Indecent Exposure to Cars: The story of the World Naked Bike Ride
March 2nd - March 8th
Show time 7pm
http://www.riotheatre.ca/
http://www.worldnakedbikeride.org/movie/movie.htm
I’m going on the 6th (Tuesday) - who’s with me?
After ten years in Vancouver I finally broke down and bought a rain poncho (at Camouflage). So watch out for that!
I had a dream last night that I organized a Slackademics class on sex, which was basically going to be a big orgy, and for some reason it was happening in a hotel, so it got mixed in with one of my recurring dreams which is raiding a hotel buffet or banquet. I was both intrigued and extremely nervous about the Slackademics workshop - needless to say it was the most attended class. The dream ended before anyone got their clothes off though.
I’ve watched five films in probably as many days. Cocoon was great. Children of Men was great, Letters from Iwo Jima was really good, Anchorman was good and funny, My Super Ex-Girlfriend was entertaining but mostly bad - fun to watch Eddie Izzard as the villainous mastermind, though.
Speaking of movies I got the game “Director’s Cut II,” a movie trivia game. I bought it at Salvation Army for 7 bucks, still in the wrapper. Every week or so Joyce and I have been going to Stephane & Sheri’s place and watching something with David Attenborough (I got my Life in the Undergrowth DVDs recently) and then playing games - usually Wii. I think next time we may have to play some Director’s Cut. Usually Joyce kicks my ass at games but we played Boggle last night and the tables were turned. TURNED I tell you! I spelled ‘peyote’ which was gratifying.
I have now made a blog category for the comic, so you can see all the comic entries by clicking http://www.thickets.net/toren/category/comicbook/
I was in such a crap mood on Wednesday. I got a flat tire on my bikey bike on Sunday night and broke my hand pump trying to fix it. How crap is that? A flat tire and a useless pump. So anyway I took it in to the Bike Doctor (did you know that most bike shops aren’t open on Monday - and did you know that all of my bike repair needs have been on Mondays?) and decided to get a tune up as well. The guys there decided I needed new brakes for both tires and a new rear tire (not just the tube) as well. So my flat tire turned into a $120 bill. I’m sure all that stuff was needed as I take about as much care of my bike as I did my automobiles back in the day (did I tell you the story of how I left my Reliant K car on the side of the road with its engine on fire?), but it still sucked. Add to that the stress of getting my passport and some relationship hiccups and I was stressed out. But - the bike is fixed and rides much better, the passport is on its way in 4 weeks, and things are splendiferous with Joyce again, so all is well.
After dealing with the crud, I spent most of my time on Wednesday working on the comic. This turned out to be just like doing D&D illos over the past few years. I spent almost no time drawing and almost all of the time looking for photo references on the interweb - helicopters, snow cats, even parkas and mountains. I am trying to keep as much “freehand” as possible, i.e. no photo reference, because I find that the more I rely on photo reference, the less personal style I put into the drawing, and that’s a habit I’m trying to get out of (this is something that Mike commented on from my recent drawings). But I have never drawn a helicopter before so cut me some slack here.
Other good news is that I put the cash down for an 11×17″ scanner so I will be able to scan in the full comic pages in fewer fell swoops than otherwise possible. After being unable to get it through local computer stores (they’re made in California and don’t have a Canadian distributor), I found an eBay store in Richmond that is going to ship it to me. Came to about $225 including shipping, methinks. Much better than the $1500-2000 models sold in Canada, and Kevin* from Outnumbered ( http://criticalhitcomics.com/ ) sings its praises as he has the same model. I’ve been doing the pencils in non-photo blue so I can’t really give you my progress so far (yet), but page 1 is indeed coming along. Steve brought along a copy of his PERSPECTIVE FOR COMIC BOOK ARTISTS to the last class which looks good, and plainly explained for dunces like myself, but upon looking it up on amazon.ca I see it is not available. So I’ll have to hunt for it on eBay.
(*I also bought some Blue Line comic book paper from The Comicshop so I am in a better position to finish the wererat splash that I promised Kevin for issue 5)
Stewie is going to be helping (read: doing) with the layout for the album, which is a relief because I know he is a crack shot and reliable, not to mention close at hand for the beatings. Jordan had the idea of doing the cover as a photo of the pocketbook parody, which is a good one. Taylor will be the official photographer for the project, and Mike Jackson is going to be taking on the role of Dr. Timothy Vess - the protagonist in the narrative for the album, for the purposes of liner photo. I got the mixes from Brodie finally last night, and I have been listening to them in the living room, on the computer, & at Stephane’s. There are a couple things that bug me but I think I may just be over critical of my pitch. Hopefully! If Brodie is happy with it then I must trust his professional opinion. Regardless I think it will be a kickass album of ROCK.
I know it, and now you know it! Colossal is mesonychoteuthis. Giant is architeuthis. Four people so far have emailed me this story - thanks to each and every one of you. And now I’m passing it on to you!
Colossal squid may be biggest ever caught
*
* February 22, 2007NEW Zealand fishermen in the Ross Sea have caught what’s thought to be the largest squid ever found anywhere in the world, weighing an estimated 450kg.
from a few days ago:
We are mixing at Hipposonic Studios on East 3rd and Ontario. Only Jordan had time to make it in besides myself. Many of the songs on this album is going to be quite rich. Many layers of guitars and we’ve played around with a lot more instruments than is customary for a Thickets album. We’ve got melodica, keyboards (which we had previously done only on “KABLAM!” I believe), and shakers, tambourine, and even some guiro (AKA scrapyfish). We even have some robot drumming a la the “techno” music that many are known to enjoy.
“Theme to an Earthquake” is a capella plus drums (and short).
“A Marine Biologist” is full force, with very rich layered vocals and guitar.
“Blackout” is Brodie’s favourite song, and Andrea’s least favourite. It’s a rocker, for sures.
“No Way” is a little simpler and is our only “fade out” song on the album. Lots of cowbell.
“Strange” is a rock tune with a bit of keyboards.
“Return to Melanesia” is a capella plus percussion. Something completely new for Thicketdom.
“Cultists on Board” has a melodica solo.
“A Need-To-Know Basis” also has some melodica and some keyboards.
“Ride the Flying Polyp” is so ridiculously fast to play that it hurts - plus it’s all falsetto.
“Some Things Man Was Not Meant To Know” is a deep, rich son of a bitch, blasting forth with three part harmonies. It’s the longest song at about 4:50 if memory serves.
“Sleestak and Yeti” is a Thickets song.
“Downtown (in the Cenozoic)” almost had keyboards but we duplicated it with roboty guitar! One of my two favourites on the album.
“Nyarlathotep” has finger cymbals, guiro, shakers, tambo, and so much more! And it’s in Middle Egyptian. My other favourite.
On Sunday we had some appropriate TV viewing - they were showing Planet Earth: Ocean Deep on CBC. We weren’t mixing “A Marine Biologist” (I think it was “A Need-To-Know Basis” but there’s nothing like the vampire squid to get you in the proper head space for a Thickets album. Of course you can’t have sound on the TV while you’re mixing so I had to do my own David Attenborough. We celebrated Chinese New Year on Monday with me bringing a box of Chinese baked goods like egg tarts, lotus buns and Chinese donuts to the studio. We put the ‘fat’ back in “gung hei fat choy.”
As you can see by my responses [below], everything you’ve read at this point has been rumor and misinformation. As of this moment, to my knowledge, they have not cast Megatron and I am still very much in the running.
Frank Welker talks about the role of Megatron in the upcoming Transformers movie at http://mkbmemorial.com/FWHp/fwhp_Q-and-A.html
“I never say this - but I really like the subject matter of this song.” - Adam at Hipposonic Studios, in reference to “A Marine Biologist.”
I have more photos but it’s bedtime. I will give you this:
You remember these covers from the old 70’s editions?
Well here’s the rough draft for the cover of “The Shadow Out of Tim”
Also I took this photo in Burnaby. I like it:
