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Love is a battlefield…

…at least my love of art alwayshas bee one.  A bttlefield between an engineer’s dogged pursuit of perfection and an animator’s love of the elegance a simple single line. Both can tell a story and both are parts of me but if you ever wanted to pick two more disparate disciplines you count not go wrong with these.

This has bubbled to the fore as a result of my continued inability to “Give my art away” with the Steampunk project.  It is taking all of my work and returning absolutely BUBKIS.

So this week I have decided that if the direction I have been going ain’t working I am going to take a left turn and take this puppy off the rails…

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Frustrating Geometry

When I first started doing art seriously in “3D” you had to feel around space with your head and once you dropped in the points, edges and polys they were THERE.  Editing geometry was hard enough, getting to actually DO what YOU WANT IT TO was, well that was something for the future when we would make phone calls on 3D watches and fly to work in airborne CAMAROS.

Well we are still waiting for the flying cars but 3D art has come a LOOOOONG way since, well, when I was talking about.  Now rather then working with LEGO bricks you can dip your fingers into virtual clay and make that ashtray you wanted to make in pre-school (but your little vienna sausage fingers wouldn’t let you) Yes siree boys and goils, it’s clay with an UNDO KEY.

The trouble is that to do that you have to uses a lot of polys to get the exact shape ya want and I mean a lot! We are talking A LOT in same way Kitten Natividad was BIG! Thsi causes problems though if you, say, want to do anything useful with the object you built other than dropping it on a turntable, editing it in iMovie and posting it to your website. What you gotta do is RETOPOLOGIZE, meaning “once you made it you gotta make it AGAIN, only smaller”.

So right now I am doing that on some models for SKY PIRATES and buddy, let me tell you…it is about as much fun as yanking your eyes out with a melon baller!

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Sherman, set the Wayback machine…

An Early commission, Gouache and Acrylics on Illustration board. The chipmunk was always my favorite bit

The last few days I have been posting a lot of old work I did at the beginning of my career on INSTAGRAM and it’s been a lot of fun. For years some of this stuff had ridden around in my portfolio case until one day, when the shape of my work and commercial art itself, had changed completely I removed it, replacing it with a lot of game art and 3D modeling and stuff like that.  At the time it was invigorating. Sadly it was also necessary in the face of the changing art scene and the tastes of younger art directors. Once I was told that I was passed over for a job because my style was “too Eighties”, something these days I think would be a complement.

When you start out as an artist the work you do and the work you show is, in a word, pure.  Untainted by market forces (and the whims of art directors and clients), the work on the board reflects only you, what you love and how you relate to your audience. As you start working in the field you lose sight of that purity, all you see are the flaws with the slightest imperfection inflating in your eyes to the size of Mount Rushmore.

The third area you get to, the place I am now, is reflecting on your more productive years and recalling the joy of the time when your art was your first love and mode you special. Before deadlines, before egos, before critiques there was that time when you whole heartedly set aside the world and lost time in the images on your drawing table.

As I look at the stuff from my start I get flashbacks to those times, like opening a window in the dead of winter and having early spring run in to fill your studio.

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An interesting experiment

A Grand Experiment

Not all great experiments are planned, some happen as the result of either a fortuitous or abysmal accident.  Sometimes the actual incident’s association, good or bad, can’t be ascertained until the resultant experiment is complete. In my case it all started when I did something that in the past I had laughed at other people when they did it, letting judgement flow in hails of derisive laughter, namely I dropped my iPhone into the bog/pisseur/toilet. When I swept it out with panicky paws the case wouldn’t come off even though it had let a lot of fluids in.  By the time I got it into a bag full of desiccant rich packing peanuts the damge was apparently done.  When I shut the phone of the screen looked liked a Mondrian reject.  Time for a new phone I decided

What to buy…

Initially I embraced my internal hipster and looked at downgraded flip phones.  I’d show the Mega-Conglomerates and get me a DUMB PHONE.  Yeah, I know, that lasted about 20 minutes. The nerd is strong in this one and the pendulum rapidly swung toward the shiniest of the shiny…an iPhone X. I logged onto my provider’s site and chatted the ears off some dude about what it would cost and so on. My internet acumen made sailing through the ordering process so quickly I didn’t take time to read the delivery date…until I pushed the order button. Then reality struck, my phone was apparently dead and I would be offline and outta touch until the new one got here.

Which would be in two and a half weeks.

Living without my iPhone

When the iPhone first came out a London newspaper did an article about learning to live without a smart phone after you had gotten used to the convenience of it.  The writer tried to to go without for a week, he failed like a gibbering ape and expressed his relief when his iPhone was returned to him. Whereas I am sure there was a level of melodramatic flare inserted into the piece the overall tone was pretty serious.

That article came out about 3 months after the iPhone was introduced. I have be dependent on my iPhone for 10 years. So how long until I am reduced to a gibbering ape?

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Behind the Firelines, Episode #3

MORNING UPDATE:

Went to sleep with notices from NIXLE that “Petaluma is under NO vuluntary or mandatory evacuation orders” (their caps).  Additionally further notices emphasize that “Petaluma is under no fire risk”, but that “because of changing weather conditions Petaluma can expect increased smoke over the course of the weekend”.

Great, just what I need, further reminders of my own mortality. It is safe to say that our consciousness gains knowledge as we grow but there is a certain time when we are who we are and no matter what we experience or how old we get THAT is who we will be for the rest of our lives. There are both good and bad aspects to that. Bad, in my current case, is when my mind still thinks I am 21 but it is pushing around a 60 year old body with a bad heart. Not a good match.

Not spared by the air

Yesterday at work I knew that the air outside the shop was worse than the air in Beijing but I wanted to see what was going on in the other shop where we are doing volunteer work for the fire victims. It was just across the parking lot so I didn’t take my breathing mask. Going over was OK but coming back I walked into a headwind and got a face full of whatever the hell this “smoke” is.  By the time I got into the main shop I was in misery.  When you have asthma from a bad heart it is easy to drop into a respiratory state that triggers a panic attack, which cause you to hyperventilate, which makes things worse.  The only thing that saved me from this was going into the  main shop and hanging on the giant air purifier for a couple of minutes.

Strike base

So far this morning there has been no evidence of it but starting later today the airfield here at Petaluma will be serving as a staging base for National Guard Helicopters serving as water bombers.  At the same time there are seven evacution centers spread across the town and we are all doing our best to make things easier on our neighbors who have lost so much.  Everyone I know who isn’t working has been doing some volunteer work and my company is dedicating at least one day a week going forward to do whatever we can to help out. The people of Sonoma have proven themselves to be amazing.

Frustration

My studio is in what other people might call a garage and as such the sir in there is not as good as it is inside the house. Later on I will probably try and do some work there but for the most part I am stuck inside the house. That’s OK though, at least I still have a house to be stuck inside of, and there is plenty of reading and drawing to be done on good-ole-analog-paper.

Damn I will be glad when I have a car again…

Ja ne! and be safe!

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Behind the Firelines Ep#2

MORNING UPDATE: Despite rumors to the contrary Petaluma is quiet this morning.

After a surreal week I am looking up finally and today will attempt to get back on track with this whole “life” thing. I have still yet to replace my car and filing some other papers got delayed as well. This morning the skies appear clear and in growing dawn I hear neither helicopters for sirens. Glancing at the morning fire maps it appears te carnage has moved east, although in fact that is just an assumption as the maps themselves are confusing.  Yes they show shelters and fires as icons of the same size and any areas of…anything…is defined not so much by a legible color code but whatever seems to be on the google palette du jour.

The closest fire to Surf’s Up HQ is the PRESSLEY FIRE, about 12 miles North East of us. It is one of the smaller fires but is currently only 1% contained. Still, things are somewhat calmer.

Clarification

I caught some flak yesterday for what I said about the rumors that have been circulated around town.  There were a number of reports about rumors posted yesterday and how they ran rampant very quickly during the events of this week but at the same time I may have worded things a bit stronger than I needed to.  This was in response to my personal reactions to this particular news, amplified by al the hurley-burley that has surrounded me the last month, which was I freaked out.  Odd that bit as since I adopted my new policy about news I have had fewer incidents of said out-freaking.

My new policy

Given the current climate I have adopted a simple rule.  I don’t believe anything anyone says unless I get corroboration. This goes double for anything that I read on the net.  In the face of the growing picture of how certain groups are using the web to bend people to their will (an idea formed by aggregating information from APPARENTLY reliable sources) the words that flow across my CRT have all the veracity of a UFO website with an animated GIF background…meaning NONE.

So in this regard I based my opinion on the info I was given and the corroboration from additional sources, for which I found none.  It may be that I am TOTALLY off base with this and will suffer the firey consequences, so be it, but I spent too many years not writing here to be intimidated anymore.

Ja ne and be safe!

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New from behind the fire lines:

MORNING UPDATE
Awakened by a phone alert…that a family in Afghanistan had been rescued (thanks BBC). After my heart got back in place I stepped outside to find smoke a little thicker than yesterday but cool marine air and no wind to speak of for now.
REALLY VICIOUS RUMORS
Last night I got a taste of what “fake news” can do, in the form of a RUMOR (which is all that “fake News” is) when a friend who I like and trust texted me that my neighborhood was UNDER HIGH EVACUATION ALERT.  I didn’t know how tightly I have been wound until I got this text.  Since all of this started I have been maintaining an even strain, even in the face of an unending loop of disaster reports on KTVU, streaming aerial video of the remains of the Fountaingrove Neighborhood and such. When I got this news something sorta snapped.
I started sweating…
I got scared and paranoid…
I got al misty for all the memories that had happened in “this house”…
In short I became just the sort of American citizen that THE BOSSES want to cultivate, terrified and thus easily controlled. It took a lot of Pizza and Anime to get me over this, and back to human, but I am there…sitting in the dark…listening for sirens and waiting for sunrise.
Ja Ne
PS: IF YOU DO NOT KNOW IT TO BE A FACT DON’T PASS IT ON! ESPECIALLY OF THE PERSON YOU ARE PASSING IT ON!
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Moving along…

So there I was! Writing out a stream of effervescent prose about the evils of Social Media and stuff and BOOM the world gets stopped in its track when some lost soul in Las Vegas decides to take a journey to hell and want to take along several hundred strangers. Even with the social rhino hide I have been cultivating crap like this kicks you in the soft bits, even if you don’t want to admit it.  I do have a follow up about Social Media but just don’t have the will to post it just now.

Right now, after a full day of overtime yesterday, it’s time to chill and watch new anime for the Fall Cour.

One show that caught my eye is called TWO CARS and when you wade through the tropes and silliness of a High School network of after School side hack racing clubs, all girl of course, you get down to a lot of cool drawings and animation of Sidecar Racers, or “kneelers”.  The art is nice and the characters on the grid silly so I am in for 12 episodes I think.

At the same time the show drudged up a story from my real life past, believe it or not. Even stranger it is a story I have never told anyone, including my ex wife and son. Still this morning, after the first episode of TWO CARS I felt compelled to sit down and write it out and send it to my Anime Pen Pal Monty. After I was done writing I thought I might paste it in here, but then Monty suggested another use for it, so I will tyr that out for a bit.

If that doesn’t fly then I will post it…later.

Ja ne

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Hot Lapping Social Engineering

Just Because it says “Social” doesn’t mean it has anything to do with “Society”

In 1979 Jimmy Carter was President, the country was just coming to its senses about Disco and I was looking for a new path in life.  My attempt at climbing the ladder to success as a racing driver had fizzled out due to the usual shortage of money and sponsorship, Initially I went back to school to finish up my drafting degree but my heart wasn’t in it. I had a new girlfriend who was so much smarter than me I was in awe and that made me sign up to go back to college.  At the same time I had to work so I went looking for a job in the only place I knew, racing. What I found would not only effect the course of my life but also gave me a unique perspective on the world we are living in today.

I go to work

The job I found was through my friend Mac Law with whom I raced Formula Vees. It was working for a company called MORGAN MOTORSPORTS NETWORK which was run by Dave Morgan. Dave was a charming guy and a bit of a savant in the ways marketing and how it related to racing in the future.  The “Network” Dave envisioned had two parts.

Network before Networks

The first revolved around creating a group of professional racing vendors, builders, trainers and promoters who would work together directly towards a common goal of promoting racing as a sport. This would center on a series of Seminars where people would pay (large) sums of money to come hear professionals speak about how they got to where they are.

Demographic Card Tricks

The second part of the network was the part that effected me most, which was developing effective ways to gather and compile demographics about the people who not only raced but ATTENDED races. In 1979 people were still leery of taking “surveys” so we Dave, Mac and I had long meetings about how was the best way to pry information out of people without them either being put off or indeed drive them away. Once we had a card in place we would put on out polo shirts and shades, go to the track, shake hands and hand out postage prepaid cards. Then we would wait.

The pot of information gold

Initially we were lucky for a f5% return. We would then calculate the data that we got into tabular pads (no computers, remember?) and do a postmortem on that card. We would tweak the questions and head out to another venue. After a year we were getting a return rate of around 30% which was pretty good. This was partially attributed to the questions on cards being tweaked and partially because people got used to our smiling faces and shaking our hands.  The former is refining our demographic model, the LATTER though is my first experience with SOCIAL ENGINEERING. As we became familiar faces people relaxed, when they relaxed they were much freer with the info they would pass on to us. It was exhausting but fascinating work, so much so that when I went back to university (right around the time MMN ran out of money) I changed my Major to Communications and media.

School was to give me a much finer focus on demographics and a deeper understanding of the dark path that Social engineering could take society down…

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Cascade

The word of the day is cascade.

The way I visualize a cascade is like marbles on a shear cliff face with small ledges spaced evenly apart.  On each of those steps is a glass ball made of possibility as one rolls off it’s ledge it falls and strikes another ledge and another ball, knocking it off so it rolls off it’s ledge and falls…

…and so on.

That is what the last three weeks have been like with one new event happening in my life and that triggering another. The cause does not IMMEDIATELY precede the effect, but the effect is obvious at the time of the collision it is a forgone conclusion.  This happened = This is the result.

It all started when my former employers decided to get rid of me by cutting back my hours, like someone who wants to get rid of a fish does so by drilling a small hole in its tank.  When it became obvious that this was happening (meaning when the third person I knew told me that my former employers had TOLD them they were doing it) I found a cold resolve in me that had been missing,

Several friends told me that I should ask god for help.  My entire life the idea of formalized prayer and ritual were artifacts of a system that uses the blessing of a diety to control people.  At the same time I have never been comfortable with the idea that we understood everything and everything is only a matter of chance. So rather then praying I talk to either the universe as a whole or to my personal connection, Louie.

So I hadn’t been in touch with Louie for awhile so I guess it took awhile for him/her to pick up my voicemails but then I started to feel the motions.

It started with an 8AM set call in South San Francisco and currently is manifesting as me sorting through stack of paper to find the pink slip for a car I have used as both transportation and as a Cenotaph…and I sense it is not over yet.

So I hope your day is filled with happy cascades like I have been enjoying…if it hasn’t I will put a good word in for you with Louie.

Ja ne!