Catfish Rushdie Catroons

2011-05-20T16:09:00.001-07:00

The all-new EDDY DETROIT women's maternity wear, shot glasses, baby wear, dog bowls, i-pad cases and charm jewelry are HERE! http://ping.fm/L9RuR

2011-04-17T12:54:00.001-07:00

WHO SHOT THE WATER BUFFALO T shirts Goodies- New release of Ken Babbs' Rock & Rollin' Vietnam Novel
http://ping.fm/8qpVi

2011-03-03T14:10:00.001-08:00

Señor Hsss has escaped from the prison/outhouse and now he's higher than Charlie Sheen! DOGBAD Episode 17 http://dogbad.net

2011-02-28T17:59:00.001-08:00

THIS WEEK IN DOGBAD: Señor Hsss escapes from the outhouse- Episode 17 coming Thursday, March 4th.
http://www.dogbad.net/

2011-02-05T08:22:00.001-08:00

DOGBAD Episode 16: Señor Hsss is locked in an outhouse- he has no way out unless he breaks the "third wall". http://www.dogbad.net

2011-01-15T12:58:00.001-08:00

DOGBAD EPISODE 15: Mr Wurlitzer implements a sinister plot to monetize Señor Hsss' urine. http://www.dogbad.net

2011-01-14T23:15:00.001-08:00

Last panel of DOGBAD 15 just about done. I spend more & more time colouring. James Gurney's COLOR & LIGHT book is indispensable.

2010-12-29T04:39:00.001-08:00

DOGBAD Episode 15 is in production. Apologies for delay- my WACOM died weeks ago and the new one only arrived yesterday. Cheers- Robert

2010-12-03T08:40:00.001-08:00

Dogbad Episode 14: "The Psychic Vet"
Señor Hoss & Kit McKlaw visit Dr PT Expensive, Dogbad's Psychic Veterinarian.
http://www.dogbad.net/

2010-11-28T12:14:00.001-08:00

Working on colouring DOGBAD Episode 14 today- McKlaw & Hoss visit psychic veterinarian Dr P T Expensive. I have a new background palette!

2010-11-28T11:13:00.001-08:00

A BP eco-holocaust witness dies in plane crash
http://ping.fm/kZQUZ

2010-11-23T18:03:00.001-08:00

Sitting on the porch drawing Kit McKlaw, a big possum just tiptoed across in front of the porch, real quiet.
I thought it was an alligator.

2010-11-23T15:34:00.001-08:00

DOGBAD Episode 14: Kit McKlaw & Señor Hoss visit Dr P T Expensive, psychic veterinarian.

2010-11-10T04:41:00.001-08:00

I received an interesting package from Larry Judd yesterday. I wonder: what could be in it?

2010-11-10T04:40:00.001-08:00

Hung the large canvas prints at Myxmedia yesterday. They look great. Now we have to hang the 22-ft banner! Big Job.

2010-11-06T22:32:00.001-07:00

Finished framing all the large canvases for the DOGBAD Show this afternoon. Shockingly beautiful if I may say so! Glad I got heavy frames

2010-11-04T00:12:00.001-07:00

Spent all day schlepping glass around and having it cut, then delivering it to the gallery. No fun, really. I have to paint, not drive!

2010-10-28T20:19:00.001-07:00

I published a test walk for Suicide Cat this morning. See it at
http://ping.fm/8b6Yt

2010-10-25T19:26:00.001-07:00

Got a good deal of painting done over the weekend. Saw Ed Mell today & told him how much fun I'm having. "It's a good racket!", he kidded.

2010-10-19T21:43:00.001-07:00

Been Laying out the DOGBAD Show Catalogue (or Dogalogue, if you prefer). First time using Adobe InDesign. Think I got it nailed.

2010-10-16T07:18:00.001-07:00

Have not posted the past several days- I forgot to do. Too busy painting. Tired, headache, not feeling too chipper either. Persevere.

2010-10-11T20:44:00.001-07:00

I created a DOGBAD Facebook group tonight and invited just about everyone I have an address for, to the show Nov 13 @ myxMedia.

2010-10-10T20:10:00.001-07:00

Did a walk cycle for Suicide Kat the other night; now I am working on the head turn. I'd be happy if people stop calling. Leemmie alone!

2010-10-10T02:08:00.001-07:00

Got the invitations made for the DOGBAD Show, Nov 13. Next, I'll get them printed and posted.

2010-10-09T08:39:00.001-07:00

A nights sleep & back @ the art. Making invites for the DOGBAD Show, November 13. Using 19th century fonts from a book of my grandfather's.

2010-10-08T22:46:00.001-07:00

Very frustrated with my painting tonight. Can't get colours to blend properly.

2010-10-08T18:19:00.001-07:00

35 days until the DOGBAD SHOW, Nov 13 at Myxmedia Gallery 8801 N Central.

2010-10-03T19:03:00.001-07:00

EDDY DETROIT sings the LIFE of AMERICA-2010!
http://ping.fm/F1h3y

2010-10-02T09:35:00.001-07:00

The DOGBAD SHOW is set to go Nov 13 at MyxMedia Gallery 8801 N Central Phx AZ
Paintings Prints Animation - http://dogbad.net

2010-08-11T03:34:00.001-07:00

This http://ping.fm/Q9SAi
is my first walk test for Kit McKlaw, one of several characters I am animating for Dogbad's first animated feature, SUICIDE CAT. The music is by Gid Tanner and the Skillet Lickers.
This, their rendition of the traditional "Missouri Dawg Song", is entitled "Ya got to Quit Kickin' Dog Around", and was recorded in 1926.

2010-07-28T11:31:00.001-07:00

DOGBAD: 1070 Undocumented Cartoon Characters converge to buy the new "Take this Bill and Shove It"
T-shirts, Womens & Kids apparel (also pet food dishes!) to celebrate the new 1070 Immigration Bill.
http://ping.fm/V0qZg

2010-06-06T18:47:00.001-07:00

http://Dogbad.net
Episode 11 - "When Symptoms Persist"
SeÃ±or Hoss & SeÃ±or Hsss find their way back to town & go direct to the Assay Office.

2010-05-27T22:53:00.001-07:00

DOGBAD: After stumbling into an atomic test explosion, our two intrepid explorers begin experiencing odd symptoms- http://dogbad.net

2010-05-19T19:58:00.001-07:00

DOGBAD: Señor Hoss is shaking Señor Hsss.
"MAL DIEU! What a horrible dream!"
http://dogbad.net

2010-05-13T16:08:00.001-07:00

DOGBAD: Señor Hsss confronts the tortoise from GOLDMINE SACKS- "What's the big idea?"
http://dogbad.net

Mothers Day with Mommy Away

2010-05-09T15:16:00.000-07:00

My mom passed away December 6, 2009. Mrs Johnita Adelaide Flemington Steinhilber suffered a bad fall in April broke her shoulder and never recovered. This is the first Mothers Day since she’s been gone. I miss her more every day. She gave me my life (along with my dad, of course!), much of my sense of humour, art skills, moral and intellectual compass, musical taste, language skills, fixed my meals, made my clothes brought me to school, brought me home, served me orange juice, got mad but tolerated my drowning my grits with Worcester sauce, attended Yale when women weren’t allowed, flew airplanes, practiced law, continued her education well past retirement age, worried about us, and I could go on forever. I miss you Mommy, Daddy misses you even more if I know anything, Mica misses you and everybody who knew you misses you. I love you. We love you.

2010-05-08T11:16:00.001-07:00

DOGBAD: Señor Hoss tickles the tortoise- Señor Hsss gets loose- everybody gets TICKED OFF!
http://dogbad.net

2010-05-08T11:12:00.001-07:00

Read Robert Steinhilber's new story MOHAMMAD HANIF & the BOX OF DOOM at the all-new Catfishrushdie.com!
http://ping.fm/D9tEn

2010-05-06T21:07:00.001-07:00

My mistake: DOGBAD EPISODE SEVEN! http://dogbad.net Episode 06 was last week. Hey, I'm tired.

2010-05-06T21:05:00.001-07:00

DOGBAD Episode Six: Hssy and Hossy receive help from a strange buzzard. http://dogbad.net

2010-04-29T19:32:00.001-07:00

Steinhilber & Hedgpeth 9to5 Mañana @SAMURAI COMICS signing new ZOOT SCOOTER comic! 1051 E Camelback Phx AZ. Bring proof of citizenship.

2010-04-29T19:23:00.001-07:00

http://dogbad.net Señor Hsss and Señor Hoss meet with a mysterious entity in the mountains.

2010-04-29T19:15:00.001-07:00

DOGBAD.net - Señor Hsss & Señor Hoss climb higher and higher into the hills. They spy an lonely sentinel.
“What’s this?” asks Señor Hoss.

2010-03-25T07:04:00.001-07:00

Mica found my grandparents' bank book yesterday: Dec 12 '39 through Sep 8 '48. The last page says 'SAVE REGULARLY'. They did.

Why do people vote against their own interests?

2010-01-30T07:09:00.000-08:00

This article appeared on the BBC news website today, having been broadcast on Radio 4 this week. This perceptive observer explains that in order to succeed in the US political arena, the candidates with logic on their side must behave as reprehensibly as the anti-logic parties, by so doing appealing to the largest number of voters. Unfortunately though, the people to whom a reasoned argument appeals won't want to vote for them...this is great for comedians, not so great for citizens.

Perhaps what we need is a national wife, not a "leader": someone who can quietly keep everything running, and is smart enough to let a fool go on thinking he is "right" & that he is running the show when he is not, and that everything is his idea.
I suspect our problems are more chemical than ideological, or anything else. Reduce the testosterone levels to bare minimum, and see if things don't improve.

I'm Looking Through You

2009-11-10T05:30:00.000-08:00

The Death of Money – Part Three

I remember an Orson Welles Mercury Theatre programme in which he read, among other things, some selections from George Washington’s Farewell Address. At best this is a rough paraphrase, but the gist of what he said is,
“If future citizens of the American Republic ever want for anything, or are unhappy for any reason, they can search across the known universe and find no one to blame but themselves.”
That particular bit may not in fact have been from Washington’s letter to the nation, but whatever its origin, it has stayed with me for years and resonates as the US dollar declines with each passing day. With it goes the USA’s position in the world. We have shopped ourselves and warred our nation over a cliff, and we can’t imagine what will break when we hit the bottom.
John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote these words right about the time the last US silver coins were withdrawn from circulation :

I'm looking through you
where did you go?
I thought I knew you
what did I know?
You don't look different
but you have changed.
I'm looking through you
you're not the same.

Copyright 1965 by Northern Songs Ltd.

Some More Thoughts about the Death of Money

2009-09-27T22:30:00.000-07:00

The day of the nation-states has all but passed. Bearing in mind our “pretty-long-so-far” tenure on earth, it passed quickly. Kropotkin published his definitive volume on the subject, The State: Its Historic Role in 1897, and it has only been since 1899 that every known piece of dry land on this planet has been formally claimed as property by some nation or another.
While states, governments, their agents and agencies continue to exist, the power equation has continued to evolve, so that the main functions of the nation-state today lie not in defending or looking after the well-being of citizens, but rather in ministering the wants and needs of global banking syndicates and mega-corporations the banks finance.
It’s not surprising that the state has become the weak sister in the world power dance. A nation-state, with fixed borders to defend and (mostly) growing populations to feed, house and manage is at a distinct disadvantage compared to the central banks (the US Federal Reserve chief among them) which are not so burdened, and are free to create unlimited amounts of capital and move it around the globe at the click of a mouse.
Capital. Vast amounts. If a country or corporation or individual wants to buy, just for instance, oil, it is first necessary to buy enough Dollars to do business with.
Seventy-five percent of all transactions on earth today are conducted in US dollars. The manufacture of US Dollars is the exclusive privilege of a private company: the US Federal Reserve Bank. This has been the case since December 1913, when the bankers stripped the US Congress of its Constitutionally-mandated right to issue currency. This particular turn of events has been blamed for precipitating two World Wars, the Great Depression, and for creating and maintaining the underlying causes of the current global recession.
Most of us know something about the enormous trade deficit the US has accrued over the past decades, and that China and other nations are currently in possession of trillions upon trillions of US dollars. The rub is, these big players are tired of holding all these dollars, in large part because the US has behaved so irresponsibly since the early 1980’s (and truth be told, since the end of WWII).
They don’t trust the Americans or their money any more.
Yes, the role of the nation-state has changed, so much so that the USA is no longer in the business of defending, protecting or listening to its citizens. Every single elected official in the US today has a crippling money habit. Every man-and-woman Jack-or-Jacqueline requires tens of millions or hundreds of millions of dollars, all the time (the figures depend on the office). This is what it takes to run for office and win, and keep winning once you’re in.
Elected officials don’t worry about listening to, defending or protecting citizens- they listen to the people who can give them the money they need. The formerly-middle-class citizenry couldn’t raise those amounts of cash between them if they had to. Not anymore, anyway. Most are deep in debt to the same bankers who finance the election campaigns.
Today, the primary function of the United States of America is in holding the military portfolio for the banks. The Pentagon and the industries that service it make, store and deploy the military muscle for these mega-banks, and bring to bear colossal violence, or the threat of violence in order to keep the world’s population in line. That’s one of the definitions of “the State”: a political institution claiming a monopoly on the right to use violence.
Rarely now do nations field armies, navies or air forces against each other. Practically all warfare today is “asymmetrical”. Enormous, unimaginable violence is used against all-but-defenseless civilian populations – “terrorists” - if any one or more of these human beings dare to imagine how he or she or they might defend themselves. The recent rape of Gaza allowed us to witness a half-starved population actually trapped and unable to flee as they were systematically slaughtered by a 21st century military machine populated by soldiers convinced they were doing the Lord’s Work, who were in fact being employed to clear valuable real estate for theft planned by developers.
Of course this scenario was not entirely unique. It’s standard practice for soldiers, sailors, cops, marines and civilians who provide logistical and other support to be told from early childhood they are performing a “patriotic” (or religious) duty.
It’s an obscene con-game, easy to understand once you focus on the bigger picture. But if we continue to think only in terms of nation-states, with all their various names and confusing ideologies, we are not likely to see the picture- only the masks.

Sod the Sun Belt- Head for the Hills!

2009-08-02T03:23:00.000-07:00

We are facing a big economic collapse. We may, in fact be looking at the very Death of Money. Of course, when Money was invented it had some intrinsic value. You could use the little lumps of electrum to pay the Lydian priests when you visited the temple. Not so now- the US Federal Reserve freely prints paper with nothing but Karakorams of bad debts behind it. Paper to maintain a costly military empire that cannot be maintained.
The Egyptians had no money, and they built to last. Pharaoh made things happen.He was, after all the embodiment of Horace, Son of Osiris, so people had to believe in him. What else could they do? What else was there to believe in?
Here in our country there is no god but Dollar, and Mr Dollar makes things happen. When people stop believing in the Dollar god, then look out.
Extended areas of urban/suburban development cannot support existing populations. In cities like Phoenix, Mesa, Glendale, Tucson, Tempe, etc. virtually everything has to be trucked in. Water is certain to be fought, killed, and died over. It is the hard-working emigrants who will have the Survival Skills, the same kinds of skills our grandparents used to survive the Depression. Hunting and foraging, gardening and bartering are skills for living outside the Kingdom of Dollar. These skills have largely disappeared among native-born US citizens, after three generations being trained to live and think of ourselves as nothing more than "consumers." The people who the authorities and their vigilante helpmeets are hunting down to imprison and expel from the realm are the exact same people who will be able to give you the helping hand you need to survive.
When Money disappears or becomes functionally worthless, you'd better know yourself.
Your self is all you got, all you came with, all you take with you when you go.
Self is that bit of the universe over which you can exercise some control.

What has eyes but can't see?

2009-06-22T07:38:00.000-07:00

Snake Shaman presides over the Socratic Circle of Serpents.
The rapt reptiles listen as the Shaman relates a series of
Irish jokes, which tho' poorly understood in literal terms
are instinctively perceived by the snakes as conveying a
form of wisdom outside of words:
Q: “What’s a seven-course Irish dinner?”
A: “Six pints of stout and a potato.”

Russet Burbank, Russet Arcadia, Norgold Russet,
Goldrush, Norkotah, Long White, White Rose,
California Long White, Idaho, Round White,
Round Red, Yellow Potato, Red Potato,
Salad Potato, La Soda, Red La Rouge,
Red Pontiac, Red Nordland, Red Bliss,
Yellow Finnish, Ruby Crescent,
and Australian Crescent.

One Man's Revelation is Another Man's Hearsay

2009-06-12T10:54:00.000-07:00

..."All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit."
- Thomas Paine, The AGE of REASON

Yesterday afternoon while sitting in the back of Isac Artzi's E-Business and Marketing class, I doodled a portrait of Thomas Paine, based on the Wikipedia image of the man, (which is a reproduction of a posthumous oil portrait housed in the National Portrait Gallery in London). According to the Wikipedia Commons entry the portrait was painted in 1880 by Auguste Millière after an engraving by William Sharp, after a 1792 portrait by George Romney. So my rendering is at least four times removed from its Revolutionary subject.
...I had been reading from Paine's book The Age of Reason a day or so previous, and he and his works were on my mind. The Age of Reason is a worthy, lucid treatise in which Thomas Paine explains his views on religion, and in my most humble opinion, study of it would benefit us all, especially in light of the way we are being constantly barraged with propaganda designed to make us feel threatened by someone elses ideas about religion, economics, or anything. ...According to legend, Paine fled to France from London, at the urging of his friend William Blake, who was himself to be tried for sedition later on. Not only did the officers of King George III consider Paine a traitor, but apparently a number of English Tories still feel that way today. My advice to them is: Get Over It.
...The picture I post here was drawn this morning, using my yesterday's sketch as a reference.
The William Blake Archive

Booksellers Panic to Meet Demand

2009-04-19T14:52:00.000-07:00

Port of Spain, Trinidad, April 19 - News organizations around the world have published pictures of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez giving President Obama a copy of the book Open Veins of Latin America by Uruguayan author Eduardo Galeano – which soared to the number 5 place on Amazon.com after it’s yesterday’s sales rank was No. 54,295.
Now photos are emerging of President Obama receiving a second book from President Chavez- Zoot Scooter and the Micro-Nots by US author Neil Atwood -yet the booksellers are out of stock, and scrambling to obtain copies, offering as much as US $1.5 million for single copies.
-al Jazeera English

First thought upon waking

2009-04-18T06:25:00.000-07:00

The Sheriff declares WAR ON DANGER. We must be ever vigilant. We must win the War on Danger.The Danger Strangers spread their evil Danger everywhere. We must hunt them down and bring them to justice. Be on the lookout for suspicious activity and report suspects to your local War-on-Danger Hotline.

Most preaching is against something or other. There is a law of irony just as sure as there is a law of gravity. When I preach to others, the law of irony dictates that I am the enemy of whatever I preach for. When I preach against something, I am the living embodiment of whatever I preach against, in inverse proportion to the insistence of my preaching. This process is a wellspring of humour. Preachers are hypocrites, so we laugh at them.
"Coffee, are you done yet?"
We broke our backs lifting Moloch to heaven.

striking archetype

2009-03-25T08:27:00.000-07:00

...........As phenomenological models go, synchronicity appears more useful than our old ideas about cause and effect. The "cause & effect" model presupposes the existence of a linear time-line which so far as I can tell, does not exist. Sometimes the effect appears before the cause. The appearance shifts in time in accord with the viewpoint.
Some people have told me they had seen the image of Alfred Hitchcock shooting billiards, before I drew the image for the poster that appears in the last week's article (17 March).
I don't know where the idea came from, so if anyone finds such an image, please forward it.
Usually I can trace exactly where I got an idea and how it developed. Not this time- immediately having abandoned the well-worn Hitchcock sillhouette idea, the next thing I knew I was sketching the billiards table image.
I may have seen an image of Alfred Hitchcock playing pool and looking directly at the camera, forgotten it, and the subconscious memory percolated into my mind's eye- if so, it surely must have been a published image, which means others saw it as well- maybe.
On the other hand, maybe I struck an archetype- an image that lives in all our minds, but had no obvious external source. If that's the case, it represents real paydirt for an artist. It means I'm doing the right thing- the image struck a deep chord.
Classical Greek art of the highest order is like that: for instance, a statue of a ram is not just a ram, it is "Ram" - Ram-ness manifest, a terrestrial iteration of the celestial archetype. Call me a neoPlatonist, if you will.

Up All Night with Alfred Hitchcock

2009-03-17T08:50:00.000-07:00

Yes, children, it’s that time again! The Art Institute of Phoenix is staging another Up All Night party this Friday, 20 March 2009. Wayne and Laura in the AIPX Library Film Committee encouraged me to design a poster to advertise the big Hitchcock double-feature, AIPX Reel Inspiration presents North by Northwest at 10:15 PM & PSYCHO at 12:45 AM.
Isak Artzi asked if I’d give a description of how I made the image, so here’s the story:
Initially we wanted to have a triple-feature: North by Northwest+Vertigo+PSYCHO.
The first image that entered my head was a rusty-metal/ industrial render of the famous Hitchcock profile as used on the Alfred Hitchcock Presents television series of the late ‘50’s/ early ‘60’s, inside which sat a colour photograph of a human brain atop the spinal cord. The brain would be cut into three pie-slices, each slice bearing one of the films titles scrawled in lipstick or nail polish.
I then thought of a simpler approach, with three identically-sized Hitchcock silhouettes projected through three lenses in yellow, cyan and magenta overlapping each other, with the titles coloured likewise.
I decided against these ideas because, gee-whiz, that profile / silhouette imagery has been used a bit much over the years and I didn’t want to be quite so obvious.
I don’t know where the idea came from to depict Hitchcock shooting pool, but next thing I knew I was drawing the director lining up a combination shot with a 3-ball aimed at three balls painted with the titles of the three films. Then came the word that we would only have enough time to show two, so I changed the 3-ball to a 2-ball and deleted VERTIGO from the trio.
I drew the whole illustration on a standard-issue WACOM tablet checked out from the video cage, with the Standard brush tool set between 9px & 20px (depending on the desired line thicknesses). Shape Dynamics and Smoothing were in the ON position. I worked in Photoshop CS4, mostly on the 308-06 & 307-01 workstations. I also used CS3 on pc Laptop #03 between 6 and 10 pm on the evening of March 10th. Any number of witnesses can verify my whereabouts on that evening.
When it comes to drawing with the pen tool, Photoshop is Photoshop. Adobe adds some new features to the Photoshop package every year, but drawing has remained pretty much the same for the ten years I’ve been using the program.
For the colours I did not want to use anything obviously associated with Hitchcock. However, I wanted a touch of “PSYCHO”, so I picked my palette from Van Gough’s psilocybin pool parlour. Many people say they remember PSYCHO in colour, although the film is black-and-white!
The Print Bureau did a marvellous job printing the poster six feet tall. Now if we can only find a frame to fit!
Probably not many people know that Alfred Hitchcock began his film career designing titles, and his continuing choice of outstanding, award-winning title sequences for his films bears this out. Saul Bass’s animated title for North by Northwest is thought to be the very first use of kinetic, moving type in the movies. PSYCHO is great titling too. Not to mention all the vintage footage of downtown Phoenix, Arizona in 1960!
Happy St Patrick’s Day, Mr Hitchcock, wherever you are.

What sin, a word?

2008-11-18T12:11:00.001-08:00

Two weeks on, we’ve all probably had a chance to take a few deep breaths, and assess our situation. It seems…hard to believe. We face a real possibility of living in a world in which the President of the United States is not a creep.
What I really found difficult to credit was the hostility expressed against Barack H. Obama from some quarters. As the number of people who expressed absolute conviction to vote for more of the same hell we’ve been through the last three decades dwindled week after week, the often hysterical use of the word “socialist” to describe Obama spoke volumes. “Socialist”, the s-word, is the new code-word for an old n-word.
When did socialist become a dirty word? The rightwing radiodivs spent three decades to pejorative the word “liberal”, an adjective synonymous with “generous”. As far as the US corporate media was concerned, “liberal” = “witch”. But “socialist” = “devil”?
All the world is a stage. We are never really who we pretend to be, and we believe so only at our peril. Even Shakespeare wasn’t really Shakespeare, so it’s said.
So let’s not get too giddy for our own good. We are in what appears to be a Humpty-Dumpty situation. We should still be careful what we wish for, bearing in mind the laws of irony and unforeseen consequences. Today’s military-industrial monsters are descended from a baby conceived on FDR’s watch, before even the attack on Pearl Harbor.
That said, there is more than ever, nothing to fear, but fear itself. Great Things are in store, greater than we know.

Look at that caveman go!

2008-10-05T09:42:00.000-07:00

“Palin Claimed Dinosaurs and People Coexisted”. I first saw this story in the Huffington Post, quoting the LA Times. Amidst the chorus of guffaws and Lurch- impressions emitted by my friends and associates, Parke Wabash offered: “Of course, people lived with dinosaurs! Read Alley Oop.”
I quickly located am online mp3 of Alley Oop by the Hollywood Argyles and gave it a spin. I can still remember listening to the song with my dad on the little jukebox in the booth at Aunt Martha‘s Pancake House in 1960. In those days, the truck stops and family-type restaurants of America often had individual little jukeboxes in the booths, into which you could deposit nickels or dimes to hear the latest hits while you waited for your meal, ate, drank coffee or just killed time hanging out. It is part of the “Old, Weird America”, beloved by the likes of Harry Smith and others, myself included. Such homey accoutrements did not seem “weird” back then, but rather, as normal as maple syrup, and they are gone forever, if you happen to believe in linear time.
In a funny kind of way, Alley Oop started the Sixties. The song was recorded and released early in 1960. It’s the first song to lyrically treat Einstein’s theory of General Relativity as a given:

“There’s a man in the funny papers we all know
He lives way back a long time ago”

“Lives”, not “lived”. Multiple temporal realities are here taken for granted. A further synchronicity is evidenced in the surname of Oop’s erstwhile 20th Century mentor in V.T.Hamlin ’s original comic strip, Doc Wonmug, a play on the name “Ein stein”- meaning literally, a single instantiation of the traditional implement the Krauts suck their suds from.
The song also has its own brand of quantum mechanics at play: two different groups released the song on the same day, May 30th, 1960, and the two versions charted at Number One- simultaneously!
That’s two objects occupying the same space in time. And, the original group, the Hollywood Argyles, never existed in the first place!
The guy who booked the session named the combo after the intersection where the studio stood: Hollywood Boulevard at Argyle. Go there and look if you don’t believe me. Last time I checked it was some kind of bank, but of course that’s not saying much nowadays.
The guys who played the original session each got paid the same amount; $25 flat, one time. The singer, Norm Davis, is a poet now living in Rochester NY (Wikipedia).
The other group that shared the song’s Number One status was called Dante and the Evergreens. If I ever heard it, I don’t recall.
There was a third group who also released a version of the song. The Dyna Sores’ version of Alley Oop made the top 60.

Time to Brush Up

2008-09-19T09:54:00.000-07:00

A couple of days ago Mike Rider showed me this SPIDER. It’s tons of fun, with sliders to let you adjust the size speed, colour, and other features. It looks like 3d but it’s not, apparently, but rather, it seems to have been achieved with some 23 packages of AS 3.0 files.
AS 4.0 is supposed to debut next week. I don’t know who has time to learn all this stuff, and then have enough hours to work (draw) for a living. Time is getting crookeder all the time.
This one little discovery prompted me to look around at what some different Flash Animators are doing, specifically the Cold Hard Flash web site. I have lately been spending so much time with my nose buried in technical literature that I have neglected to check out what new work creative individuals have been doing. Lordy, but there is a lot of good work out there and a large proportion is being done by Spanish or Francophone artists.

If you’re not willing to make a fool of yourself, you may well be fooling a self of your make.

Time Longer than Rope

2008-08-10T18:40:00.000-07:00

Parke Wabash sent me a terrific book of WAR COMICS, and it seems quite a propos to our moment in time. There are some colour pages from a long out-of-print DELL title called COMBAT in which the featured artist is Sam Glansman. As a kid I recognised his distinctive style and knew him by his initials SJG, which he sometimes enclosed within a small cartouche. Great Stuff.

Glansman’s Pearl Harbour story is a standout, with complex composition depicting soldiers, Zero’s dive bombing ships and fireworks bursting out of the page.

One image remains especially imprinted in my memory- a drawing of General Tojo smashing an alarm clock with his Samurai’s sword beside this caption

“AMERICA NEEDED TIME…TIME TO BUILD UP ITS STRENGTH…TIME TO PREPARE…BUT GENERAL TOJO WAS DETERMINED NOT TO GIVE US ANY TIME! WHY SHOULD HE?”

The Japanese militarists squandered their time building weapons, raising armies, navies, and air forces. In these they placed their faith, and their faith betrayed them.

Weapons don’t make you strong, and armies don’t make you safe. Navies don’t make you safe, nor do surveillance satellites. Even less so, unmanned drones and space-based weaponry.

“Time longer than rope”, says Yabby You, “and Time is gonna catch up upon you.”

Time is the master of man.

Time is a Crook

2008-08-09T09:24:00.000-07:00

“Time. Time. What is time? Swiss manufacture it. French hoard it. Italians squander it. Americans say it is money. Hindus say it does not exist. Do you know what I say? I say time is a crook.” - Peter Lorre in Beat the Devil

“I’ll bet Aline Kominsky is going to have a shit fit”, quipped my friend after I told him a single 8” x 12” Bristol pen & ink page, drawn in 1969 by her husband (presumably before they met?) sold for $77,675.00 at auction Thursday in Dallas.

Page one of All Meat Comics (from Robert Crumb’s Big Ass Comics, originally published by the Print Mint in 1969) had been in the possession of Jack “Jaxson” Jackson. Jackson, a pioneer Texas Underground Cartoonist, passed away in 2006. Along with the rest of All Meat, bidders bought all the pages from Eggs Ackley among the Vulture Demonesses (page 1-=$21,510.00; page 7 =$31,070.00). Also on the block was the entire Dale Steinberger the Jewish Cowgirl story (page 1 =$31,070.00), as well as a striking page from Lenore Goldberg and her Girl Commandos (page 10 =$13,145.00) from MOTOR CITY Comics #2.

Best guess is that all these treasures were originally a gift from Crumb to Jaxon.

MORAL: Cultivating friendship is the best investment of all.

Shucks! Now I have to run for president.

2008-07-22T07:33:00.001-07:00

Summer's here and business is slow. I spend my precious time searching for old
contra-bass saxophone solos on YouTube. There are some good new ones, of course.

James Carter is a standout, always was. Coleman Hawkins lives, though there are no films
of him I can find. The recordings are taken from discs.

I've booked three different models for Open Session Life Drawing classes. Wishing
to drum up trade as much as possible, I produced a poster. Kevin H suggested I tone it down, so I did, but here is the director's cut.

Most people will likely only see a "censored" version. This is, by the way, the only place
on the world wide web where you can see a depiction of 3/4 female nudity (I think).
There are millions of web sites, and I still haven't seen them all...

I was intrigued when I heard an item on the NPR Science Friday programme last week, an interview with an Aussie entrepreneur who prevailed upon some fat friends to undergo liposuction, and donate their collected body fat to have him cook it down, in his own kitchen, into bio-diesel fuel, which he used to propel his boat. The implications of this act are staggering, to say the least, for the citizens of United States and the world. We have found a single solution to two of our most pressing problems : the obesity epidemic and the fuel crisis. If we had our act together half as well as the World War Two generation who collected scrap metal, string, paper and everything else, we could make patriotic fat-harvesting part of the daily routine of every school, office and police department.

We now face the possibility of becoming a true space-age race, as highly evolved as any extraterrestrial species depicted on Star Trek, or in the annals of Science Fiction- a species whose bodies produce a substance that propels their vehicles.

What about that other pressing issue, Global Warming? The solution to this most grave threat to our future, is simple, so simple I can’t believe nobody else thought of it:

Everybody open all their windows and all their doors, at home and at work.
Turn the AC up to FULL.
Wait for the temperature to decrease. If it doesn’t go down within 90 days, we can try another idea.

Smart went Crazy. Me crazy too.

2008-06-21T16:02:00.000-07:00

“Smart went crazy”, I recall, is the name of a short poem jointly written by Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg when they were students. I think. “Smart” refers not to Leroy Smart, but Christopher Smart, a champion English poet of the 18^th century. As recorded by Boswell in his. Life of Johnson, Smart was confined to an asylum, apparently having drunk himself to a state of dementia, and hence Kerouac/Ginsberg wrote: Smart went Crazy. Years later Ginsberg wrote his most famous line: “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness”. Smart went crazy- again.

Language (linguistic thought-forms) is/are inter-connected in ways we don’t always see- beneath the surfaces. We habitually see our universe as the surfaces of things: how the surfaces connect with other surfaces. One harbours suspicions (dare I boast certain knowledge?) that the world we know through our senses and reference with our word-thoughts is not the “Real” One. We see only results, after the fact.

What is occurring before that instant when thought-forms emerge into our viewscreen? Or after? Where do thoughts go to die? Where do the thought–forms live before they poke their heads up where we can see them? Where are thoughts born, how do they grow and mature, what sort of lives do they live before we meet them? How do these thought-forms manifest variously in languages which are often mutually unintelligible?

The Greeks were not inventing, when they spoke of the Muses. These scribes were describing the process accurately, that the artist does not so much as create what he does, he finds it- it is a gift, given to whomsoever the Muse Choose. Muse Choose the Blues. Baby, Baby, suck your toe, all the way to Mexico.

I stayed up all night, last night, after viewing on You Tube a 1967 clip of Quicksilver Messenger Service performing Dino’s Song at the Monterrey Pop Festival that year. Quicksilver was too good to last, a band well-named: brilliant to behold, incapable of maintaining the same shape or form for very long, but impossible to quash.

“Dino” is Dino Valenti (born Chester Powers, died 1994), a champion song-catcher, one favoured by the Muse. I remember him as a champion performer, even if a jerk[1] at times. Numbers of the greatest songwriters of his generation hold Dino in highest regard. David Crosby claimed Valenti could write a great song in as much time as it took him to travel to the toilet and back. I looked up the name and found an account[2] of his method:

…"Every song is different," he says, "like every day; a completely different thing, man."

He explains: "You sit down and something turns you on and you hear a timbre, a vibration because you're right this instant turned on about something. And it's in your mind that you hear it. It may be soft, it may be fine, it may be heavy-it's just a certain set of tonalities, or sometimes it's just a set of chords that start going around your head…Well, you sit down and start to play it on your guitar and as you play the music, sometimes you hear the music has words …(to)[3] it. And so then you find out what the song says.

"Other times you're down and may be pissed about something so you write the words without bothering with the music; then you listen to the words over and over again and you hear the music. When a song starts you don't think about anything but getting next to it without breaking it. It's like getting next to a wild horse."

Bob Dylan, I recall, went on record saying he did not “write” his songs, but received them as a radio. In his Naropa lectures on folk music, Gary Snyder details how songs are “caught” by a visioner while on a special type of vision-quest. Most folk songs are variations on an old form, a traditional melody etc. Rhythms change with the times. Only rarely does a wholly new musical entity make itself available to the quester.

Check out Leonard Bloomfield’s big book of Language, also recommended by Snyder.

[1]Does shaman-status carry a license to behave obnoxiously? There is plenty of evidence that it does.

[2]Dino Valente by Ben Fong-Torres, Rolling Stone/February 1, 1969

[3]“ …the music has words it it.” (sic)

Cow Poked on the Nones of March

2008-03-08T23:12:00.000-08:00

Last night was Friday 07, the first Friday of March 2008. Here in Phoenix, that means a lot of art exhibits to be hanged from the neck until dead at sunrise. I contributed some items to the Pravus Gallery show, Cow Poked. I had to work, so I did not get to attend the opening, but by all accounts it went well.
I hang corrected: Last post I bemoaned the fact that nobody makes DuoTone Illustration board any more. Well, Surprise, surprise! Kevin Hedgpeth sent me this-the Blue Line Pro company is making the stuff for $8.25 per 11" x 17" sheet. How it compares with the old-style product (sold 30" x 40") I don't know yet.

Big Con, Little Valentine

2008-02-14T03:59:00.000-08:00

The Big Con came and went, just like they said it would. It was fun, and plenty work, too. The Art Institute had me manning each of their three booths in different buildings, shuttling us back and forth. Mica stayed with me the whole time, along with Don Markstein and several colleagues from AIPX.

I tried to recall the last time I had attended one of these events- it was probably Sandiego ’78, the last year they held it at the El Cortez.

I got to look around the bourse/dealers’ room a bit, picked up some old comics, (late ‘40’s-early 50’s), looked at original art, talked to artists, saw celebs.

While talking with Tone Rodriguez, we got on the subject of CraftTint DuoTone Illustration board, which we concluded after some inquiries, is no longer made or sold anywhere at any price. I let it slip I still have a small stash, and he suggested I try putting some on ebay, just for a giggle. Not a chance. I’m saving mine for a special project, and hopefully I’ll be able to get some more somewhere.

I did have, however, the good fortune to find the original(?) patent for the stuff, from the early 1930’s, on line. So if any junior chemists out there are feeling ambitious, here’s a project for you: lots of artists loved this material and used it for decades- it was a staple of the best EC comic book artists and editorial cartoonists all over the world. You can’t get it now. It’s a (relatively) simple formula to manufacture it, and as far as I know, nobody is doing it.

HAPPY VALENTINE, MICA!

What's funny?

2008-01-20T13:27:00.000-08:00

We’ve all been conned. We are all victims of the big con, perpetrated in the Garden described in the allegory written in the Book of Genesis[1].

We’ve been deceived into believing that we are separate.

I don’t believe in any thing. Thing. What’s a “thing”? Maybe later I’ll reach for the diction-ary, that big book composed by Dr Johnson. There are good on-line dictionaries you can refer to, if you are reading this.

For now suffice to say, a thing is an object, not possessing consciousness or personality, or “sentient being-ness”, a set of sensory information rolled up into enough definition that I may consider it a “thing” discreet and separate from other “things”. Plenty of people can compose definitions better than that, but there you have it.

Someone said that after many years of sitting meditation practice, it became apparent that all he had previously considered as “self” and all that he had considered “other-than-self” are in truth one in the same.

Another writer put it thus: “There is no externality of relations.”

So how can I “have” any “thing”, or believe that I do? How can I possess any “thing”? How can anyone take any “thing” away from “me”, or do any “thing” to “me” when there is no “me”, nor any “thing”, only a trick of my own brain/nervous system?

I guess that pretty well puts fear in perspective- there is nothing to fear…but fear itself.

Fear was a great band, though, and funny.

This year is an election year. I’ve been exposed to an array of Professional Party Politicians on TV, Radio, Print and other media, and they all seem to want us to buy fear, their brand, which they say is better that the other brands. That’s not very funny.

[1] Take that, Phil Collins- you used to be a good drummer, now you’re…nothing.

(Bart Simpson, paraphrased)

Time to break out the Dental Floss

2007-11-12T22:42:00.000-08:00

Neil Atwood wrote the story. One day you will wake up and discover you are plant food. Those guys are not kidding about gingivitis- it can get out of hand real quick!
Floss, my friends, floss.
The new 20-page ZOOT SCOOTER story will be out and about very soon from Allied Media Productions.
Watch this space and visit our table at the Phoenix Cactus Comicon, being held 26-28 January 2008, appropriately enough, at the Mesa Contention Center, three days walk from downtown Phoenix.
How come nobody calls premium gas "Ethyl" any more?

...it sure is Quiet.

2007-11-01T08:23:00.000-07:00

Following the spacetime continuum to the year TMX206, we find that Presidemperor Incitatus the 52nd has invaded and occupied the planet Z-raq in a wain and vain attempt to secure new supplies of Helium 3. By the time the occupation enters its fourth year, the treasury has been bankrupted, and the Space Cadet Academy has been forced to purchase its janitorial supplies as surplus from the Louisiana Sanitation Department. A complex ergot-based chemical developed by Albert Hofmann in the year CE1938 is being used as an industrial-strength cleaning fluid known by its trade-name, Uncle Clean.
For more of this story, watch this space.

I had a dream

2007-10-18T09:32:00.000-07:00

Everything crash. That’s what the Ethiopian said.

And so it was, the whole network, hundreds and hundreds of computers were down, and nobody could figure out what to do. Except find someone to blame.

All the employees had been summoned and were gathered in a large, brightly lit fluorescent room, furnished with long tables, no chairs.

Everyone stood. The boss produced a big chart with an explorer-type tree printed out. It seems the offending item, Exhibit One, was a file named A. “A-dot”, no file extension, just A.

“Who made this file?”

His eyes fell on Ali.

“Did you make this file?”

Ali shrugged, “No”.

“It’s an ‘A’. Your name starts with ‘A’. A-L-I. Who else could it be?

“You are the only Persian here who answers to that.”

“No, no. It couldn’t be”, interjected an employee, one knowledgeable in such matters.

“He never had access to that drive.”

That shut the boss up, for a moment.

We were ordered to form a cue, sort of a gauntlet which we all walked, each in turn signing a form which no-one was given time to read.

In the end, Management did the only thing they could do: force each and every one of the work force to sign a waiver absolving the company of any and all responsibilities, forever.

Friday Night Class

2007-10-13T10:15:00.000-07:00

What a hellish experience, trying to teach last night. For a $90k+ degree, some of these Young Americans don’t seem to give a rat’s ass. Most of them want to learn, but as for some of them, I can not say. I am incorporating coursework via Moodle, which takes some time and effort. Will it make learning easier? I suppose we will see. It leaves me less time for my art, at this stage of the game.

This morning at IHOP, I sat across from a woman having breakfast with Irani Pres Ahmadinejad. I recognized her from the front-page photograph in the Sunday paper. Said photo accompanied an article headlined, TOUGH NEW DUI LAWS TAKE EFFECT, or words to that effect. She was wearing the same flimsy maroon halter, and the very same hair and face. Marvelous, how images from massMedia sneak up on your hypnogogic hallucinations.

Don Markstein’s TOONOPEDIA.COM is undergoing its grand renovation as I write. Don does not care for beans or nihilism.

CatfishRushdie.com is meandering its way to a new look, but I don’t know when it will re-launch.

McClaw fought the Law and McClaw won

2007-10-07T15:42:00.000-07:00

DATELINE: the desert outside the town of Dogbad, Arizona.
Outlaw Kit McClaw shoots it out with the Sheriff of Dogbad.
McClaw is escaping with a gunny sack full of illegal Owsley M-80's.
The sheriff's hired killers,"private con-trackers" known as
the Bushwater Boys are "a law unto they-selfs",
according to the locals, killing and maiming, raping-and-pillaging anyone, anywhere, any time they durn well please.
McClaw intends to use and distribute M-80's in self-defence against those Bushwater chuch-i-sag (Farsi: "sons-of-bitches").
NOW- WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?