February 23 2008
. This was probably the funniest and most beautifully drawn comic I have ever read.
NEW YORK Nicholas Gurewitch’s “Perry Bible Fellowship,” the offbeat comic that ran online and in newspapers, will end next week.
“I’m making this decision for a variety of reasons, but mainly because I want to do other things besides be a cartoonist,” said Gurewitch.
A “Perry Bible Fellowship” hardcover book called “The Trial of Colonel Sweeto and Other Stories” was published last fall by Dark Horse Comics.
February 21 2008
I wanted to talk a bit about working in an extremely unorganized and fast paced environment, and what I have learned to keep my code from blowing up in my face. In the ideal environment we would have the luxury of a development server, a staging server, and a production server, with proper source control and debugging/qa testing. When I say server, I really mean environment, these setups could consist of more than one server, but for the sake of just writing as I think, i’ll say server. What we really have is one server that acts as both development & production. Seriously. No, i am not joking, i’m serious here. We also have management that requires work gets done in unreasonable time frames. Such as, we need a custom CMS in 2 weeks with X number of specific features that really should have been planned out and analyzed and put into some sort of project specification before we begin work. Did I mention that I also have to cutup the html and css, and create all the required templates? No small task.
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February 11 2008
Yeah, this image sums up my weekend. I started reading the Django manual. Holy shit, I am way impressed and absolutely love it. I wish I would have gotten into Python earlier.
December 12 2007
Mixlife the Distractor
Once upon a time I had a grand idea. It was to be an all encompassing and tangible representation of a feeling and love for a certain style of music. A sound that, when you heard it, sent chills up your spine and stopped the world. It was the sound. It was everything I wanted out of electronic music. To me it defined what it meant to be a raver. When I heard it, it just felt right. It made me feel right. I had a friend who shared this feeling and also shared this idea. Our downfall was that you cannot capture a feeling into something real without losing the feeling. We could never focus the idea enough to do anything with it. We called it Mixlife. Even the name evoked that feeling, enough so that everyone around us understood immediately what it was.
We tried to turn it into an online source for Electronic Music culture and news, a dj profile and music resource, an events calendar, a clothing line, a promoter, hell we even tried to be a radio station. We could have done so much with it and that was the problem. It could have been anything. Perhaps it was because we just couldn’t decided what we wanted? Or lacked the discipline to just do it? I honestly think it is because you just cannot take an emotion and make it something you can touch. Its far too abstract a concept.
Maybe we just wanted to hold onto something innocent and free? Maybe Mixlife meant more than we thought it did?
In the end, it became more of a burden than anything. Friendships were tarnished, people were alienated, and I lost sight of what was important.
Mixlife the Lunch Box
After a few years struggling to focus I decided to let it go. I have come to realize that trying to match the scale of this feeling with a business was a terrible idea and was distracting me from the whole point of Mixlife; the music. That was always the point. To promote and focus on the music we liked.
During the end of this fiasco we had an inside joke about Mixlife. It tried to be everything. So, like Spaceballs, we had mixlife the flamethrower, mixlife the toilet paper, and my personal favorite, mixlife the lunchbox. Once I finally let it all go I realized that all I really wanted was a place where I could listen to the music I like with no pressure from anyone else, no expectations, and no bullshit. So at 2am after a long night at work I registered lunchboxradio.com. The next morning I secured a server, installed shoutcast, and starting encoding some of my favorite mixes. I even created a small logo just for the hell of it.
It’s all just for me and my selfish love of a sound that keeps me going. If other people like it then right on. I am not planning on broadcasting this to thousands of people, and I don’t plan on having resident DJ’s or weekly shows. I just want to be able to listen to the sounds that make me feel at home. It is all I really wanted from Mixlife.
Ecsyle the Raver
During the course of all this I also realized that this sound is just for me. It’s what drives me. Other people have other sounds, but I do believe that in the end they have that same feeling. We are united under a common love. Without getting too emo or preachy about it, it’s a very beautiful thing. It’s all about the music man… ya dig?
For anyone who is interested, check it out at lunchboxradio.com. It’s nothing fancy, and the selection is limited at the moment. But if you like the music I like, then you might dig this.
November 29 2007
I haven’t put pen to paper in a long time. I want to, it’s killing me inside that I don’t. But I can’t. Every time I sit down I feel that I am forcing myself to do it and nothing comes out. It is all very frustrating. Nicole mentioned it could be my environment. I shrugged that off at first, but now that I have had a nights sleep I am entertaining the idea.
I am just not inspired at the moment to do anything. This is common and is perfectly normal, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that it is excruciatingly frustrating. Trying to force creativity doesn’t work. However forcing myself to draw and play might help to get back into things. I could just practice life drawing again, or do some still lifes. Something to simply exercise the muscles. The blank page of my sketchbook is intimidating. I want to squash that.
Some things that have helped in the past have been very simple. Getting out of the house to meet with some friends during the week. Going to the book store. Taking a walk. Simple things, but very refreshing. I should treat my inspiration like I do the actual art. Don’t force it, let it come naturally. It comes from not thinking about it. When I do eventually put some color on a page I am not thinking about the next line, I am thinking about everything else. What I need is to stop thinking so hard about it.
Update:
I have started re-reading ”Art & Fear” by David Bayles & Ted Orland. Fantastic book that puts the process of art making into perspective. I highly recommend it for anyone who creates art.
