Weekly Dose of Dangle

A panel from the comics job

Oscar went up to Lake Tahoe with Ben and Clyde so Hae and I had the whole weekend to ourselves for the first time in I think about ten years. We went wild. Happy hours and movies and all sorts of illicit activity. Sunday we went to see my favorite band the Sons of Emperor Norton at a bar in Hayward.

Actually we spent part of Saturday trying to tackle the horrendous squalor that was Oscar’s room. I started with the intention of throwing away about fifty percent of the crap in there, but Hae went through and carefully sorted every bit of it like the perfectionist she is. In the end we only threw out two garbage bags full and moved three or four boxes of old books and clothes and stuff out into the living room where it will sit until we figure out what to do with it. We really have to make Oscar start taking care of his room and pulling his weight around here before it’s too late. I’m afraid our lax parenting (especially mine) is turning him into a spoiled brat. Talk about attitude!

But then we rewarded ourselves by playing. We threw our vegetarianism out the window and ate some pork at the Oakland hipster hangout, Mua. Delicious. We went to see Midnight in Paris at an actual movie theater and it was pretty good. Then we went to see Super 8 the next night, which turned out to be one of those formulaic monster movies. We ate popcorn from a giant shopping bag-sized bag and shared one of those cups of soda that holds about two gallons. Between the two of us we drank less than a gallon of it. The mall was full of teenagers on Saturday night, just hanging out eating pizza with their braces and zit-covered faces. It won’t be long before our son is one of them. Jesus Christ that’s scary!

There is finally light at the end of the tunnel with the big comic strip job I’ve been complaining about––for which I was already paid at the end of 2010. I cranked all week and made great headway. Because of the lack of monetary incentive I have no desire to do the work whatsoever. I’m running on pure professionalism here, folks, pure professionalism. I’ve got at least a half dozen proposals out there for new work, graphic recording and jobs making those RSA-style whiteboard videos for scientists and universities. They are fun to do except that in order to keep your shoulder out of camera range you have to draw in an odd stance with your arm extended way out to the right. Try drawing that way, it’s very awkward. I sure hope these jobs come through and things pick up in the fall. I’m enjoying summer but I’d enjoy it more if I had some gigs on the calendar for September. It’s the freelance dilemma.

I’ve been too busy to work on the book and I have to workshop some pages by this weekend. I’ve been so stuck lately and out of touch with my creative unconscious. I’ll write some pages this week.

Update on Oscar’s room cleaning. When he came home he was pissed. We destroyed his fort that he had worked so hard on. That’ll be a subject for him and his therapist someday.


I just won an award from the Association of Alternative Newsmedia for this cover illustration I did for Tucson Weekly! Actually I shared it with Jim Nitzel who was my editor. Click it to see it bigger.