A personal diary keeping people abreast of what I am working on writing-wise.

Friday, July 29, 2005

A QUICK ONE

Hey, all. Just a fast update to follow-up on yesterday's post. I finished the books and turned them in before midnight last night so I could go to bed without worrying about them. I then dreamed about reading a Bumperboy comic where he took the top of his head off and poured marbles out of his skull. I think I was talking to Denny about it.

I even managed to squeeze in grocery shopping last night, as well as an hour on the exercise bike someone just gave me watching the Travis Singles DVD, which put me in the mood for:

Current Soundtrack: Travis, The Man Who

Current Mood: relieved

golightly@confessions123.com * The Website * Live Journal Syndication



[to leave comments, click on the time-stamp below, then scroll down on the new page] – All text (c) 2005 Jamie S. Rich

Thursday, July 28, 2005

TAKE YOUR CARRIAGE CLOCK AND SHOVE IT

Okay, here was a stupid plan. It's been a rough week work-wise. Starting a new manga series is always tough, as the first volume requires getting your sea legs and sorting out what's going on, who's who, etc. The Japanese reference edition for this book got lost in the mail while I was in San Diego, so I didn't get it until Monday with my deadline being today (extended already to tomorrow). Strike one. Add to that the unbearable heat of this week. Strike two. Add in some computer problems and other crap on the highway of life, and I've been moving slowwwww. That's three, I'm out. Except then I go out last night and I think, "I've only got 40 pages to go. I bet if I do those when I get home, when it's cooler and quieter, I'll tear through them and be ready to get up and proofread in the morning." Because I need to read over this, and I need to read over that 12th Ai Yori Aoshi, too, and I'll turn them all in just in time to play poker with the Oni guys Friday night.

Only, I get home and I start writing and as time goes, I slow down, my head begins to droop...nope, nope, I'm awake. I'm awake! Hey, quick shower. Refresh me. Wake me up. All right. Back to wri--zzzzzz.

So, I go to bed at 3:00 am, meaning I wake up late today (sacrificing my gym time), and am neither raring to go nor where I need to be. Plus, I'm out of creamer for my coffee. Sonofa--

I'm still glad I went out last night. It was "An Evening of Vaudevillian Entertainment and Musical Hijinks!" Three acts played: The Stolen Sweets (vocal jazz from the '20s and '30s; great gig for them, with their sound coming out big in the open room at the Doug Fir; the girls all wore wigs); Heroes & Villains (the nicest thing I can say for them is their ambition exceeded them, leaving the music seeming too quirky for its own good; Lara meant to compliment them by saying, "It's a vaudeville version of Yes," and that was too on the nose for me--I mean, how can that be good?); and Vagabond Opera. They were a lot of fun. Accordion, sax, drums, stand-up bass, cello, and a mustachioed singer doing Tin Pan Alley in, I believe, Yiddish, Russian, Italian, English, and Romanian (?). Special appearances by a tap dancer and a belly dancer. It sounds like it could have been a mess, but it really worked, they had it together. (Sadly, some attractive flapper acrobats between sets did not. Practice, practice, practice, girls!) Though, top marks of the night go either to Lara's red wig (I typed "wed rig" because I am a three year old with a lisp) or the belly dancer's post performance sparkly pink pumps.

What I really want to be doing is writing Have You Seen the Horizon Lately? (yes, the title has made the switch) and starting "Yoga Girls," which I have decided will be serialized on the Lance Scott journal, since it's a Lance story.

Current Soundtrack: The Dandy Warhols leakage; The Concretes, Layyourbattleaxedown

Current Mood: crappy

golightly@confessions123.com * The Website

* Live Journal Syndication

[to leave comments, click on the time-stamp below, then scroll down on the new page] – All text (c) 2005 Jamie S. Rich

Tuesday, July 26, 2005

HELP THE AGED

Thanks to the graciousness and patience of every straight boy's temptation, Greg McElhatton, you can now subscribe to this blog for your Live Journal. Follow the link and add me to your friends list and join in this mad experiment. I don't know what I am doing, so don't expect any of those fancy tricks you LJ users love so much, like "behind the cut" posts, etc. You hear so much about old dogs and new tricks; well, you can't teach an old cat new tricks, either, but not because we're dumb like our canine nemeses (nemisises?), but just because we don't wanna.

Warning: A week's worth of posts may show up on your Friends List as having been posted yesterday. It's what happened in mine. That's life, I suppose.

Current Soundtrack: The Primitives, Lazy 86-88 - on vinyl, no less! from the personal collection of Christine Norrie! It even came with her dust and gunk!

Current Mood: good

golightly@confessions123.com * The Website



[to leave comments, click on the time-stamp below, then scroll down on the new page] – All text (c) 2005 Jamie S. Rich

Monday, July 25, 2005

THE MORE YOU IGNORE ME, THE CLOSER I GET

In what one hopes will be the final installment of pictures of me from Comic Con, Laurenn McCubbin just had to get the last word in. Oddly, she seemed to catch me at the freshest time of day.




Chynna was giving free prostate exams. (It turns out I'm clear.)

But wait! Laurenn does not get the last word! Randy Lander totally trumps her in his con round-up at the Fourth Rail: "...and talked to Jamie S. Rich, who wins my award for "sharpest dressed man" of the convention by showing up almost every day in a suit... and not just any suit, but some very nice suits, not too stiff and not too flashy. I envied Jamie's fashion sense, although I'm just not enough of a suit guy to pull that off without being uncomfortable all day."

Take that, Bitsy!

(One should note, though, Mr. Lander, that as a freelancer, for me any occassion where I put on pants is dressing up. You think us freelance-types merely joke about that, but no, it's true. We rarely put on our clothes. Naked the livelong day, I am.)

(One should also note that my most awesome current haircut is due to the new love of my tonsorial life, the amazing Melissa at the NW 21st Avenue location of Bishops in Portland, OR. Long may she shear!)

Current Soundtrack: Morrissey, The Best of...

Current Mood: energetic

golightly@confessions123.com * The Website



[to leave comments, click on the time-stamp below, then scroll down on the new page] – All text (c) 2005 Jamie S. Rich

Saturday, July 23, 2005

FROM THE EDGE OF THE DEEP GREEN SEA

For some strange reason--probably a combination of the summer cold (and its nasty Klingon phlegm) and just the general readjustment after travel--I was up until 3 a.m. last night, and then I was able to sleep in until 11 a.m. That's a rare trick for me, since I usually wake up like clockwork. It was also nearly 2 a.m. when I was simultaneously e-mailing with someone in California who had not gone to bed, as well, and someone in England, who had just gotten up. Such is the internet. (And since they know each other, were they secretly talking about me?)

I finished the first draft of volume 12 of Ai Yori Aoshi over the last couple of days, a good way to get back on the bicycle. I was actually supposed to start a new title, but the copy of the Japanese edition hasn't shown up yet, so I jumped ahead. This Ai Yori Aoshi manages to somehow be both the sappiest and the most naked of them all, which is no mean feat. Every chapter has the girls taking a bath, while also talking at length about how all of their happiness is intertwined. Thank goodness it ends with portents of trials and tribulations to come!

Current Soundtrack: The Cure, Wish

Current Mood: finished

golightly@confessions123.com * The Website



[to leave comments, click on the time-stamp below, then scroll down on the new page] – All text (c) 2005 Jamie S. Rich

Friday, July 22, 2005

"HELLO, RED..."

"I thought all writers drank to excess and beat their wives. You know one time I secretly wanted to be a writer." - C.K. Dexter Jamie


It was Kelly Sue's birthday. And one of my favorite pics from Nerd Prom. Like if a blonde Elivs Costello* traveled back in time to visit the young Michelle Phillips and give her a bottle of Manic Panic.

Speaking of Katharine Hepburn, I was watching All About Me - A Self-Portrait on the double Philadelphia Story DVD (which KS gave me for Xmas), and something she said struck a chord with me. I have had a long gestating theory--and I don't think I've written about it here, just assaulted friends with it--that innovators become bored with innovation, it stops being a challenge. As a result, they end up going back to the fundamentals to challenge themselves with structure, which is actually far more difficult than it is given credit for. Consider the Coen Bros. channelling Preston Sturges for the vastly underappreciated Intolerable Cruelty or remaking Ealing comedies. Or how Scorsese says that now that the camera can do whatever you want it to, the real test is to see how much you can restrain yourself from moving it. In this documenteary, Hepburn notes that in the 1950s she returned to the stage and started doing classics by Shakespeare and Shaw because she felt it was the true yardstick of an actor. The material is set and proven, and the actor has to see if she is up to the challenge of it rather than working it out on her own. I do so love being right!

* I only invoke the name of Elvis, who is far cooler than I, because two other people have said it. I also got multiple comparisons to David Lynch, and twice I heard, "Hey, I didn't know Interpol were in town." All of which I am A-ok with. Could be worse. There was, in fact, one girl who came up to me in San Diego and said, "You don't look as much like Morrissey as I expected"--and she was genuinely disappointed.

Current Soundtrack: Lesley Gore, The Golden Hits of...

Current Mood: chipper

golightly@confessions123.com * The Website



[to leave comments, click on the time-stamp below, then scroll down on the new page] – All text (c) 2005 Jamie S. Rich

Thursday, July 21, 2005



I've just been informed by the hyper intelligent Slave Labor editrix that when her pal and marketing maven Deb Moskyok called me "natty," it was not "gnatty" and did not carry the connotation of having clothes that had been picked apart by bugs, as I had envisioned; rather, it has many old school meanings, all of which are highly positive. Such as, "Of a person: exhibiting or characterized by dainty tidiness, taste, or skill, esp. smartly and fashionably dressed. Also occas. of a person's actions or behaviour. In early use perh. with a sense of crafty, cunning."

My apologies. All I can offer is that I am a bear of very little brain, and my head is rarely out of the honey pot.

Of course, that still doesn't excuse Joe Nakamura for refusing to sit on my lap. But, oh well...

Current Soundtrack: INXS still (it's got two discs!)

Current Mood: many apologies...no, really

I CAN'T IMAGINE THE WORLD WITHOUT BUMPERBOY

Before I continue my tribute to myself, let's talk about something really important:



I love Bumperboy Loses His Marbles!

That's it. No fancy shenanigans, no clever wordplay. I just love it. Besides, the book is full of fancy shenanigans and it has clever written all over it, so Debbie Huey has it more than covered. I mean, how can you not love a comic that has Onomatopeople with names like Bam or Pow? It's a credit to Huey's self-assurance that she has made a book for kids that gives kids the benefit of the doubt that they will even know what that means. It's a rare thing these days to find entertainment that actually remembers children can be clever, too.

Plus, there are dancing bananas.

Huey has self-published this collection of her minicomics using a Xeric Grant, and AdHouse Books are distributing it, so it's the most indie of indie comics. And yet, Huey manages to avoid all the hipster pitfalls that most indie comic book creators trip over when making books for kids. Too often such comics rely on an ironic pose to get them through, as if one jaded adult can only create such nonsense if other jaded adults can see him winking. Bumperboy Loses His Marbles! is played with a straight face, hearkening back to a time when we could all have fun without having to make excuses for it. Bumperboy's adventure is one every kid would want to have, and any adult worth knowing secretly wants to have it, too. It's a simple story: as Bumperboy and his faithful canine Bumperpup head off to practice their marble playing before the big tournament, their arch rival tricks them into dropping the entire bag of marbles through a Borp Hole, an interdimensional portal. The only way to get them back is to go into the hole themselves and search the strange worlds for the lost toys. With the deadline of the competition hanging over their heads, it's a bit of a challenge.

The line work in Bumperboy Loses His Marbles! is clean and charming, and Huey approaches each page with an eye that manages to be inventive while maintaining clarity. Her layouts aren't just simple grids, they move with the events of the story. The journeys through the Borp Hole become a constantly growing riff, and Huey creates wonderful montages to get us through the marbles tournament without cheating us on the action.

Bumperboy Loses His Marbles! is a graphic novel for anyone who wants to recapture the joy and remember what it was like to play a fun game--or read a good story--on a summer day. It's cliche to say it's for the kid who lives inside of all of us, but it really is. It's also perfect for those of us who are older comic book fans to share with a new generation of readers. I know my nephews can expect to get one in their Christmas stockings this year.

* * *

I CAN'T IMAGINE THE WORLD WITHOUT ME, PART II

(jump down to part I of this exercise in vanity)


I signed Foxy Roxane's arm, right next to Jeremy Love.

Ian Shaugnessy beats Stacy for pure picture volume...


Ian so wishes.


Ian offers to lick off that barbecue sauce, unaware it's really a nasty razor accident. (Mad props to Jennifer de Guzman, who photoshopped it out for me in her pic. Reason 1,001,048,356 why j'adore Jennifer de Guzman.)


Ian tries to make Chynna and I suckle his hairy man teats.


I learn what it's really like to be an Oni freelancer. (l-r: Joe Nozemack, publisher; Jon Flores, superstar boyfriend; Chynna Clugston, Jon & Ian's mistress; Ian, superstar toadie; James Lucas Jones, editor in chump; Randal C. Jarrell, no one is really sure)

Current Soundtrack: INXS, Shine Like It Does: The Anthology (1979-1997)

Current Mood: dorky

golightly@confessions123.com * The Website



[to leave comments, click on the time-stamp below, then scroll down on the new page] – All text (c) 2005 Jamie S. Rich

Wednesday, July 20, 2005

I CAN'T IMAGINE THE WORLD WITHOUT ME

I've been checking out everyone else's convention reports, and they are all so nice and sweet and about all the wonderful friends they reunited with and met for the first time, and then we see pictures of said friends, and I realized, "Fuck that, this is my time!"

So, I now feel inspired to create the most self-important con report ever. Nothing but pictures of me!


Me 'n' Izzy

Stacy Jill is freakin' obsessed with me...


"Seriously, Jamie, the whole Brazilian soccer look isn't working?"
Dude, read it in my eyes!



Crap, why did I tuck in that shirt?


That's right. Who doesn't want to get with this?


From the B. Clay Moore collection:


Hell, even I'd fuck me right about now.


Kelly Sue, I think a Jedi just pinched my ass.

Famous Amos:


That's what I like to call my "I'm merely tolerating you" face.

Jennifer de Whozits:


This poor girl got attached to a souse.

Shockingly, that picture was taken even after her dark-clad gang had dubbed me "The Gnatty, Pedantic Dilbert." And five minutes after it was taken, Jennifer had smartly removed herself from my presence so that others might enjoy me dropping my pants and singing "The Old Gray Mare." You think I jest, but I do not...and she ain't what she used to be, let me tell you.

Keep 'em coming, kids. I'm not even close to getting tired of looking at me yet!

Current Soundtrack: Bloc Party, Silent Alarm; The Dandy Warhols, Odditorium...or Warlords of Mars?

Current Mood: flirty

golightly@confessions123.com * The Website



[to leave comments, click on the time-stamp below, then scroll down on the new page] – All text (c) 2005 Jamie S. Rich

NO MATTER HOW HARD I TRY...



...I just can't shake the nerd off of me. It clings!!!

Current Soundtrack: Oasis, Don't Believe The Truth


Current Mood: quel ridiculous

golightly@confessions123.com * The Website



[to leave comments, click on the time-stamp below, then scroll down on the new page] – All text (c) 2005 Jamie S. Rich

Monday, July 18, 2005

BIGMOUTH, LA DI DUM, DI DUM

So, it appears I have trumped my worst joke of the con with my general most idiotic moment of the con. At the party last night, I ended up sitting on a stool that someone had stuck their gum to the side of which resulted in green gum all over the crotch of my pants. At some point in the party, my friend Dean Haglund introduced me to a woman named Chase Masterson. She was very friendly and complimented me on my suit, to which I replied, "Yeah, but I sat in gum, so there's gum all over my pants...but at least my nuts smell like mint."

Exit Chase Masterson.

Comics artist Matt Clark then informed me that she was an actress probably best known for a recurring role on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Woops.

Internet note: some of my images on the blog aren't loading. It may have to do with a crash at the host service. If it isn't corrected by the time I return home, I'll be looking into it.

Current Soundtrack: iTunes shuffle (Kate Bush, Coldplay (ugh, I know), Nancy Sinatra)

Current Mood: embarassed

golightly@confessions123.com * The Website



[to leave comments, click on the time-stamp below, then scroll down on the new page] – All text (c) 2005 Jamie S. Rich

Sunday, July 17, 2005

EVERYONE KNOWS THIS IS NOWHERE

It's the tail end of the Comic Con. I considered posting over the course of the show, but did not really have time...or probably more accurately no real inclination. In a lot of ways, it was a bit of a lacklustre show for me. I had squared up some more manga work before I left, so certain networking I had expected to do no longer had the same importance; no unexpected source of possible work surfaced until Sunday, when getting stuck on the wrong side of the train tracks as the cattle train was going through pushed me together with an old friend. The evening still has to be closed out by the Graphitti party and probably some further drinking at the Hyatt, but I am quickly tossing this up while my roommates shower.

Saturday was the Oni Press panel. You can read some details HERE. Love the Way You Love was announced, and I think the writer did a decent job summing it up. The series will actually start the night of Tristan's final scene in Cut My Hair at the concert the day before Valentine's Day and go from there.



For those interested, Mason and Jeane will not appear. The entire band, Like A Dog, will be featured, though, as will Lenny the bouncer and Tristan's brothers Lance and Percival. The cover you see here is by Chynna Clugston, with colors by Guy Major. No artist is attached yet, but we hope the book will start next year by this time. There will be a theme song co-written by myself and Lara Michell, who will record it and we'll make it available for download.

My signings went okay. I seemed to do better just hanging around the booth than when I actually sat down. I got to meet up with a lot of friends, including spending much time with Kelly Sue, Laurenn (they both worked out all the days of the show in preparation for their triathalon!), and Jennifer (oh my, such charm!), in addition to my regular Oni pals. I also bought copies of Bumperboy by Debbie Huey, who also did a great sketch for me (the only one in my miscellaneous book) and the new Junko Mizuno, Pure Trance. I got both of them signed. Ian Shaughnessy bought me the latest Paper Biscuit by Ronnie Del Carmen, too. And my Audrey Hepburn sketchbook got an addition from Capote in Kansas artist Chris Samnee. Chynna's book Queen Bee also looks pretty swell. Also, I'm curious to check out Spazzmania, whose head honcho Lin Tam came down with our buddy Stacy Jill Jacobs, and who seems to have a high tolerance for guys like me. (Stacy was also part of the Sequetial Tart blog report.)

My stupidest joke of the con occurred last night at the Panda Inn, where Ian, Joe Nozemack, Chip Mosher, Brian Hurtt, Neal Shaffer, Martin Griffin, and myself were all dining. The long-suffering waitress asked if anyone needed validation, and I said, "I'd like to be told I'm pretty."

Con self-portrait:


Courtesy of ...

Current Soundtrack: Ian and Martin watching crappy hotel TV; iTunes shuffle (The Tears, Arthur Lee, Simon & Garfunkel, 2046 soundtrack, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, Pussycat Trash vs. Jarvis Cocker, Brave Captain, Jesus & Mary Chain, Erasure)

Current Mood: hungry

golightly@confessions123.com * The Website



[to leave comments, click on the time-stamp below, then scroll down on the new page] – All text (c) 2005 Jamie S. Rich

Tuesday, July 12, 2005

AND IF WE DON'T HAVE A FUTURE, JUST LEAVE YOUR AUTOGRAPH

The San Diego Comic Con International is now upon us. Lord, help us all.

For those of you out there who are amongst the great unwashed that will be attending, you can find me at these specific times at the Oni Press booth:

Thursday: 3:00-4:20 (dude!)
Friday: 6:00-6:50 (w/Chynna Clugston & Jen Van Meter)
Saturday: 1:30-2:50 (w/Chynna Clugston)
Sunday: 12:00-1:20 (w/Jen Van Meter)


My novels will be on sale for those who don't have them.

I believe I am also expected at the Oni panel on noon on Saturday. It hasn't been mentioned outright, but I am told that the announcement of my future Oni plans will be made there, so one assumes. Check your program for locations. I would also suggest that non-attending readers look at sites like Newsarama and Comic Book Resources. They should be doing daily reporting from the show, so check their sites that evening. I am sure some mental defective somewhere will be doing podcasts, too. (Seriously, why do we need to now hear each other? My voice is that of an adolescent newt. No one needs to hear that.)

I'll miss not having my Jiminy Cricket there this year. Andi Watson, my friend and collaborator, always seems to be around when drunken Jamie is looking to get up to no good with drunken indie comics girls. He masks his cockblocking by teaming up with me in teasing them, and then somehow is always there to chaperone me back to my hotel. He's very subtle about it. If I get a venereal disease this year, it will be all his fault.

Current Soundtrack: The Dandy Warhols, "Smoke It/All The Money or the Simple Life/Love Is The New Feel Awful"

Current Mood: anxious

golightly@confessions123.com * The Website



[to leave comments, click on the time-stamp below, then scroll down on the new page] – All text (c) 2005 Jamie S. Rich

Saturday, July 09, 2005

3 SHORT FILMS ABOUT LOVE

Anthology films have never caught on. Like comic books, the audience always seems leery of the shorter structure and fearful of the mixed-bag mentality. Still, every once in a while someone tries.



The most recent is Eros, a three-part film about love directed by Wong Kar-Wai, Steven Soderbergh, and Michelangelo Anontioni--all three style heavyweights, all three favorites of mine.

Wong's "The Hand" leads the pack. Some things I had read suggested that Gong Li's character in this is the same as in 2046, but that doesn't appear to be true at first. The self-assured, successful gambler in 2046 bears only a superficial resemblance to the neurotic call girl breaking down in "The Hand." Then again, it may be that she becomes the character we meet in the other film at the end of "The Hand," when all we are told is she's finally getting a shot at success. It could also explain the glove fetish in 2046, and her refusal to divulge her past...so maybe they are the same after all.

In many Wong Kar-Wai films, people are wanting to connect and can't. Usually social mores are standing in their way, and things they intend to say go unsaid, leaving them woefully separate. In "The Hand," much of the same divisions exist between the hooker, Ms Hua, and her faithful tailor, Zhang (a barely recognizable Chen Chang, whose look here echoes Tony Leung's in 2046). Even when they do reveal their feelings, they can't go all the way: their confessions are played off with a laugh. Yet, in their first meeting, a bond is formed, and a way for them to have a connection. The "human touch" becomes more than greeting-card metaphor, it becomes a real thing. In the first meeting, Ms Hua uses her hand on Zhang, telling him he must know a woman's touch to make truly beautiful women's clothes. She becomes his muse and the great love of his life. Something passes between them every time he measures her for a new outfit. He becomes her protector, be it from eviction or the onslaught of age (oh, the subtle lies of the man with the measuring tape!). Even when they finally kiss, illness prevents it from actually being on the lips--Ms Hua's hand remains the focus of their desire.

As with all Wong Kar-Wai, the pace is leisurely, the structure loose, and the after-effects haunting beyond the construction of the plot. Thus, it's smart to follow with Soderbergh's quirkier entry. In "Equilibrium," Robert Downey Jr. plays a man who has gone to a psychiatrist to unravel a dream about infidelity and how it might relate to stress at work. Alan Arkin plays the doctor, who himself cheats on the patient, orchestrating the session so Downey can't see him, because Arkin is more fascinated by some unseen event outside his window.



Soderbergh has fun with the layers of a dream within a dream, though in some ways his dream imagery fails by lacking any sense of randomness (and having just watched Ingmar Bergman's Wild Strawberries again last night, anyone would have a lot to live up to with that dream imagery fresh in my mind). The building blocks of the dream are too convenient, but that may be Soderbergh's trick. One of those blocks is the key to the whole sequence, when we learn who the object of Downey's desire really is--and only then do we really understand where the eros is in this segment. It's an understated surprise that leaves the viewer questioning which parts were really the dream and which the reality.

Antonioni, the old master, is saved for last, and he sadly really does become the ass in the project. The less said about his piece, the better. It was as if he had forgotten what his style was like, so he sat down and watched his great movies to refresh his memory, found he didn't understand them at all, and yet copied them anyway. When the man has to resort to such a bad visual pun as a weather cock placed side by side with his male lead so we can see they have strikingly similar profiles, it's time to pack up and go home.

If you need an Antonioni fix, a much better bet is the recently released 1950 feature Story of a Love Affair. It predates his more lyrical '60s style, but it has hints of it. The film is a potboiler, about a woman with a dark past that she is worried is going to be dug up, and so she reteams with her old lover to try to keep it buried...leading them towards an even darker present and a wonderfully ironic existential ending reminiscent of Sartre's "The Wall." The young Antonioni approached genre with a aristocratic air, giving hints of the redaction of technique that was to come. Best to remember him for how he was rather than Eros.



Current Soundtrack: iTunes shuffle (Brian Jonestown Massacre, Suede, Antony & The Johnsons, The Futureheads, Spacemen 3, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, The Ordinary Boys, The Decemberists, The Smiths, The Style Council)

Current Mood: rushed

golightly@confessions123.com * The Website



[to leave comments, click on the time-stamp below, then scroll down on the new page] – All text (c) 2005 Jamie S. Rich

Thursday, July 07, 2005

TO ALL MY FRIENDS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM...



My thoughts are with you on this horrible day.

Wednesday, July 06, 2005

COS I AM THE INSECT IN THE JAR

Just because I don't have much to say here lately, it doesn't mean I'm not saying something somewhere. Take this article on Oni Press at Bookslut, for instance. I have a quote where I borrow my best rhetoric from Brit bands like The Smiths and Suede and you-name-it-they've-claimed-to-be-a-gang-in-their-early-days.

I also will likely be shooting my mouth of next week at the Comic Con International in San Diego. I'll be there all four of the main days, Thursday, July 13-Sunday, July 17. Buy Cut My Hair, buy I Was Someone Dead, buy me drinks. I'll be buying Bumperboy Loses His Marbles. Oni will be announcing some things with my name attached, and they'll be doing that contest thing, too. I saw the pencils for the first cover to one of those announcements, and wow, they were were gorgeous.

I'll be on good behavior for the most part at the show, but I suppose I should put the comic industry on warning. There are some of you out there that I have no interest in continuing any alleged relationship with. I no longer have to be diplomatic, I no longer have to be nice for the sake of propriety. If you extend your hand and I don't take it, for goodness sake, just walk away. If you think about it, you'll probably know why. Yes, it was all just business, there was no personal, that's exactly the point. And that you're most likely a jackass.

I prefer not to think of myself as bitter and angry, just practical. You remember that scene in Red Dawn when C. Thomas Howell is carving notches in his gun for all the Russkies he's obliterated, and they tell him he has to let go of his hate, and he responds, "My hate keeps me warm"? As a twelve-year-old sitting in the movie theatre, it was like a revelation. "Oh, is that it?! No wonder I'm sweating all the time!"

Of course, there are a lot of people I actually do want to see. There are a ton of cute girls in the comics industry, and if they don't already view me as their funny uncle, they will by the end of next week. Again, consider yourselves warned.

Current Soundtrack: The Tears, "Lovers/Low-Life/The Primitive/Song For The Migrant Worker"


Current Mood: mischievous

golightly@confessions123.com * The Website



[to leave comments, click on the time-stamp below, then scroll down on the new page] – All text (c) 2005 Jamie S. Rich