I made this a little while back. Thought I’d drop it on here. The music on it is the band The Daylights. I think they’re the best band I’ve ever heard. They let me live on their couch when I first moved out here and didn’t know anyone else. Awesome guys.

They just got done recording a new album and I can’t wait to hear some of it. I don’t know if this track will be on it. It’s unreleased and I think the guys say they don’t even like it anymore, which I think is NUTS. I’m not even sure that I’m allowed to use it. Um, don’t bring it up to them, okay?

Please go be their friend at their myspace.

I’m starting a new series today. Guys I Currently Got Beat*. Not that I have always or will always have them beat, but for this moment I am doing prrrrrrretty good in comparison. Today is Joaquin Phoenix.

This isn’t based on his recent drug use, or his turn as a rapper. It’s not about his inner demons. It’s more about the beard. I mean, it makes mine look stately. Which it is. I bet his smells real bad, too. Mine is shampooed every morning. Once in a while I throw in some conditioner. Our beards could not be further apart. And I bet I would rap slightly better.

I will say, though, that he is probably a better drug user than me. I mean, he’s non stop. One overnight meth binge for me and I am done.

*(My great fear for this feature is that someday soon one of these chaps will die, and then I will feel bad. Like the time I made some myspace update about hoping Katrina would destroy New Orleans. And then it did like a day later. My bad. So let’s just assume before that happens that this serves as a solid ‘pat on the back’ for these troubled folk. An encouragement. A rally cry. It’s not that you’re doing so bad. I’m just doing so good.)

EDIT: So I guess he might be faking it. Whatever.

Had to crane my neck out our little bathroom window. Looking towards Dodger Stadium and Echo Park.

Went down to Josh’s shoot today and saw the madness he was overseeing. It should be an amazing video! The band were super cool people. Nice. A little too nice, if you ask me. No one is that friendly.

Hidden in a corner was the stop-motion guy using the dolls I had made. Man there was a lot for him to do. I wonder how much he got done. He had to readjust them for each frame, and then take off and put back on these little sticker mouths so they could sing to the song. At one point he had all ten dolls to move and make sing. Crazy! Here’s a couple shots I took with my phone…

Here’s a poster I made for my buddy Alex Backes. He’s got a show going the next bunch of weeks over at Second City and he asked me to make him a poster. I like the idea of a gorilla running around armed to the teeth with weapons draped over him. I like how it came out.

You should go to the show. He is a funny funny man. I’m actually writing a two man show with him. not sure when we’ll be ready to show it, but hopefully within the next few months.

Spent some time this week working on a project for my friend Josh, aka My Doppelgänger, aka amazing video director. Here’s his site, winchandpulley.com. He’s great.

Anyways, I’m not entirely sure what his idea is for the video, but he asked me to make some Russian Nesting Dolls that look like the band, The Submarines, which I was glad to do cause I think they’re great, too. Apparently the pieces are going to stop-motioned, so hence the no mouths. I like how they came out…

There’s still some tweaking left to do, but you get the idea…

So I have embarked on a life long journey. Something to fill the hours until the sweet, cold embrace of eternity clutches into my side. Taking photos of ceramic Tweetie Birds.

Here are my first three, of what I assume will be thousands. I have given them a light watermark because I know once this trend has caught on, everyone will want to be claiming that these pictures are theirs. Well they ARE NOT. I took them and started this international craze.

LET IT BEGIN. TWEETIES.

Feel free to send in any photos you take of ceramic tweetie birds. Once I hit 20 I am going to make a website and go viral with this junk.

I have another photo-hunt goal I will show you later in the week.

This is a video I did for my friend Tom last Christmas. He’s a filmmaker who does shorts for churches to play in their services. He kind of gave me free reign to make a Christmas piece, so I did this one. I actually made it in my bedroom, and I’m pretty proud of how it came out.

…working on some new prints. Going to try and have some up within the week for Valentine’s Day. You know, really lovey dovey stuff that kind of kills me inside. Ah, the sweet loneliness.

This is not a Valentine’s Day idea. I’ve had this idea around for a while, but am trying to make something really cool from it… Well, at least try.

Especially the older ones.

Honest to God, my niece saw my face pop up on her computer in an ad. AND I’m standing next to Shaun White, who’s like king of pre-teens. I wasn’t like emailing her. She wasn’t on my blog. She’s on like “American Girl Doll Website for Tweeners dot org” or something, and then BAM there is her uncle. Super random, but you gotta figure she would think it’s pretty crazy and click to see what in the heck her zany uncle is up to now.

But did she? No.

No.

Why? Cause she’s not allowed to click on ads. Well, let me tell you something, Taylor, if your UNCLE APPEARS IN AN AD OUT OF THE BLUE WITH SHAUN FREAKING WHITE THEN YOU CAN CLICK ON THE STUPID THING!

Who do I have to be in an ad with for you to be interested in it enough to slightly move your index finger and click on it?! Do I have to be putting Miley Cyrus in a headlock, or be sitting there flying in space with Wall-E?! Would I have to be like standing there with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, like with him giving me a high five, for you to think, “Okay, I’ll give this five seconds”?!

I thought it would be fun to buy the kids a Wii. I’m not a rich man. We know this. It’s no secret. But I bought them a Wii for Christmas. I had out my little video camera, ready to capture the moment that these three beautiful children would be so overjoyed at having like the hottest video game system that mankind has invented in history or whatever. Surely, this would make them think I was a cool uncle and buy their love for a year.

The video is completely useless. Their reaction to ripping off the wrapping paper and seeing a box marked “Wii” could have easily been, (and imagine a monotone voice) “Oh. I Wii. It’s about time.” Tristan went back to his “Hess” truck. COME ON! That was my trump card, my ace in the hole, the card up my sleeve, my other gambling reference.

They will never think I’m cool. It’s exasperating.

I guess I could try being involved in their lives or something, but ehhh.

Good old Mike G wrote and directed this. He’s a multi-talented little jerk. He’s got one of the best bands in LA too, called Tandemoro. Check out their site and download all their music for free! They are AMAZING!

I get this kind of stuff all the time in my “comments spam.” And none of the links lead anywhere. Who spends their days spamming nonsense? I don’t even get a lousy virus with these. So strange.

I organized my “Documents” folder by the Date Modified tab tonight and bummed myself right out.

I think I was looking for funny ideas I could steal from old Barak, so I scanned the last year or so. And, yeah, nothing that funny was written within. But things got lamer right after that. Cause I went back, back to when I thought different and who knows, maybe I was different.

“Oh yeah,” I thought, “that was right around the time I moved out here.” There were files of business card designs for discarded little business ventures I wanted to try. You have to do something to eat out here. Then I saw some stories I wrote that were so bittersweet, so longing, so confused. “Oh, yeah, that was right after I got fired.” And the stories were so skewed, so wanting to be hopeful. But they weren’t.

Then I saw the Word Documents titled “Confession” and “Resignation.” I opened one, found it still makes my stomach seize up two years after and closed it right back down. I want to delete them, but I’m not gonna. Maybe just to show them to my kid someday when he screws it up real bad. I bet you a hundred dollars it’ll make my stomach seize up then, too.

I remember reading one in front of everyone I cared about and I’m not going to finish this sentence. The other was made into several copies and probably passed around to the board. I wonder if it’s still sitting in a file somewhere there.

I scrolled further down. I had forgotten how just before then I was writing a book. I had twelve chapters written. Boy, I guess I had it really figured out. Lots of answers. I thought I understood enough about life and God and the mysteries of the universe enough to share my vast knowledge with the paying public. “Say, gang! This is how things are!” The real kicker is that if I was to go through all the chapters, I’m sure they’d still be pretty good. I actually did have a thing or two figured out, but I’d rather paint over the canvas and start over.

I want to say “but then things came crashing down,” but truth be told I probably kicked it all down. Out of embarrassment, out of spite, but also because I just didn’t know anymore. I was proud of the book, but I’m not writing it anymore, and that’s going to be that about that.

And further below that in my Documents is another life, with other people, and other dreams. Well, maybe the same dreams, just different words. Same me, I guess. I miss my old friends.

Today I caught myself letting my mind wander to little scenarios that will never take place. I certain person or two appeared in the room I was imagining. And they offered their hands to me with a nice smile. And then I told them to go to hell, or maybe I gave them the finger. Actually, I spent probably a good ten or fifteen minutes today trying to come up with something just the right mixture of classy and classless to let them know they dicked me over pretty bad.

But I finally sat up and realized how sad it was and made myself stop. But I’ll think it again, I bet.

I like where I am. Don’t know if I’m better for everything that happened, but whatever. I did what I could to make things right, and now I’m here. But one thing I ought to do, and this would really make my life so much better, is to put all that junk on a hard drive and hide it in the bottom of some laundry pile so I don’t accidentally screw up another Thursday night.

I’m doing some art for Ivory Owl’s upcoming CD. Actually I didn’t ask em if I could put it on my blog. Hmm… Oh well.

You should really be their friend on their myspace page. I’m just in love with the stuff Josh and Erin are making. Really great, sort of a mix of Damien Jurado and Richard Buckner and David Bazaan and a bunch of other snobby music references.

I like to think that I’m their inspiration and muse. I’m not. But I like to think it…

Sexy captain.

I want to buy a boat now and sail these seas, and just be bronze and grandiose. Like my sexy forefathers before me.

Honestly, I have no idea why people like this one so much.

Sketched this at the coffee house. I had never been there before. It was nice. I had to sit outside and sat there for a good ten minutes wondering what to draw. It was either the telephone poles or the one dog trying to mount the other.

This isn’t her posing. This is me running up to her (as she’s mid crouch, picking off kids) and me yelling “MOM!” I wish you could know her just so you could really feel the significance and magical qualities of this photograph. This is a very sweet, church-going, Mary Kay-selling, Cracker Barrel-loving grandmother of three. Tearing it UP.

A few notes: Although she is covered with laser sensors, most of what you see shining is part of her festive Christmas attire, as well as the large star-shaped earrings (legendary in my family.) The haze effect is either from the fogmachine pumping into the course, or from the fury unleashed within her warrior heart.

She's got a deadly aim. A deadly glamorous aim.

And in the second game, I’m pretty sure she beat me. MAGICAL!!!!

I think I cover just about everything.

This is how my year went.

Here’s 2007. Lots more crazy upheaval in that year. Glad to be done with all of that.

Less lines, but more complicated.