March 2004 Archives

24 hours until Progress Media's liberal news/talk Air America Radio goes on the air. WNTD-AM 950 in Chicago is ready.

New Yorkers can tune in on WLIB-1190 AM. Los Angeles can find it on KBLA-1580 AM. San Franciso, you're on your own. The Internet doesn't wanna give up the station. Sorry, guys.

Other markets, find out where to tune in here.

I've had my doubts, but after spending an hour listening to Franken emasculate a Limbaugh dittohead live on Howard Stern without breaking a sweat, I'm pretty convinced he can handle a show of his own... And, amazingly enough, manage to make it entertaining. I just hope the ads aren't unbearable ten-minute blocks of weight loss supplement promotions; Commerical radio already drove me away screaming once.

Janeane Garofalo and Chuck D have shows, too. No idea how they'll handle it, although Garofalo is entertaining enough when she guest-hosts Loveline. We'll have to see.

Either way, anything would be better to listen to while I ink than Wheel of Time audiobook number umpteen. TUG BRAID SMOOTH SKIRTS EMBRACE SAIDAR.

I don't usually go to live shows, because there's really only one band I have any interest in seeing perform.

My special needs will be met in April.

In true shameless, slobbering fangirl style, I'll probably try to make a little something to chuck at the band while they're onstage. It'll have to be quick, since I haven't got much free time these days, but I'm sure it'll be be ink-and-paper related. I'm just that kind of person.

Knowing my luck, the edge of the bristol board will probably take Neil's eye out or something. But as long as I get to to hear "(notes from the trial of) La Curandera" live first, I won't really mind making an intolerable ass of myself.

Russia.

Then: Nuclear state. Worldwide superpower. Threat to democratic rule.

Now: Paying toothless bums to have cold, distant sex with mildly disfigured women in abandoned lots.

In case you needed another excuse to turn off the computer, pull the cable out of the wall, and huddle in the closet, clutching your bewildered children and sobbing uncontrollably for the next five hours.

Unless, you know, untreated skin lesions are your kinda thing. Rowr.

And that means it's time to get my act together and start planning the spread for my table at Comicon.

The only thing I have planned right now is a sketchbook. I was really impressed with the sketchbooks on sale last year, so I'll copycatting this July with my own mini. It hasn't got a title yet, but it'll be a series of sketches of profoundly abnormal people; lunatics, circus freaks, the dead, people with horrendously unpleasant and unsightly diseases and injuries, that sort of thing. It was inspired by my developing fascination with psychicatric, medical, and memorial photography. Here's a dry run.

30-year-old Elisa Ann Williams was committed to a British lunatic asylum in March of 1877 with a diagnosis of "chronic mania," apparently aggravated by "domestic trouble." She insisted that she had committed murder, and must suffer death. Her hobbies included imagining voices and screaming at the walls.

The portrait and patient dossier were lifted from Harm's Way, a compilation of antique Burns Archive photographs edited by Joel-Peter Witkin. This is the only Burns Archive book I have; the rest, such as Masterpieces of Medical Photography and Sleeping Beauty: Memorial Photography in America, won't leave the shelf for less than $400.00.

I need a wealthy patron.

That's pretty much it for today, except for one thing: Wednesday is now, officially, email day. I'll answer all the emails I recieve during the week on Wednesdays, if they don't merit being answered immediately. So patience, guys, okay? I get a lot of email, and I can't get to it all right away. But I swear to you that I read and appreciate it all. I realize that you don't have to write me, and I thank you for doing it.

In conclusion... what the hell.

Consider yourselves notified, you nerds.

More information on the 24 hour comic challenge can be found here, and the organizer's email address is here. Drop him a line if you want in.

From the last couple of days.

Obviously, none of it's gettin' through. But it's kind of insane and retarded how often some jackasses are trying to spam this blog.

Note all the repeats. I guess the fucking jackals have figured out a way to automate it, now.

When the next incarnation of Moveable Type goes gold, you'll have to register to post comments here, as if it were a messageboard. I don't enjoy hassling you guys, but it's obvious someone, somewhere is determined to be a problem. I'd rather not heave a sigh every time I see a new comment, wondering if it's for real, or just some dildo in China or wherever trying to sell me mail-order pharms. Sorry.

AHAHAHAHAHA. CALLING ALL POSERS.

Man, I wanna look super kewlies for the Linkin Park concert on Friday, but my STOOPID MAWM won't let me get that tattoo of Calvin totally taking a leak on the whole planet for the show! WEAK! I was totally not gonna clean my room OR do the dishes. Then, I found SLEEVES.

I locked braces with Leslie Weaselface AND Cold Sore Wanda, and that was just during the opening act! My days of "indescribable" Livejournal entries and piccies of myself on DeviantArt crying and bleeding in the corner are OVER. And I owe all seven of my pubic hairs to YOU. Thanks, Sleeves!

*~*^II Nytesquall da JUGGALO II^*~*

There's an abandoned office building down the street, getting the gut-rehab treatment. Chances are summore condos are going up, because that's what's always going up these days.

Anyway, they've been dumping most of the building's innards out on the streets for the trashpicking filth to cart away under cover of night. Filing cabinets, chairs, desks, bookshelves, that sort of thing. And last weekend, I obliged them.

Obviously, it wasn't covered with mini B-movie posters and stickers when I found it. But for some reason, I always seem to have a good supply of this sort of crap lying around, just in case something needs to be defaced.

I won't recount what it took to get this thing down the street and up to the tenth floor, because you don't want to hear it and I'd rather forget it myself. Suffice to say this thing is made of steel, six feet tall, and I need to do more weight training.

The monochrome stiff in the upper right-hand corner is saying "It's useless, even harmful for man to think." Which reminds me: Polls are open tomorrow, Chicagoans. Hope you're planning on limbering up that stylus-hand for when November rolls around.

Also, I added my good buddy Zack to my friends list, because the damn Luddite finally got a site up. Go visit.

ATTENTION: I love tea.

I am serious. It is unnatural. So unnatural that this actually appeals to me. It appeals to me a lot.

The Republic of Tea must be getting a lot of mileage out of idiots of my caliber, the obsessives who get huffy when they see tea presses mislabled as teapots in department stores and can spend ten minutes debating the advantages of white tea over red, or green, or black. These are the people who titter self-importantly when they're reminded that the most exotic an average person's tea gets is a box of Celestial Seasonings with a teddy bear in pajamas on the package.

Mmmm, powdered stems with 50% barley filler? Yummy.

Yup. You try hard enough, you can be a dork about anything. And The Republic of Tea is Dork Paradise. Even if you're not into boiling leaves, at least drop by to marvel at the depth of my fixation.

Then, buy me an iron teapot. And some, uh, bulk full-leaf white darjeeling.

And some apple green tea.

And a chai frother.

(oh god so lame)

Abortion in America is legal, thanks to Roe vs. Wade. It's legal because we live in a free and reasonable society where the law, through a process much more torturous and absurd than it should have been, isn't any longer permitted to be used as an expression of moral contempt. Women are trusted enough to make the right decision in what should be a very private matter for themselves.

Not that you couldn't have gotten an abortion in pre-Roe-v-Wade America, of course. Know what that would have been like?

They do. (Warning: RealPlayer link. Graphic content.)

The Beta Project is a roughly half-hour long radio show, featuring interviews with women who obtained illegal abortions. Some were lucky enough to get real doctors and painkillers. And some had their cervixes liquify and run out of their vaginas.

Considering how ridiculously close this country came to outlawing abortion again in 1992, I think a goddamn reality check is in order.

In a perfect world, no one would need an abortion, ever. But it's probably time we all realized this isn't a perfect world.

Calvin Wong dropped by my table at last year's San Diego Comic Con, and he's the nicest guy in the whole damn world. He draws real purty, too. Check him out on my link list over there on the left, and click through to Cillu.com. Trust me, it'll be fun. Then, send him poorly-constructed, rambling emails afterwards, telling him to put up more comics, damn it.

'Sup, my kittens?

Cave to your personal vanity and make your own here. You know you want to.

But not enough to stop me from posting these images.

They're behind the cut, just in case some of you are browsing at work. They could kinda, sorta be interpreted as NWS, but only barely. Enjoy.