty okay. As always, updates on Facebook.

[Half-finished post from January 8th, 2011]

So, what’s been happening?

It’s been snowing in New York. I wouldn’t mind moving to a place that was gloriously snow-less and had restaurants shaped like giant animal skulls. I made an attempt at driving to work yesterday, but my tires have exceeded their expiration date due to a constant lack of funds, and I was spinning and sliding far too much. The snow continued to fall until closing time anyhow, and my town was mentioned on the news for getting the brunt of the storm and having poor road conditions. The people I work with drive SUVs or live 2 minutes away, so I’m the odd one out. No one mentions my town on the news unless someone is killed or going to be killed, circumstantially. We’re New York’s great inconsequence.

Christmas wasn’t a disaster, but I’m very prepared to walk away from family and never return. My girlfriend got me Green Lantern shoes, an awesome Ghost Rider shirt and a giant talking Galactus, among other things. It’s nice to finally date someone who doesn’t shoot down my appreciation for comic things, and despite not being interested in comics upon entering the relationship, completely understands why I’m into them. Weirdly costumed people who bend reality and have complicated stories? Why not?

I’m halfway through four or five new drawings and paintings which I’m not completely ready to show off yet. Hexagons, skulls, and a drawing of Galactus which is pretty awesome. I’m still drawing and painting, and it feels great to balance all of it.

I’m still pushing through a deluge of client work. The current project entails creating 100 icons : 5 icons for 20 different keywords. In essence, I have to interpret “pets” in three ways, “house” in three ways, etc. It’s a challenge to create five diverse aesthetics that are consistent throughout a set, and it would be more enjoyable if the client didn’t take 2 days to respond to every question. Or forget to officially “approve” the contract. Freelancers set deadlines for two reasons :

a) to get your project done on time
b) to get paid at a certain time

… so when your lack of response pushes back a project for no good reason, it doesn’t help your artist by “giving them more time”. We have bills, guy.

Working through Guru.com is insanely, unnecessarily complicated. There are a million little steps that barely function, but the competition there is minimal, since most of the users are still stuck in MSPaint. You can click on just about any profile and find a winning image, like this.

[End transmission]

I’ve been away for a while, but only because I found myself weighed down by a bunch of little deadlines handed down by clients that suddenly clustered around me. In a grand scheme, it’s very fortunate that I was able to freelance my art things out and build up my credibility on a few freelancing websites (like eLance and Guru), but it’s exhausting. And none of the work has really been that creative – just interpreting ideas of clients and being told that I wasn’t doing it just like they had in their head.

I wrote about it here.

It really emphasizes the gulf between basic communication skills and what people expect in terms of what the “artist” produces. I can’t even describe how many files I created, was told that they needed to be changed, and had the client go back to the original samples I send them. It’s a lot of wasted time and efficiency that could be used on bigger ideas, not smaller ones. The creative ideas are constantly clipped for more generic, expected, simple ideas that don’t really emphasize the merits of the project or product – but I guess that’s why these folks hire outside artists. I just wish that they were more receptive to the ideas of people who have seen the breadth of these projects, have interacted with the push and pull of visual marketing, and know what they’re doing. There’s a synthesis of the intellectual and the emotional that a lot of people forget to integrate properly.

I’m at the other end of the client tunnel, and I want to take a break, but I also can’t wait to embrace the challenges of each new project. I’ve designed 5 t-shirts, 4 Boy Scout-type patches, 24 coloring book and dot-to-dot pages, and a whole bunch of other stuff, but if I don’t take a break and focus on the tangible, I’m going to lose my mind.

My girlfriend and I went to Tim & Eric live right after Thanksgiving, and there were never so many super-hip dorks collected in one place. I wrote about it here. On the way in, I foolishly left my multitool out in my bag, when I had about a million options to put it somewhere safe. When the security guy saw it, he suggested that I throw it in some bushes and hope that I find it later. I tried to give it to the box office with my business card, but they were assholes about it, and I finally got a security guard to take it, but despite my best efforts, I never saw him again. At about 1 AM I got a phone call from him asking me where I was, but I was already about 100 miles away and in bed, so I told him to keep it an enjoy it. Fortunately, I found a replacement on eBay for 99 cents. I’m not a fan of unnecessary loss.

================

Finally, I’ve been seeking a few more clients. The most recent one who took up my evening is based in California. What was presented as a job making graphic icons was ACTUALLY a job making complex, text-based icons. And they needed to use very specific fonts – which she didn’t know the names of, and could not provide. She wanted every font file I used, even though I explained that all fonts would be provided as images (outlines, to you AI people) on a separate layer. And she wanted each complex text image to come in 15 color variations – literally 15. It would have worked out to $2 an hour, for about 35 hours.

I was informed that I was competing against bids of $4 per image. I replied that I can’t compete with Pakistan, withdrew the bid, and registered a complaint regarding the nature of the proposal and the nature of the final project being completely different.

Thus ends my negative rampage. Things are good, too – I have a great girlfriend, a better job is possibly on the horizon, and hamburgers are delicious. So there.

It took me almost 3 weeks to complete a series of 65 icons for a website which is revamping itself, Game Friends. It should have taken less time, but the day job and daily writing tasks tend to keep me away from art. I’m excited to hunt down more freelance art work after this project is over, because the challenge is exceptional. The icons will represent levels of interactivity on this website. I’ll leave the official ones secret for the site’s ultimate reveal, but here are some rejected ones I like :

So, there’s that.

I’ll be participating in another project in Portland involving NES carts and an 8-bit skull. Details to follow, no doubt.

Can’t sleep because I feel itchy. Not rash-itchy, or bug-itchy – skin-doesn’t-fit-itchy. I’m sure it’ll pass, and it had to do with the cold air seeping in through the windows now that it’s officially autumn.

I’m spending the time doing vector sketches of my current art project : creating achievement badges for a website, shifting from figurative to literal, making things polished. It’s stuff I’ve done on a personal level and enjoyed, but it’s great to do it on a professional level as well, and it’ll be excellent for my portfolio.

I landed the most interesting, rewarding, nerdy freelance art job ever. And they even paid a deposit.

I’m very excited.

Updates to follow.

My body feels weirdly weak today. I’m going to chalk it up to the stress of returning to work after a three-week, self-imposed exile from the building. It was necessary, but the impact of returning to the madness and the unfinished never changes, no matter how large a parachute you prepare.

I’m also in debt. I’d like to pay it off so I’m working extra hardcore on assignments. Also, if you want to buy some art, please please go to my Big Cartel shop. I’d love to make you some fancy trading cards. Seriously.

My birthday is in less than 3 weeks. The best gift would be to just ignore it. I deny all birthdays until the moment I’m happy with my life. Then they’ll start to count.