Favorite Movies About Music

In this, my 900th post (after the purge), I figured I'd talk about my top five favorite movies about music. This doesn't mean musicals, but rather movies that use music as the theme or plot of the film. What inspired this discussion was a movie I caught on TV as I was going to sleep, Almost Famous.

While there have been many, many films involving music through the years, there are some that stand above the rest. For me, most of these are more modern.

5. The Jacksons: An American Dream


Many people hated this TV movie, and I can understand why, especially with the current outlook on Michael Jacskon. And I realize the movie, while it did show some of the negative stuff that happened in their family life, was a puff piece of sorts at the same time. However, growing up on Michael Jackson music and considering him one of the greatest musical talents of all time, regardless of his personal life, I found the movie very entertaining. As I mentioned, it showed the struggles of the family and the rocky relationship with their father. It showed the mature world these innocent kids were introduced to and how that changed them to their core. It showed a lot about Michael that could have lent to the changes he brought upon himself in later years. For me it was a moving film.

4. Fame


I remember watching both the movie and the television series as a kid. Yeah, Fame had elements of a musical in it, but it wasn't a musical in the typical sense of the term. So I'll include it here. Much like Dangerous Minds was a few years ago, this movie was about the kids. Where in DM it was about kids left behind and written off being believed in, in Fame it was about gifted kids being believed in and nurtured to use their talents to achieve their dreams. There was drama, emotion, comedy, tons of talent and, of course, music. Sure, the movie was strongly centered on dancing, but being at a performance arts school singing and playing instruments was an integral part of the film as well. It was just a strong film with a lot of diversity and meaning to it.

3. Almost Famous

The movie that inspired this post is one of the great classic films about the heart of music, specifically rock 'n' roll in this case. The story centers around a 15 year old kid who writes an article on a band, then gets hired by Rolling Stone to tour with and do a piece on Stillwater. Rolling Stone had no idea he was a kid, so this kid gets to experience a dream, and as a fan of Stillwater he gets to be close to his favorite band.

But unlike other films of this ilk, this one is about the heart of music, as I said before. It's about the truth at the heart of the band, meaning the positive and the negative. It shows the trials they face and the joys they share. It also shows the growth of this young innocent kid who is thrust into the world of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll. And he comes out of it ok. It's a moving story, and one of the best music films there's been to be sure.

2. 8 Mile

Whether you like rap or not, and whether you like Eminem or not, there's no denying his acting chops in this film, or the cultural impact of this film. It's a story about a young white kid trying to make it in the world of hip-hop, but it's more than that also. It displays the struggles of his family life, the reality of his job and the violence that the genre breeds. But more than all of that it shows the heart and passion of a guy who loves the art of rap and is able to overcome diversity and rise on his own. It's a well written, well cast drama about a genre of music that is and was the voice of the street. And it's just a great movie.

1. The Five Heartbeats

This one isn't as well known as the others, but this is personally one of my favorites. I have seen it many times over the years, and it inspired me the very first time I saw it. It follows the growth and destruction of a struggling R&B group during the movement of motown. They're a Temptations like group if you're not familiar, each with greatly unique personalities. You have the two brothers, one responsible the other not so much, the cocky drug addict, the choir boy and the laid back quiet guy. The group goes through ups and downs, break ups and reunions and so much more. It shows the seedy underbelly of the music industry at the time as well as what's most important, which is the music and the relationships made along the way.

A few honorable mentions would be Saturday Night Fever, The Blues Brothers, High Fidelity, Pump Up the Volume, Sister Act 2 (yeah, I said it), Breakin' 2: Electric Bugaloo (one of my favorites I forgot about), The Doors, La Bamba, Hustle & Flow, August Rush and Rock Star. All great films about music.

These are my favorites. What are yours?

Thanksgiving 2008 Photos

Here are some photos from this past Thanksgiving. As you can tell, we all love food. lol. And I've actually gained weight since these photos, so I know it's time to lay off the fat stuff!

Here's the star of the day: the turkey!

And here's my uncle Billy cutting the turkey while my uncle Matthias looks on. My cousin Chris' girlfriend, Angie, and their daughter Kennedy are in the background. You can see just a little of Kennedy's older brother Caleb in the right foreground.

Here's a better shot of Caleb grabbing some food, and the girl in the blue shirt behind him is his older sister Cameron, who is the same age as Zach and Misha, and is Chris and Angie's oldest.

And here's Chris and their youngest whose name escapes me at the moment. I think that's their youngest anyway. They have five or six, some I had met for the first time this day.

This is my aunt Anita, Chris' mom, standing in the dessert room.

And this is her again with my other aunt, Shari, who was 12 when I was born. This is hers and Matthias' house, by the way.

And this is Shari's daughter Misha in the back behind my brother Zach. In the right foreground is Angie's sister Tracy. I had never met her before.

Here's Misha again with another cousin of mine, Kristy, who is Billy's daughter. She just graduated Nursing school. Misha is the same age as my brother.

And here they are again.

Here is Kristy again with her boyfriend Will, who I met for the first time this day as well.

And here the two of them are again beside Kristy's older sister Susan and her husband Vince. Susan is a school teacher and Vince is a personal trainer. All of them are younger than me.

Here are Vince and Susan again, and on the right are myself, of course, and my cousin Jay, who is four months older than me.


Here's my uncle Billy again and his wife Kathy.

And here they are again.

And here's Kathy with her daughter Kristy in the dining room. That doll in the floor beside them moves and it was creeping everyone out all day.

Here's Jay again.

And here he is with his dad, James.

Here's a whole slew of 'em around the table. The tall guy in the sweater is Tracy's boyfriend, and the guy with the hat and hoodie on the right is Cameron's boyfriend. Beside Caleb and in between Zach and Billy is Misha's little brother Wilhelm in the black shirt.

That's my mom on the right, and of course Shari, Zach and Caleb on the left. This is in the kitchen.

And here's me and my mom bringing in the desserts. As you can see, there were plenty of sweets. And that's just half the table!

Here's me holding the dessert I made, a gingerbread pumpkin trifle. This is in the dining room.

There's Angie in the foreground with Caleb and one of the other kids out of frame. In the background are me, Jay, my mom (Cindy) and Jay's mom, Mary, who is raving over the eggless egg nog I made Jay, which you can see in her hand.

Here's me and Jay again.

And again, this time stuffing our faces.

Here's Zach cheesing for the camera while I continue to stuff my face oblivious to the camera.

And there's everybody on the other end of the table eating away. That's only half of this massive table. The kid drinking the pop in the back left is my cousin Matt, the one who's in the band, and he's Chris' brother and Anita's son.






This is the corner of the dining room. There was a decorated Christmas tree in almost every room. They had the place fixed up really nice.

And this is the dessert room again, also decorated.

Here's Billy and Jay after dinner playing Rock Band.

Bill's waiting on the next song as Jay looks on.

And here's me in the recliner playing the game for the first time. I did okay on the guitar, but I sucked on the drums. You can also see Wilhelm's face there beside me.

That's all the pictures I have. Hope you enjoyed them.

New Year, Slow Start

I seem to be a bit of a terrible funk lately. Maybe funk isn't the right word. Slump might be more accurate. I'm not down or anything like that, I'm just having to force myself every day to do anything productive.

I think where I pushed myself so hard up to Christmas to get various tasks done to get paid before the holiday I wound up burning myself out. And though I had a week and a half of the holidays pretty much doing nothing, I have yet to pick myself back up to my normal level of production.

It doesn't help that my brother is playing WoW on here all the time either, though he gets off when I really need him to. I just can't seem to make myself work. Or rather, it takes a lot of warm-up time to get me ready to do anything. And inevitably, once I finally get into a groove I start getting really tired.

My current sleep schedule isn't helping anything either. I got up at 6:30pm yesterday and here it is almost 5am now. I've only been on the computer for about two and a half hours (it's Friday night, I let my bro. stay on late), but I haven't done ANYTHING yet save posting on the Comic Related forum and playing a couple of games. And now I'm writing this blog. Heh. Well, I did do a small project earlier today a bit after I woke up, but nothing more.

You ever get like that? Where you just can't make yourself do anything? The bad thing is I've got so much to do right now. I'm hoping this weekend motivation will hit me and I'll knock the bulk of it out. I mean I don't have anything right now with super strict deadlines, but still, I've got people waiting on me. I just have to get past this setback and jump in. I just don't feel motivated to do so sadly enough.

Don't get me wrong, I will. I always do, and this is more or less just venting my frustration with myself. I don't make this a habit, nor will I. I guess I'm just still in holiday mode and I'm sad to see them go.

Another thing admittedly slowing me down is all the inspiration I've had recently that I've spoken of here. While the inspiration and ideas are great, they make me ache to do my own stuff more and more, and then I realize I have to get this other stuff done first. Both because I committed to it, and because I need to pay the bills. It would be nice to be able to just sit back and do my own stuff and not worry about any of that, but I guess this is a bad time to hope for that kind of life, huh? :)

Anyway, I just felt like rambling and airing my problems with the whole world to see, including clients and potential clients. How stupid is that?! Oh well, at least I'm honest.

MegaCon's a Bust

Check out the Wannabez Blog to see why Scott and I won't be at MegaCon this year sadly.

Back in Business

Okay, so the cable/internet's back on thankfully. But as you can see it's pretty late in the day, and I'm just now waking up and about to be catching up on emails. So it will be another long night of work ahead of me.

In the downtime I was able to get quite a few things done, though not all of them productive. I did manage to get some lettering completed, which is part of the productive contribution.

Another productive accomplishment was writing five more installments of my column. I only had one more left (next week's) already written, and so I took this opportunity to write a couple more, which turned into five. I could have continued writing several more with the roll I was on, but sleepiness overtook me as I approached my 20th consecutive hour of being awake. So I forced myself to stop. I'm feeling really good about the way these are flowing, though, and I hope you enjoy them as well. Everything's centered around my path to being a comic creator, but I talk about some personal stuff in my past that's revealing and therapeutic for me as well.

In the non-productive column, at least in terms of work, I caught up on some reading. First, I finished the first volume of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. I didn't read the prose story in the back yet, but I did read all the sequential chapters. As I stated before after reading just a bit of it, it is an entertaining story and very different from its movie counterpart. There are a lot of elements shared between the two, but now having read the entire volume I can understand fans of the work being more than perturbed with the outcome of the film. The film takes quite a bit of creative license and quite the departure from the source material. While some characters and certain events were the same, the entire concept and delivery was completely different. I liked the movie, and even watched it again the other night, but only as a standalone work or derivative of the source, not as an adaptation or retelling. It completely fails on the latter, but succeeds on the former in my opinion.

The book, as I said, was an interesting and well-written yarn, but not quite my cup of tea. It's not quite as mysterious as the movie was, and neither really capitalized on that mystery element enough for my liking. I could see both works improved immensely, though I am trying to keep in mind the timeframe the source material was written in. It's certainly not one of my favorite stories, but it has its merits. I'm glad I read it, but it's not something I'd read over and over again.

I also read another chapter of Amber & Blood. I'm 235 pages deep into it now as it rapidly reaches its conclusion. I believe I have 100 pages left, give or take a few. This last chapter I read took an interesting turn that I wasn't quite expecting. I can't wait to find out where that thread goes.

I forgot to mention last night that I got to finally see the pictures from Thanksgiving. I'll be posting some of those soon for you all to see. I will say this though. After seeing the pictures I know I have to lose weight now. I didn't know I was as heavy as I was then. I realize the camera adds pounds, but I've gained weight since Thanksgiving, so I am now determined to lose it before MegaCon!

Cable/Internet Cut Off

Ugh, my cable/internet got cut off due to a miscalculation on my part (didn't pay enough). Naturally, they cut it off when both the physical office and the tech support are both closed.

I'm using my brother's laptop, which connects to an unsecure wireless network to post this.

So if you don't hear from me until this afternoon or tonight this is why. I'm not sure I have enough money to pay the rest until my check comes in, so hopefully that will be today.

In the meantime, I've got a bit of lettering I can do. Some of it I haven't downloaded all the files yet, but others I have prepped and ready to go. Of course I've been up since yesterday afternoon, so I'm starting to get tired now anyway.

If all goes well I'll be back to normal by tonight. Wish me luck!

The Day Is Over and Has Just Begun

Well, tonight was fun. I didn't think I was going to be able to make it as right before I went to bed my stomach started acting up and was still giving me problems when I woke up this afternoon. We were supposed to be at my uncle's by 6:30, and at 6 I was still in my pajamas sitting on the couch rubbing my belly.

Having missed New Year's for that very reason I didn't want to miss this get together. And if I haven't explained the reason for the get together plainly, basically it was a multiple birthday celebration. My aunt's birthday was today, I had two aunts with birthdays in December, and an uncle and two cousins in November, a cousin and aunt in October, and two cousins in September. My birthday's in March. So the cake read "Happy Birthday to Shari, Mary, Anita and Everyone Else". It was a cool excuse to get together one more time.

Several years ago, with so much family in the area we had started all going out to dinner together once a month. In recent years that has completely tapered off, but after this we talked about starting it back up again even if it wasn't necessarily for dinner with the economy what it is these days.

So anyway, about 6:15 I decided to try to make it. The roads were bad, the car was covered with snow and ice, and it was cold. But I wanted to go, so I trimmed my hair in the back (I hate it when it gets thick), hopped in the shower, and got on the road about 7 (I was going a bit slow because I was still in a bit of pain). I got to my uncle's house around 7:20, just in time for food! They had prepared a chicken and summer sausage gumbo with relish, which I didn't try but heard was really good, and a homemade vegetable soup that was honestly one of the best vegetable soups I've ever had. A lot of my family can cook really well, and several of them have made vegetable soup before, always good. But this was especially good. I only tried half a bowl at first, and after about 20 minutes of waiting to see if it was going to hurt me I had another full bowl. Delicious stuff. I was looking rough according to everyone else even when I first got there, but I held it together. I even braved a very small piece of cake and a small scoop of ice cream.

We joked, talked about old times and so on and so forth. It was fun. There were only 14 of us there this time, but anytime any group of us get together it's a blast.

We got home I'd say about 3 hours ago now and I watched Top Chef and got hungry again. lol. Then my stomach started hurting again. So far it's stayed at bay and I haven't had to take anything, so hopefully it will stay that way.

I also watched for the first time Man vs. Food on the Travel Channel. This guy goes around to these restaurants around the country eating all these massive portions of food. I watched him and a partner try an 11 pound pizza, and him eat and conquer a 2 1/2 pound Dagwood sandwich in Ohio. If I ate the meats on both of those I could take those two I think. Well, before the gall stones anyway. But he also tackled these massive burgers and various other things that just made me sick. On burger instead of buns had grilled cheese sandwiches on each end, and inside was the burger patty, fried eggs, bacon, cheese and who knows what else? Disgusting.

At Gladys Knight's Chicken & Waffles in Atlanta, though, he tried this sweet potato cheesecake that looked awesome! Being a lover of a good sweet potato pie and a good cheesecake, this combo just made my mouth water.

Earlier today and last night I listened to some podcasts on Comic Related and read some new columns and stuff. The one that interested me the most was a two-part podcast with Ron Fortier, who is, as Chuck puts it, a founding forum member of Comic Related. I knew the man had been in the comic industry for a while, but I honestly didn't have any clue what all he had done, and this interview totally fascinated me. Ron was the first to work with Alex Ross on a comic. He also created Popeye's mother in an origin story. The guy saw Eastman and Laird get scoffed at and rudely rejected by editors with their ninja turtles concept. He worked on Green Hornet and Terminator among many other things. And what makes all that even cooler is that Ron is one of the friendliest, down to earth and humble creators I've ever conversed with. So many times you talk to certain pros online or in person and there is an air about them, but Ron is one of the few that makes you feel like an equal, and that's cool. If you get a chance, listen to this interview. It's a great one.

Ok, now I need to start getting to work. Got a long night ahead of me.

The Rest of This Week

Ok, I'm going to attempt to set a schedule for myself to get a good jump on all these things I need to get done.

Today I completed a two-page short for the Comic Geek Speak anthology, and some logo roughs for a Zuda project. I also did some more prep work and conversed with all but two of my current clients I have.

Here's what I need to get done this month:

Descendant (5 pages) for Mike Dolce (The Sire) - Right now the lettering is prepped over inks, and Mike is working on the colors.

En Garde! pages 9-10 (I have pencils for those pages so far).

Spy Girl (8 pages - a Zuda project) which I have low res (some colors, some inks) so far.

Tainted (somewhere around 10-12 pages as we near the end of this graphic novel).

Venger #2 (which I've treaded water on for a while now).

Suicide Note - a Hard Way Studios project.

A 5-page submission for a Ronin Studios member, Barri.

Two Hope: Hero Initiative Special shorts for Ronin (a fundraiser book).

Finish the logo for Visionary.

And probably some Ellium.

I also have those logos for Bill Gladman to work on, and possibly one for Brennen Jones (the guy I did Urban Twist and Kitt HoRizon Films logos for).


So for this week I'm concentrating on getting some pages for several of these done.

I'm on a weird sleep schedule right now where I'm sleeping most of the day and up all night. I'm getting tired right now as I type this (at nearly 5am), and Wednesday night I'm going to my uncle's for birthday celebrations (two aunts in December, one whose birthday actually is today), so I won't have much time to work then. The bulk of my work will be done Thursday and Friday night, and some Saturday.

So... with that in mind, here's what I'm hoping to accomplish this week:

All of Descendant.

At least half of Spy Girl, including refinements on the logo.

Both pages of En Garde!

Getting both Hero Initiative books prepped and laid out at least.


Now, that may not sound like a lot, but that's just the lettering and logo work that I have to do. I also have Haven work and work on the APA website I need to get done. I've also answered a call for another lettering gig that has to be done within a week for decent pay, so if I get that I'll have to push that ahead of some of this stuff. The Haven stuff is imperative as well, so a lot of time will be spent on that the latter part of this week and during the weekend.

I've also got to get the ball rolling on the Comic Related comic strip with Jackie and the rest of the Ringtail Cafe crew.

Next week I'll be focusing on Tainted as far as lettering goes, then I'll reevaluate from there what I need to focus on after that.

MegaCon is fastly approaching, so I need to start making and saving some money for that as well, so the first couple of months of the new year promise to be pretty busy. If I can just stay motivated and determined to get all this done, and keep from getting sick I think it will all be okay. :)

The 365 Day Project

As I was reading a post on the Ronin Studio forums today an idea struck me, if a little late. Being nearly a week into the new year, that puts me a week behind on the idea, unless of course I changed it to The 52 Week Project. But then that just sounds like a ripoff of 52, the weekly DC comic series, and subsequent series.

Anyway, this is going off an idea that I had previously that I talked about implementing, but never got around to it. So I'll explain that one first. Taking off something DJ Coffman was doing (that he got from another artist I believe), I was going to start doing commissioned drawings for $1. Like Coffman's (where he charged $2), I was going to draw anything (nothing mature though) the purchaser wanted and send them a high res digital copy of the piece for $1. I wanted to brush up my skills a bit and post some new samples before doing so, though, and I never got around to doing that. These wouldn't be masterpieces, just some fun drawings with a minimal investment. But they would all be original drawings. I probably wouldn't get a lot of offers, but I thought it would be something fun to try.

Going back to the post on the Ronin forums, it was an artist sharing a yearly tradition he has. Every New Year's Eve at 11pm he starts drawing his final piece of that year completing it by midnight. At midnight he begins drawing his first piece of the new year. It's a neat tradition.

Somehow, those two things combined struck a thought in me that it would have been cool to either draw or write a new short piece every day of the year, then possibly auction those pieces off starting at a penny or some other low amount and putting a low cap of $1-2 on the auctions. Not necessarily to get money, but just to have fun, give you all something new to look forward to rather than my usual ramblings, and to get more interest in the blog and possibly my work. It would also serve as great practice for me.

But like I said, I'm 6 days behind already and have other work needing to be done. So I'm not sure if I'll actually try to do this, backtracking for the missing days, or if I'll save it for next year, or if I'll abandon it all together. I'm also not sure whether I would focus it on writing, art, or both either simultaneously or alternately.

I just thought it would be fun to share the concepts with you all at the very least. So there you have it.

Monday, Monday

This is an interesting day. Not so much because anything interesting happened, but just because it feels weird. I don't know, I'm grasping at something to write about, so I'm just making stuff up. No, I'm just kidding.

This is my first day back to active work and my sleep schedule is very much off. I didn't get up until after noon today, so it's a slow start, but I'll be up working through the night whether I like it or not. heh.

Right now I'm catching up on emails and podcasts as I get together what I need to get started and done today. There are a few lettering projects I need to dive into, and some logo stuff I need to get back to or plan out. I've got some Haven stuff I have got to get accomplished, and some web design stuff to get back to as well. So I've got a full plate this week. The lettering gigs are mostly short jobs, so hopefully I'll be able to take care of those in short time so I can concentrate on the other stuff better.

I'm actually going to be doing some illustrated novel logos (prose with spot illustrations throughout) for Bill Gladman who, among other things, writes over at Comic Related. That will be fun and cool. I've done those type of logos before, but not often, and the departure from straight up comic logos will be a nice change of pace.

Tomorrow I have to go look at my uncle's computer again, possibly, as it's loading really slow for the man. I'll try to use my limited knowledge to look at things I know to look for.

Caught the pilot episode of Legend of the Seeker online last night. It was pretty cool, if a little bit cliche. It's still fun to see a fantasy show on again. I used to watch Hercules when it was on. Never really got into Xena, but I still love those kinds of shows. I've seen a couple of not so great ones on here and there, but this one is promising.

I've read a lot of Dragonlance: Amber & Blood that I got for Christmas. I think I'm about 14 or 15 chapters in, I'm not sure. It's seperated in "books" or sections and each section starts over at chapter 1. I've passed the first book, which I believe was 12 chapters, and have read a few past it now. So far it's better than the second book in the trilogy, Amber & Iron. It's taken an interesting twist, so it's fun seeing it unfold.

I'm enjoying all the interesting columns and stories over at Comic Related. I know I give the site a lot of praise, and I sincerely hope you guys are checking them out. But they just have some stuff I don't see elsewhere, and all the contributors there just have a transparent love for the industry and everything they write about. Scott's Toy Related column is just awesome. I'm not a collector, but the way he reviews or previews various action figures, and with him doing upcoming interviews with various people in the toy industry or who are collectors is really exciting. Peter Simeti of Alterna Comics is writing some really cool columns that raise some important questions. Bill Gladman recently wrote on his trip to New York, which included a tour of Marvel. And then there's my column of course, and many other cool columns like TV Party, and various blogs, daily reviews, the latest indy and mainstream news, stuff from Twitter, the podcasts and so much more. It's just a really fun site.

But that's enough praise for the day.

My hands and wrists are starting to cramp really bad more and more. I'm afraid I might be developing carpal tunnel syndrome. Of course, working on a computer for the better part of a decade, and using one constantly in school for longer than that would do that. When I write (with a pencil or pen) or draw I have to constantly stop and flex my fingers and shake my hand. My left one is worse, but the right one is bad too.

Forgive my candor, but my butt hurts! I'm not sitting very comfortably at the moment and need to get up and stretch. Monday, Monday.

Inspiration Strikes Back

I guess watching highly creative concepts or deliverance of various entertaining and interesting concepts leads to inspiration. I say that because of my two day Hayden Christensen (sp?) fest, being the three Star Wars prequels and half of Jumper. Say what you will about the dude's acting, but I really enjoyed the prequels, and I love the Jumper film.

Getting off track a bit for a second, I really don't understand the complaints about the prequels. Sure, Attack of the Clones is a silly title, and Phantom Menace was a little boring, but Revenge of the Sith had the first ever light saber battle between Obi and Vader, as well as R2, Chewy and Yoda doing their thing like we all wanted to see in the originals. And Attack of the Clones had Yoda, for the first time, showing us what he was made of. When I saw that one on opening weekend the entire theater burst out in cheers and applause over that scene. I don't know, I personally think the prequels really did a good job of spelling out things and leading right into the originals, giving us the background and reasoning behind everything we knew from the originals. I really don't understand the claim that Lucas changed everything through the prequels...

Anyway, the point of this post was me being inspired by the films. As I watched I started thinking about some concepts I had, then I started thinking about Crossgen Comics, and then about other concepts, and so on and so forth. I'm just inspired to create, and at the same time I feel stifled. I have pretty much done nothing but waste the past week and a half. Well, I shouldn't call it a waste as I was taking some much needed time for myself and enjoying the holidays. But as far as work goes, it was lost time. And now I find myself having to get back to it and hit it hard tomorrow and beyond. And because of that I won't be able to dig right into all this creativity I want to unleash.

This is a problem I often have. By pretty much having to be a letterer and logo designer, and having to do other writing jobs and various tasks to keep bills paid, it leaves very little time for working on my own projects. And it would be the same story if I had a day job (which I may soon, dreadfully).

I'll be the first to admit that I'm not great at time management. I hate routines, and therefore I start the day at a different time, not on a set schedule, and I do things in different orders to keep them fresh. I despise monotony and can't function properly in ruts or strictly repetitive tasks. Such things send me into depression or I find myself daydreaming making me not that productive. I just hate those kinds of jobs. I hate punching a clock, and I hate working and living check to check, never getting ahead. But that's neither here nor there with the economy the way it is.

Again, I've digressed. My point is it may actually serve me better if I committed myself to spending X amount of hours on lettering per day, X amount of hours on Haven per day, X amount of hours on my own projects per day, and so on. But I don't do that. I work on top priority stuff first (which is usually stuff that has a publishing deadline, or pays the most and fastest) then flow down the line from there. At any rate, when it's all said and done, and I've quit doing the work for others each day I'm too sapped to work on my own stuff, and all I feel like doing is watching TV or reading a book. I certainly don't feel like typing away on a keyboard for several more hours. An occasional Twitter, blog or forum post is one thing, but spending dedicated, consecutive hours typing and creating after a long day of similar work is a bit too much most days.

So while I am very inspired I'm not sure when or if I'll be able to turn that inspiration into anything productive. I try and try, and sometimes I succeed. Sometimes I make myself. But when it comes to scripts, novels and screenplays, all I can see is the big picture and all the work ahead of me and I get overwhelmed. I've talked about that problem I have before on here, and it's something I haven't yet overcome.

Maybe tomorrow will be different. I don't know. What I do know is I am a creative guy with lots of ideas, and I've got to find a way to get them out there, I just have to. Change is something we need to survive, and change is something I need to do to get where I want to go. Maybe changing the way I do things on this level will be the first necessary step...

Should I or Shouldn't I?

So I watched Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones yesterday, and now Revenge of the Sith is about to come on. Should I watch it?

I've got so much to do, but I have yet to do anything today save setting up Scott's blog to act as his news page (it's not linked yet, but if you go to his blog you'll notice the change). But I just really don't feel like doing anything today. Monday will be here soon enough heralding the end of the holiday season, and thus a return to work per usual. Maybe I should just relax and enjoy my last day of laziness?

Yeah, that sounds good. :)

I watched Wall-E earlier, by the way. Cute film.

Saturday Night TV

Finally caught an episode and a half of Legend of the Seeker. I had seen it on before, but it didn't look too interesting. But at Thanksgiving my cousin was raving about it, so I thought I'd check it out. It was a pretty good show if you like swords and sorcery type stuff. I thought it had been on longer than it had, but it seems it just began back in November, so I'm not that far behind. And I think you can watch full episodes on their website.

Saw Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones on and got sucked into them and watched them in their entirety.

Then I caught the last 30 minutes of 8 Mile, the best part of the film with the rap battles.

Luckily I discovered that even though I don't get My Network TV, Smackdown does come on Saturday Nights on ABC at 11:30, so it's been a long night of watching TV.

What sucks is that the TV in the loft, I've discovered, is not HD compatible, so the HD channels won't come in on that TV. And it's a big screen (got it off my uncle several months ago pretty cheap).

I was considering watching Wall-E earlier tonight, but after several hours of constant TV I don't think I can! Well, maybe...

Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

So I watched this last night out of boredom and having already watched all my DVDs from Christmas. It was either this, Kung Fu Panda or Tropic Thunder. I took a chance on this one.

I didn't have high hopes because while the first one was decent, it wasn't great. I liked the play "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" as a kid and had seen it several times with school, but the movie didn't come off quite as good as it could have in my opinion.

I had never read or seen anything beyond that particular story, so I wasn't familiar with the further adventures of Narnia. But I have to say I was pleasantly surprised by this film. I personally thought it was much better than the first to be honest. Maybe it was the action, or maybe it was the plot, but it just held my interest longer. And for a film as long as this one was, that's definitely a good thing.

So I rather enjoyed this one and I'm glad I took a chance on it. I read recently that Disney wasn't going to do anymore Narnia films, and after seeing this one I'm somewhat saddened by it. Not as much as I would be to learn there definitely would be no more Spider-Man films, or as sad as I was at the end of the Lord of the Rings trilogy (thank goodness for The Hobbit), but a bit saddened nevertheless.

I guess this would be a good excuse to seek out the books and read them, huh?

If I Was a Celebrity...

That's a line from an NSync song (yeah, I used to listen to some of their stuff, but I hated that song) in case you were wondering.

I've just been reading and watching celebrity stuff today and it got me thinking.

John Travolta's 16 year old son died while their family was vacationing in the Bahamas. I read he fell and hit his head on the bathtub. Hearing stuff like that just brings it into reality how celebrities are just regular people when it comes down to it. And having a 16 year old brother who cracked his skull open two years ago and was touch and go for a while really makes me thankful that my brother is still with me. My condolences go out to the Travolta family.

You remember the days when it took some awesome talent to become a celebrity? Not these days. You can be anybody, but usually the kids of rich people become instant celebrities thanks to MTV reality shows. It's just uncanny, man.

I know I've expressed interest in acting and singing before, but I don't know if I'd really want to be a celebrity. I'd love to make that kind of money, have that kind of security, but the invasion of privacy is something I'm not sure I could handle. I'm a private guy after all, this blog aside.

Everybody says celebrity wouldn't change them, and most everyone that says that that becomes a celebrity is wrong. Of course it's going to change you some, and in most cases a lot. For me, I think I'd have a handle on it.

But in all seriousness, I'm just messing around. I'm bored and happened to see Cribs on, so it sparked a topic and I thought I'd write about it. And there ya go.

So if I was a celebrity, well, I'd probably have a lot more to write about!

Journey of a Wannabe - Change of the Times

The latest column is up. As always, click the title of the post to be taken to it.

This time I talk about how some changes in my young life kind of distracted me from my pursuits of art for a time.

Let me know what you think!

Okay...

I managed to recall six of them so far and jotted them down. Cool. Let the games begin!

Ideas Rolling In With the New Year

Man, it seems like the turn of the year, for some strange reason, sparked some creativity in me unbeknownst. All day today ideas have been running through my head for novels, screenplays, poems and comics. It's really weird. I mean I get little bits of ideas all the time, but never this many at once. It just seems like everything I read, see or do today is creating a little web of ideas in my brain.

Whether I'll be able to retain any of them long enough to jot them down, and whether I ever do anything with them remains to be seen. But it is quite a sensation to have all these concepts floating around and intertwining at times all through the day. It does make it VERY hard to focus on anything else, though, which is a problem when you're trying to, you know, get stuff done!

My luck I'll get distracted and lose all of these before I get a chance to record them for future use. That's pretty sad when I have a notebook a few feet from me and I'm on a computer. Like there's any excuse not to write them down, right?

Sheesh, okay, I'm going...

Christmas Movies

I just realized that I forgot to do my post on Christmas movies, and though the holiday, and the year, are recently removed, I figured I'd do it anyway instead of waiting a whole year to do it right.


I'm not going to put these in order as I don't have the time or resolve to put these in any kind of order right now. I can tell you that my favorite Christmas movie of all time, though, which is no surprise to regular readers of this blog, is It's A Wonderful Life. In fact, it's one of my favorite movies of all time in general. The message contained within the film is one we should all keep in mind at all times, and one that helps me through a lot.


Now this next modern classic wasn't always one of my favorites, but the appeal of it has grown on me as I've gotten older. And that is A Christmas Story. The story of a boy wanting a bb rifle for Christmas that takes us on an introspective look into the boy's and his family's life. And the narration of the main character all grown up is just poetic and warm. I'm convinced that the style of the TV show The Wonder Years was modeled after this movie because of that.

Elf is only a few years old, but it's popular enough to garner being played multiple times throughout the holiday season, including an all-day marathon yesterday, and yes, I watch it several times every year. I don't know why, but I love that film. I'm not a huge Will Ferrel fan as I find his style of humor most times annoying and distasteful, but there are a few flicks that I just love him in, like Old School and this movie. My favorite scene, though, is when Zooey Deschanel's character, Jovie, is singing in the shower and Buddy (Ferrel) is sitting on the sink singing along with her without her knowing. It's just a romantic, touching and comedic scene.

A Christmas Carol is the Christmas classic of course, and there are two versions I like. I can't remember who stars in the older version that I like, but I'm pretty sure it was one of the ones from the 1930s. Then again it could have been the 1951 version, I don't know. And the other version I like is the one with Patrick Stewart from 1999. Of course, there have been so many adaptations of that book, and Scrooged is another good and unique take on the classic story.



One can't forget the Santa Clause movies starring Tim Allen either. Though the first one is by far the best of the three, the second one was okay as well. The whole concept of the first film, though, was something new and enjoyable.


Miracle On 34th Street was never a favorite of mine because it was kind of boring to me, but the message in it and the whole plot of the movie deserves recognition, so there you go.


Chevy Chase in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation was hilarious, once again reprising the role of Clark Grizwald. Full of hijinks and oddities, this hapless family man tries to make the perfect Christmas for his family, but keeps failing miserably, until he realizes all they really care about is being together. Great film with a great moral.

And who can forget the Home Alone films?

Specifically the first two, the only two worth remembering. Such a clever yet simple concept turned into family comedic gold. Often immitated, never duplicated, these two are classics to be sure.

Ernest Saves Christmas. Yep, it's on the list. My brother's dad loved the Ernest films and got me into them as a kid, and this was one I watched every Christmas for a few years. It's goofy, unbelievable, and as all Ernest movies, pretty stupid, but a lot of fun.


The Family Stone is a romantic and family-centric Christmas film with drama and touching moments throughout. It's not your typical Christmas film, and many people probably don't know about it. It has Luke Wilson, Sarah Jessica Parker, Craig T. Nelson, Diane Keaton, Rachel McAdams and Clair Danes in it, and is a very warm, yet controversial film with a lot of heart in it. I've caught this a few times on cable and for some reason it just hits me at certain spots in the movie, namely with Claire Danes and Sarah Jessica Parkers' roles (they're sisters) and what happens with them.

Surviving Christmas was not a big hit with critics or anyone who doesn't like Ben Affleck for that matter, but I actually rather enjoyed it. Of course, I'm a big fan of both James Gandolfini and Christina Applegate, both who were excellent in this film, so maybe that had something to do with it. But Affleck plays this rich guy who has no Christmas plans so he pays this family (who happens to live in his old house from when he was a kid) to pretend to be his family for the holiday. It's quirky and humorous, but emotional (and disturbing at times) as well.

Preacher's Wife with Whitney Houston and Denzel Washington is another favorite with a touching story and great singing. Think what you will of Houston, but she's a pretty good actor and a great singer, and Denzel is one of my favorite actors period. And this is a great story. I didn't see it on this year oddly.

And of course there's the Jim Carrey driven How the Grinch Stole Christmas, which I thought was a decent flick. Could've been better and had some weird parts in it, but it wasn't nearly as campy or goofy as they could have blemished it with either, so it gets a nod.

And there you have it, my list of Christmas movies to see every year. Not to mention all the classic cartoons and claymation features as well. This holiday season I believe I only saw 5 of the 18 listed. Man, I'm slipping! Guess I'll have to make up for it this year!

The Beginning

Well, folks, it's now 2009, at least in my part of the world, and for a lot of you it has been for a while now. I know the West Coast still has a couple of hours, but it's still close enough to call it.

So, 2008 is in the past and we've entered a new digit at the end of the 2-0-0. What does that mean? Not a whole lot in the grand scheme of things...

Sorry, got distracted there watching some of the musical performances on the Dick Clark New Year's Eve special. Has anyone noticed how much Jesse McCartney now resembles Leonardo DiCaprio? Hadn't noticed that before.

Anyway, the new year could mean a lot, and could mean nothing at all depending on what you do with it. It's another year to get older, but it's also another year to get things done. Time doesn't stand still, and there never seems to be enough of it. And if we keep letting things go these New Year's nights are going to keep coming and going with us still treading water.

So while it is just another night and another day, and just a note on a calendar (that's not completely accurate anyway), it's the mentality we enter the new year with that makes the difference. If we can really set goals and follow through with them then it could be a very good and promising occurrence, this passing of the year. It's all up to you.

As for me, there are many things I want to do this year. I turn 32 later this year and there are many things I've yet to achieve. There are goals in my life I haven't come close to, and I'm tired of the years passing by without great progress. Sure, 2008 was a great year for me in terms of progress in my creative works, and with meeting friends and all that. But there are still many things I didn't accomplish that I should have.

Anybody that knows me knows that I do put significance on dates and numbers and stuff. I've tried to overcome that to a degree in this past year as it puts too much pressure on me and is really arbitrary anyway. But I still believe in new beginnings, something that has been ingrained in me since I was child, and a new year, just like every day we awaken, is a chance for a new beginning and to do something we didn't do the day, or the year, before. And that's how I view 2009 now. Hopefully I'll follow through.

As for resolutions, like most, I've set them almost every year and inevitably failed to deliver on them. So I won't be making any resolutions. There are things I want to get done in '09, and I do have an internal list, but I won't list them at this time because I don't want to set myself up for failure. Plus some of them are personal, so we'll leave it at that.

Oh man, Robin Thicke looks more and more like his dad every time I see him... That's weird, like seeing Jason Seaver singing in a sweater vest, that's all I see...

Distracted again. At any rate, I will say that I plan on doing conventions and getting more Wannabez out there in 2009. I also plan on moving forward on a great many things through the year, so we'll see how that plays out. But more than anything I want to find a way to spend more time with friends and loved ones than I was able to do in '08, which was still far more than I did in the previous four years.

And something I really want to do more is sing. Everytime I watch any kind of singing I get the bug, and the response I got over my little Christmas carols really lifted me up, so thanks for that, all.

Yep, I'm determined to make 2009 a great one, God willing.

Ok, that's enough waxing philosophical and being all full of purpose and emotion. Let's have some fun, it's New Year's, baby!