Mission Accomplished

Welp, after however many years it's taken since I've first began bitching about my desire to leave Los Scandalous a shrinking figure in my rear view mirror, it's finally done.

Technically, there's still expendable bits and pieces still left floating around in various storage arrangements sprinkled throughout the Basin, but for the most part, it's over and done with.

Now begins the process of, well, processing and rebuilding something resembling a life out here, hopefully bereft of any of the toxins and bullshit sensibilities that wore heavy on all my later attempts at life-building in that particular part of the world.

I think one of them new-age type people put forth the notion that you wear out people and places, and the best thing to do is keep moving on lest you wear out your welcome, and become the villain of your own story-- no, that was "The Dark Knight."  Yeah, so anyway, that being the case, I probably should have left Southern California along with the rest of the gang back in the early aughts instead of stupidly soldiering on ice-skating uphill.

 Maybe in some alternate quantum-divergent or quantum-conjectural universe, I did, but since I'm not around to experience whatever it is that alternate-me is currently going through, it's just that much mental wank-material and nothing more.

The point is, I'm here now, and what the hell am I going to do about it?

More Art. And I have to find a better way to do shit, really.

Posting stuff here so I can post it to the tumblr later.

One of these days I'll figure out how to do this shit up proper.

Will edit this post later.

Art. For reals, this time.

Well, thanks to a bout of Blizzard and Power Outage on the part of Scooter and a bit of Food poisoning on mine, we have a filler episode of Life Under Construction.

I rather enjoyed doing this piece, so much so that I've made a few variations:

Sort of like a low-rent Masumune Shirow without the nekkid anime chicks with the censored genitalia getting violated by naughty tentacles and tag-teamed by chicks, dudes, mythical beasts, Elder Gods, and what-not.

Not really art-related. Well, sort of but not really.

One of the many-- well, few, actually-- useful things I've learned on my foray into the great Green North over the weekend for that which passes for the day-job is to appreciate the dangers of showing someone up on their own turf-- In this particular case, it was quite the necessity as the local "talent," or rather, the gruppenführer of said local talent wasn't quite up to the level of quality needed for the task at hand.

His minions, however, especially the females of the species, were absolutely kick-ass wonderful and I would write glowing letters of recommendation for any of them if my name had any weight at all in the industry.

Anyway, the consequences of doing my job properly is that I could most likely be persona non grata in certain areas of the East Bay where the aforementioned gruppenführer and his second-in-command hold any sway.

That's neither here nor there, however, since I don't really plan on a life in the Life in the East Bay anytime soon.

It DOES, however, explain why some people no longer return my calls.

People are funny like that sometimes. And it only took me a field trip up north and getting my ass beat down brutally for the past four days to figure that one out.

 Also, one of my co-workers introduced me to their spouse's artwork.

He kicks ass and I'm jealous as fuck of his talent.

Updates galore. Alleged.

Welp, yeah, I kinda suck at this blogging thing, considering it's been a few months since my last post about wanting to get the fuck out of Dodge and other bits of self-indulgent bile.

And sure, I'm quite a bit late, but that Alleged Art thing has been taking up a wee bit of time.

I suppose that one piece was good enough to get showcased on Girls With Slingshots while the rest of it went to finishing up the latest arc for Life Under Construction.

There's some more stuff coming up as far as guest shots are concerned, so yeah.

I might even post more shit about how whatever alleged "style" I've developed for the Scooter and Liam Project has shifted quite a bit since Scooter first lit a fire under my ass and got me interested in doing this sort of stuff again after Los Scandalous killed off whatever art-type leanings I had YET AGAIN.

All in all, though, it's been a pretty decent trip.

I may even start updating this thing on a regular basis again.

Exit Strategy

Yeah, it's about that time, that time being "Get the motherfucking hell out of Dodge tiem because Los Scandalous is beat and I've pretty much had it with the people, places, and things in this place, especially those who share some DNA in common with yours truly."

It was once told to me that people eventually wear things out-- places, jobs, people, etc., etc., etc., and you either go down with the dying host or move on like any other virus to new pastures.

Recently, I've discovered to my horror and great distaste that I happen to be "people" and have started to exhibit some of these people-like symptoms.  Which means that my current figurative host has lost some of its splendor and sustenance-providing sparkle as it enters brain death and its sphincters start to loosen and it's time for this particular virus to ride off into the sunset.

Or the sunrise, as the case may be.

Change is good, and sometimes a change in scenery is even better.  So why can't I get that Buckaroo Banzai adage out of my head?

"No matter where you go, there you are."  Therein lies the danger-- if you're stuck in a pattern you don't enjoy, change the pattern before you change the channel, otherwise you'll be bringing the same old shit to a nice clean slate.

So that's probably first on the list of things to do before I start packing shit into my car.  Figure out what doesn't work anymore and get it the hell out of my psychic real-estate.

In the meantime, let's wax poetic a little bit more:

Maybe it's part of the whole "rejecting the end of cycles" thing.

El Aye has nothing for me anymore. Certainly none of the "magic" that may have enticed me to these parts back in the day-- no, that was college, and the chance to escape those over-rated environmental changes known as "Seasons."

Perhaps it never did.

Time to stop being an observer of cycles and slave to patterns.

On to the next host.

Also, maybe some more art later this week.

Hurr Hurr, here's some alleged "art."

Okay, in keeping with yet another aborted project that's not so much aborted as it is constantly interrupted by the shit I do to keep me nourished and sheltered and occasionally liquored and well-traveled as a nameless statistic here in Los Scandalous, here's the latest iteration of Coffee Shop Girl, as seen in Scooter's latest comic.

Or will be seen, since the gods of the machine have decided to make me their chew toy for a few days.

Hi there!  What do you need?

Now, this iteration is a combination of the first two meatspace sketches, plus the scene/hipster short-haired chick sketch in Photoshop, plus bits and pieces of of what Scooter finds aesthetically desirable, and what I consider teh HAWT.  Pretty tricky, considering he tends to go for brunettes and I prefer blondes.

This impasse was broken one fateful evening in Fort Collins after a few beers and an ill-advised milkshake on my part, when random reveler girl decides that she'd love to "jam" and "rock out" with us for a wee bit.  Said reveler seemed to be some sort of cosmic embodiment of Coffee Shop Girl both in character and aesthetic.

Neither of us had considered the "Dark Skinned Red-Head" trope until now, but combined with random girl's vivaciousness and alcohol-fueled friendliness, it seemed to be the perfect match.

And just as quickly as this Avatar of CSG entered our lives, she just as suddenly disappeared, and between the libation, the wings, and the milkshake that would drop a cow at fifty paces, I was in no condition to look for her again.

Just as well.  Whatever bit of the universe was at work that night gave us a little something to work on, and I hope that my sub-par artistic abilities were adequate enough to capture a fraction of that spirit.