On Painting: Successful and Unsuccessful

As I have mentioned painting is not my strongest suit.
Here is a painting I did for my wife for the Christmas following Marissa's passing.



















Possibly the most successful part of this picture is the area around her mouth. The light has been reflected accurately I think, and makes for a "real" look.






I am not satisfied so much with the eyes.

Marissa's eyes were in fact impossibly blue, but something around this seems terribly artificial. Perhaps it is the black of the eyelashes?

Overall I am very happy with this piece. More coming.

On Art: More Stuff

Heres some more stuff. The first is a picture of the Lion Dancer from several years ago.


Next come two images from when I was trying to teach myself comic book penciling and inking. The first image is of the Tang Dynasty charachter Sun Wukong... the Monkey King from Journey to the West. It is a pencil line drawing.

The next is my version of a Dark Horse series starring Boba Fett, I believe it was called "Boba Fett: Enemy of the Empire" I thought my art was better... what do I know? anyway the shot is an inked page of Boba Fett's ship the "Slave I" on approach to an Imperiel Star Destroyer orbiting a planet. I had it laid out for some digital >urk< coloring... I know what the heck was I thinking?


As always feedback or inquiries are appreciated :)

Peace out beloved readers.

On Art: Time to Show My Stuff

Hello again friends.
I have been sitting here with Mighty Max napping on my lap and working on some writing. Intermittently, I did some browsing online, and after seeing s few sites on writing and illustrating, decided that if I want to get anywhere as an artist, illustrator, or writer, I need to start getting some opinions on my stuff, right?

I know that I am certainly better at some things mediums than others. The fact is that I cant stand digital art and coloring. For some reason, I adamantly remain "old school" when it comes to the art of creating. I am just guessing, but it seems to me that there is a lot more painstaking skill involved in adding shadow one .005 sized dot at a time, than there is with a sweeping command of pixels on a computer screen. I hope not to ruffle too many feathers with that kind of attitude, because I certainly can admire CG art. It just not my thing. Yet. Maybe someday.

In the meantime here are a few samples of my artwork. Some I am more pleased with than others.

First up is this portrait of Jesus I painted for a guy. It was ten years before I actually got around to doing it, which I am not all that proud of. However, painting is not really my bag, I prefer pencil and/or ink which you will see below.
I took the Jesus image from the a now lost internet source of a guy dressed up like the Lord and Savior. I was looking for inspiration... I mean the whole corpse on a stick thing is not only greusome, but old and overdone. I remember Jesus as a guy who hung out with the working class joe's as well as the scum of society--the theives, the whores, the criminals, and tried to bring them up. He was not, in my opinion the solumn, all business guy portraye in the movies and local Church sermons. He was a kind, generous, and happy Son of God. Thats how I wanted to portray him.
I did want him to have a darker complexion and to appear more "middle eastern" than he does here. After all he did come from Bethlehem, and ended up in the area of Jerusalem much of his life. He was a Middle Eastern man. This is how it turned out. For better or worse. while not satisfied with the painting, I do get a "feel good" sensation with it around.
























As a stark contrast to Christ, I hav ethe succubus Lilith here, as she appeared in a H.P. Lovecraft inspired story I wrote several years ago that never went anywhere. The mythological "Mother of all Monsters." She's hot fellas, but she's evil.



















My "Little Geisha" came from the inspiration of an old Kodak ad from the mid 1970's. This is an enlargement of the surviving piece.






















Finally this is an eastern ribbon snake I have whipped up for a childrens book project I am working on. Hiss... its not quite done yet...

On Remarkable Stories: The Prodigal T-Bird

Came across this and was delighted for this guy!

PALO ALTO, Calif. - Ronald Leung thought he would never see his beloved 1956 Ford Thunderbird again after it was stolen from his auto-repair shop in downtown Palo Alto in 1976. But the 59-year-old car aficionado will soon be reunited with the classic car he treasured as a young man after police called Thursday and told him the T-bird had been found in Southern California.

"I was very shocked," said Leung, a retired sheriff's deputy who runs a car-rental business in Milpitas. "After 31 years, I thought that car was long-gone history, like the Roman Empire."

The California Highway Patrol recovered the collectible — still in excellent condition — after a Ventura County woman tried to register it after buying the car on eBay from an Ohio seller. She contacted the CHP because the vehicle identification number listed on the car's title didn't exist in the California Department of Motor Vehicles registry.

CHP Officer Christopher Throgmorton located the true VIN and ran it through a CHP database that identified it as a stolen car from Palo Alto. Leung plans to fly to Southern California to pick it up next week.

"It's in really good condition," Throgmorton said. "It looks like somebody had it refurbished. It's been restored."

Since the Thunderbird disappeared, Leung fathered two kids and retired from a two-decade career in law enforcement. He had bought the collectible in 1974 for about $1,500 and carefully restored it.

"I belong to a car club, and every time I look at a Thunderbird, I go, 'Oh, I had one of those!'" he said. "I have one son who's 30 and a daughter who's 26. It's unbelievable, that car is older in theft than they are in age."

On My Kids: "Mad" Max

This past week my youngest son Max, decided it was time to walk.
This is the little guy who ws born just five weeks after my oldest left. Now, just under a year later, at over thirty pounds, he takes his walking seriously at last. Just wanted to share a little of my joy with everyone again.

On Useless Government

Click above on the link to see why I am no longer affiliated with either of the major political parties of this great nation.
Honestly its enough to make one want to seek citizenship elsewhere... maybe Mexico?

On Writing: A Sample...

"And I'm staring down the barrel of a 45,
Swimming through the ashes of another life
No real reason to accept the way
things have changed."
--Shinedown

Here is where I could use some comments my friends. This is a small sample from the current piece I am trying so desperately to turn into a book. Let me know what you think.

My extremely sensory imagination saved my life that day. It’s difficult to put into words the description of what a big solid block of metal clicking against your incisors is like, so if you can, imagine tapping your two front teeth with a ball peen hammer. The sharp click, of metal on bone. The vibration traveling straight through your skull to the audio sensory organs in your ears. The click magnified to the point of being deafening due to its close proximity to your eardrum. The sensation of that unrelenting, unmoving pressure. The head of that hammer feels huge, doesn’t it? The metallic taste left on the enamel of your teeth that spreads its bitter flavor to the tip of your tongue...
Are you with me?
Well then, it wasn’t the thought of a hammer clicking against my teeth that sent a shiver down me. The tool in my hand had the same unyielding weight, and the same bitter metallic taste, but it was designed for something different altogether.
At 2.49 lbs, and eight and a half inches respectively, the Colt semiautomatic pistol is capable of sending a metal projectile just under a half-inch in diameter at a rate of eight hundred thirty feet per second through anything dumb enough to get in its way. It’s both a formidable chunk of steel, and a formidable means of accomplishing what I had in mind. At eight hundred thirty feet per second, neither the roof of my mouth nor my brain housing group was likely to offer much resistance, and after that? Sweet, blessed oblivion. Free from this pain. Free from this vast emptiness and cold that burned its way through the middle of me. Free.
Then came the thought of that two pounds of metal clicking against my teeth. I felt the cold blue steel against my lips, and heard the hard metal click against my right front incisor. I realized that an impact any harder than that, and my teeth would break like glass. Let me assure you that all the fluoride treatments in the world wont amount to a pile of shit if someone was to swing one of these bad boys into your pie hole.
The truth of it is, that in a few seconds the inconvenience of having broken teeth wouldn’t matter much anyway, yet the thought caused me to pause just long enough for the unpleasantness of that idea to sink in. Here I was about to paint the wall behind me with a brush of two hundred thirty grains of instant dispatch, and I was worried about my dental health.

On the Proposed "Gay Bomb"

Just in case no one believed me... click on the above link to see the actual news broadcast sent to me by Military.com
7.5 million dollars to develop this thing...

On Star Wars: The Ugly Truth

Star Wars, the quintessential Science Fiction Fantasy story of two generations has been all roses to fans for over thirty years. Now, as the second trilogy has brought us conclusion to the story, and we eagerly await the arrival of the upcoming live television series, many of the dark little secrets have crept to the surface. "Exposed about the characters are the secrets now." said Jedi Master Yoda from the other side. "A great ho that Leia has become."
It is up to Ernie and Bert to expose these secrets to the fans out there.


There were many reasons to feel sorry for Darth Vader. Having been mutilated in his legendary lightsaber duel with Obi-Wan Kenobi, being forced to wear that ridiculous suit, being the “Chosen one” yet still getting kicked around by imperial governors like Tarkin. Oh the humanity! Perhaps the worst of it came when his bid for the Presidency fell short when it was revealed that he was romantically pursuing Leia Organna.

Who could blame him?




So ,when known chick magnet and starship Captain James T. Kirk attempted to put the moves on “Vader’s girl,” he didn’t stand a chance.

Vader’s jealousy was limitless. “If I cant have her, no one can.” He was overheard saying to Evil Galactic Emperor Palpatine in a holo-transmission.

Unfortunately word didn’t reach Vader that Organna was his daughter until moments before his death on the second Death Star. It Vaders “eyes for Leia alone,” that squashed the Galactic Empires hot new “Femtrooper” program. If Vader couldn’t have Leia, he wanted nothing at all.

This certainly explains Vader’s sadistic treatment of Han Solo on Bespin’s Cloud City. Vader could only see Solo’s love for Leia, and he wanted Solo to pay dearly. We can only wonder if things would have been any different if Vader had known the truth...
Leia had been involved in a cheap affair with Solo’s best friend and co-pilot, Chewbacca.
The 200 year-old wookie had a long standing resentment towards Solo for the years of bossing him around and making him swab the deck of the Milennium Falcon. So one day while Solo was on patrol on the ice planet of Hoth, he slipped a little Barry White on the ships audio system and made his move. A little wookie nookie.

Lets not forget the whole Lando affair either, but in Leia's defense, who could resist Billy Dee?

Perhaps it simply falls on the sexually repressive society of Alderaan. Perhaps Leia’s adoptive parents were just too strict? Perhaps there was some underlying abuse issues in her past, or maybe it was just low self-esteem? The underlying cause may never be known, but Princess Leia Organna wreaked more havoc on the Galaxy far, far away than the Sith ever could have. That, coupled with a poor body image (due to his disability) is likely the cause of Vader's over eating towards the end.












Next up, "Booze, drugs, and droids: Where are they now?"

On Remembering: Marissa Giovanna August 31, 1997-June 11, 2006

On the first anniversary of Marissa's death, I wanted to share some of my memoies.
I miss you.

Best smile ever!




Little stinker... the Halloween skunk!















Swinging...she loved to swing! She never got very big so she always fit in that infant swing.











Happy little showoff...













A nap with me.










How cute is this?


Firefighter for Halloween


Marissa the Party Girl, age 2


The mystert "halo." Cant figure out what the little white reflection is... proof of an angel?


My beautiful girl...


Chillin' in her wheelchair at the playground.


"Are we done yet?" A walk in the woods in the Fall




My favorite picture of her smile...










Marissa outside at her grandparent's house.










Mommy and a brand new Rissa-roo!





Marissa at her playgroup for special needs kids with her mommy.










The last picture I have of Roo










Marissa Giovanna just a few hours old.

On Colossal Wastes of Tax Payer Dollars

All I can ask is "Who in their right f*cking mind thought this was a good idea?" Are there really buffoons of this caliber in government office?
Wait...
Don't answer that.


http://cbs5.com/topstories/local_story_159222541.html

[b]Save | E-mail | Print
Jun 8, 2007 9:03 pm US/Pacific
Pentagon Confirms It Sought To Build A 'Gay Bomb'

Hank Plante
Reporting[/b]
(CBS 5) BERKELEY A Berkeley watchdog organization that tracks military spending said it uncovered a strange U.S. military proposal to create a hormone bomb that could purportedly turn enemy soldiers into homosexuals and make them more interested in sex than fighting.

Pentagon officials on Friday confirmed to CBS 5 that military leaders had considered, and then subsquently rejected, building the so-called "Gay Bomb."

Edward Hammond, of Berkeley's Sunshine Project, had used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain a copy of the proposal from the Air Force's Wright Laboratory in Dayton, Ohio.

As part of a military effort to develop non-lethal weapons, the proposal suggested, "One distasteful but completely non-lethal example would be strong aphrodisiacs, especially if the chemical also caused homosexual behavior."

The documents show the Air Force lab asked for $7.5 million to develop such a chemical weapon.

"The Ohio Air Force lab proposed that a bomb be developed that contained a chemical that would cause enemy soliders to become gay, and to have their units break down because all their soldiers became irresistably attractive to one another," Hammond said after reviwing the documents.

"The notion was that a chemical that would probably be pleasant in the human body in low quantities could be identified, and by virtue of either breathing or having their skin exposed to this chemical, the notion was that soliders would become gay," explained Hammond.

The Pentagon told CBS 5 that the proposal was made by the Air Force in 1994.

"The Department of Defense is committed to identifying, researching and developing non-lethal weapons that will support our men and women in uniform," said a DOD spokesperson, who indicated that the "gay bomb" idea was quickly dismissed.

However, Hammond said the government records he obtained suggest the military gave the plan much stronger consideration than it has acknowledged.

"The truth of the matter is it would have never come to my attention if it was dismissed at the time it was proposed," he said. "In fact, the Pentagon has used it repeatedly and subsequently in an effort to promote non-lethal weapons, and in fact they submitted it to the highest scientific review body in the country for them to consider."

Military officials insisted Friday to CBS 5 that they are not currently working on any such idea and that the past plan was abandoned.

Gay community leaders in California said Friday that they found the notion of a "gay bomb" both offensive and almost laughable at the same time.

"Throughout history we have had so many brave men and women who are gay and lesbian serving the military with distinction," said Geoff Kors of Equality California. "So, it's just offensive that they think by turning people gay that the other military would be incapable of doing their job. And its absurd because there's so much medical data that shows that sexual orientation is immutable and cannot be changed."
(© MMVII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

On Brutality: My Sense of a Senseless Act.

please click on the title to see what it is I am talking about. I have to warn you it isnt easy to watch. If you are sensitive--especially about suffering children, dont watch.

There is a reason someone posted this. Even if it isn’t the reason they intended.
There is a reason I stopped and read the post and watched the video on this, the 9th day of June—almost a year to the day I lost my baby.
The reason?
There is something to be learned from this.
We can be angry.
We should be angry.

We feel sad.
And we should.
I cried.
I am writing with tears in my eyes now.
I cried to the point I felt sick when I saw this.
I wept like I did the day I lost my own daughter.
Some people believe that everything happens for a reason. I know that this thought does not comfort the parents of baby Kaleb now. But there is more that I believe...

I believe that we choose our lives. Like when we are going away to school, we choose the courses we want to take because of those things we wish to learn. Before we are born, we know full well what our experiences and our suffering will be, and we choose to enter this incarnation with the understanding that we will learn certain lessons for ourselves, and teach certain lessons to others.

For eight years I watched my baby suffer. I watched her exquisite mind trapped inside a body that did not work, wracked with seizures and subjected to countless tests, surgeries, and treatments. I used to jokingly refer to her as my little “pincushion.” I know what this family is going through. I cannot offer them any comfort, only my sympathy. Nothing is as painful as having to watch your child suffer and die.

I believe that Kaleb knew his destiny before he was born. I have to believe this or my own life would not make sense. I have to believe that he is one of the remarkable beings who choose suffering to better the lives of others. Perhaps he is here to teach us all justice? Perhaps forgiveness. Whatever the case, I love him for it. I deeply love this child who loved his parents and all of us so much that he chose this for himself.

I will pray for the conclusion that Kaleb must have. Be it one that brings him back to his family, or takes him to be with the other angels we feel were called before their time, but were not. They choose to go like they choose to come. Thank you baby Kaleb for your compassion and your courage.
Tell ‘Rissa I love her when you see her next.