Start spreading the news...

It has been a long time since I have blogged. It has been a long time since I have done a lot of Captain Capitalism work also.

I have been working on a cartoon but between Powerhouse and other extra curriculars I have not gotten very far...I need to change that.

But I do like vacation blogging because I get a chance to put the pictures all in one place and come back and look at them myself.

We have not been home for several weekends now, having various family functions and work obligations. Mandy has been very busy with a trial and has been in and out of New Orleans. We did get to participate in Halloween though, Jason Williams had a last minute party, so we made a last minute shopping trip trip this Halloween. Mandy was a really good sport with the costumes.




This past week, I flew into New York for a conference and to hit some meetings, then enjoy the weekend for a little vacation. I took a red-eye on Tuesday morning. I got the hotel and checked in. Mandy got me a room at the Hudson which is a fancy hotel near Columbus circle. I took a short nap, worked for a little bit then decided to explore. On the way out the door I ran into a group from the opera doing a impromptu rehearsal.




Good bless, New York. Dont see that every day.

I took the subway to Chinatown, and got thoroughly lost, here are some pics from my meandering. Here are some of the things I saw.

Frogs in a garbage can.

I got some Dim Sum including some chicken feet, which were mediocre.

Go in the park.

On the way back to the apartment, I stopped by the Time Warner center on the way back to the hotel, and the cast of Glee was doing an appearance, and there was mass teenage pandemonium. Then I went to Kennedy's, a local Irish pub, had a late dinner, enjoyed the ambiance and went back to the hotel to get ready for the next days meetings.

- Wed 4
I went to meet Mike Mendelsohn, our Powerhouse New York agent in Chelsea near the New York Times building. I got to hit mid-town comics while I was there, which is always nice.

I know it is a cliched song title, but Autumn in New York is incredible. Trees change colors.
Mike and I at at Five Napkin Burger, and then walked as many of the calories as we could on the long walk to the Jatvis center and attended the ad:tech convention. It was supposed to be a "internet advertising" convention, and since Powerhouse is doing some advergaming and other buzzword work, we thought it might be a good opportunity. Honestly, though we made a few good connections, it was more of a spamming convention and acronym convention. CPA, ROI, CPA, TGIF...I really didnt know what most of the people did after talking to them.

I walked Mike back to Grand Central and we had a drink before his train. I went back to the hotel and crashed for a couple hours, then went to eat a lonely dinner at Thomas Keller's Bouchon bakery. Luckily, Mandy's trial got continued and she ended up getting on a plane and was on her way to NY. I went back to Kennedy's to watch what turned out to be the final game of the World Series, Mandy made it in time to watch the bartender firing up Sinatra on the loud speaker. Mandy and I headed to Times Square to watch the celebration.

Thurs 5-
The next morning Mandy and I went to Balthazaar for Brunch before I had to catch some meetings. We ordered Le Grand. The waiters face did not fully notify me when I asked him "if it was enough for two"

After some meetings I met Mandy back in Soho and we shopped around, then made our way to the village where we stopped at Mc Sorely's:

and the Cooper Union, which apparently has a Frank Gehry building now.

We met my cousin Sarah for dinner, then walked around town, and took one of those rides around Central Park, just because we had never done that in the many times we have been to NY.

Friday 6

I had meetings most of Friday and got off around 6, just in time to meet Mandy to make it to see Hamlet with Jude Law (the original reason we were going to New York). The play was amazing.
This picture won''t mean much to any one else but we were in the front row. Jude Law spat on us for 3 hours. I could write a lot about how great the play was, but I will leave that for the dream journal.

Sat 7
The next morning we met Scotty Sharp, former Viz lab cohort now Blue Sky-er, at the Met to check out a Samurai exhibit that was quite good (unfortunately no pics allowed). But I did get a pick of Mandy and Scotty in front of the Frick, which is what Stan Lee based the Avengers mansion on, according to a book I got when we were in New York.

We ate at the Brooklyn Diner (the finer diner) where we apparently werent the first rappers to make an appearance.



We then went to Lee's Art Supply which has a curious tagline


Scotty was going to see Patton Oswald, so we decided to see if they still had some tickets...luckily we got some great seats and had a good time at the show. Afterwards we walked Scotty to Grand Central had a Hoho Dingdong and went back to our hotel.

-Sun 8

The next morning Mandy and I went to brunch with my cousin, her husband and daughter. After brunch we had a great kids day. We went to FAO Schwartz:

We looked at puppies, and the Central Park Zoo. It was a really good time.

Afterwards we walked around time square waiting for a Louis CK show. Some of the artists doing the portraits in the square are truly amazing.

The Louis CK show was great, though the venue was not.

-Monday 9

We woke up, I worked for a couple of hours, we packed a lot of baggage and went out into the city for the last day. We ate at Daniel Boulud's restaurant, which specializes in charcuterie...which makes me happy.

We walked around Times Square for the 100th time, and then went to Macy's for a bit. By this time our legs and feet were blown out from days and days of walking and we decided to go to the airport early.

I love New York, but I am very happy to be back home.

Powerhouse: Luck of the Draw

I was the subject of Powerhouse's "Luck of the Draw," last week. For fun and in order for people to get some good drawing practice in every week, we spin a wheel that has everyone who works at the studio's name on it. Then everybody does a caricature, comic, or animation of the person the wheel lands on. Then we put them up on the Phetchblog, Powerhouse's sketchbook blog.

Inside jokes abound in this, but I think most of them are better left unexplained.

Here are some other victims:
Doug: http://phetch.blogspot.com/2009/09/luck-of-draw-doug-beck.html
Frank: http://phetch.blogspot.com/2009/08/luck-of-draw-frank-gabriel.html
Sam Lotfi: http://phetch.blogspot.com/2009/08/luck-of-draw-09-sam-lotfi.html
Shane Minshew: http://phetch.blogspot.com/2009/08/luck-of-draw-08-shane-minshew.html
Megan: http://phetch.blogspot.com/2009/08/luck-of-draw-08-megan-kluck.html
Bruce: http://phetch.blogspot.com/2009/07/luck-of-draw-06-bruce-tinnin.html
Sam: http://phetch.blogspot.com/2009/07/luck-of-draw-05-sam-deats.html

Sorry it has been a while... work has been busy, lots of family and guests coming in on the weekends. I have been working on a new Captain Capitalism cartoon, hopefully will post more soon.

Vegas

Mandy and I went to Vegas for 3 days right after releasing the cartoon. One of the best parts of having a blog is being able to go back and look at what I have done over the course of the past few years, so I usually make these "travelblogues" so I can remember what all we did. The main theme of this trip was "fighting and food," two of my favorite things.

We went to Vegas during a UFC fan event for UFC 100, so I took advantage of that and did some training sessions with Wanerlei "The Axe-Murderer" Silva and Kru Mark Dellagrotte. The sessions were great, I learned a ton and got to "roll" and train with a few professional fighters and did not end up with any black-eyes or broken bones...so, bonus.

Mandy got to sit in the Wanderlei session, so I got some pics.


You should have seen Mr. Silva's arms and legs. The best way I can describe it is rebar wrapped in veins.
Mr. Silva overlooks Jesse Garcia and myself doing some ground drills...

I even got to do some drills directly with Wanderlei.

That night Wanderlei invited us to his gym.



This is my sad attempt at a staredown. I cannot hide the fear well. Better stick to the cartoons.



We ate at two Hubert Keller restaurants in Vegas, Fleur De Lys and Burger Bar. Fleur de Lys might be the best restuarant I have ever had the pleasure to visit. It ranks up there with Les Halles and Craft. I had a tasting menu, and was nearly in a food coma by the end of the night. We also ate at Shabuya, which has a great sake selection, our waiter made some really good recommendations.

We also went to a great bar in the Mandalay called Red Square, which was like if Captain Capitalism's enemies had a bar:
Outside was a headless statue of Lenin. The head was inside the "vodka vault," where patrons can take a shot off the frozen head. Unfortunately, the price was too steep, so Mandy and I just hung out at the frozen bar for bit.



Mandy's brother Sean, came into Vegas from San Francisco, on Friday evening. It was nice to see him again, it has been a while.

Another cool bar we went to was called Minus 5, in this bar, everything is made from ice...the tables, chairs, even glasses. You have to wear a parka and booties. Frozen bars are big in Vegas, I guess.

We watched the UFC event from a beach on closed circuit TV.

We had a really good time, but Vegas wears on me. The noises and smells they pump start to make me claustrophobic after a couple of days. The wife and I arent much for gambling either, though she did hit this:

Culture Clubbing

I give you, Culture Clubbing:

Please check it out at the following links. Each one of them. Several times a day. Tell your friends and family to do the same:
Youtube

Newgrounds.

Flash version.

Actually, I can't say I give it to you. I had a lot of help. The guys at Powerhouse devoted time to it, and I would not have gotten close to getting it done without the help. So thanks to everyone.

Speaking of help, if you are wondering why the opening scene kicks so much butt, that is because Sam Deats animated it.

Also, just for clarification, the red thing says Freakachoo and Kaneda, in case you could not understand it. The first a reference to Pokemon, the second to Akira.

That middle portion is a parody of School House Rocks' "Great American Melting Pot." Please check it out here. Schoolhouse Rock was a very important part of my education. Explains a lot, eh? I remember as a child wondering why the Statue of Liberty was cooking all the immigrants. That is really where the gag comes from...it is intended to be pretty tongue-in-cheek satire...let's see if it actually come off that way.

Every time I release one of these cartoons, there is a recurring comment that upsets me. On Nightmare of a Red Christmas, it was the 100+ people asking why Karl Marx had a German accent.

This time I think it will be people who see this section as more than a Schoolhouse Rock satire and actually think I am commenting on culture in America.

For whatever reason, my cartoons seem to attract actual debate in comments. That doesn't bother me, as much as it confuses me. To me, the cartoons are so ludicrous, that I cant imagine any of them being taken seriously enough to inspire actual conversations about governments and economics.

I am a little afraid of that tendency on this one. Keep in mind, I grew up in a large extended family. I had 12 cousins. I was taught at an early age that the way you show love is to ridicule something mercilessly.

So for the record, unless you believe I actually am saying that Menudo was a plot by Puerto Rican dissident leftists...you should not believe that I am also actually saying that in America you don't have to respect other cultures, or that anime doesn't make sense.

...actually I am saying that last part. Anime does not make sense. Hehe.



Speaking of Puerto Rican leftists...see if you can spot the famous Puerto Rican's in that scene. I'll give you a couple, at the chalk board is Freddie Prinze and Jose Ferrer - here is a better view of their boy band calculations in case it goes by too fast for you.

The cartoon could still use a couple of tweaks, but I find that I work best with setting deadlines. I gave myself to July 4th on this one, I told myself wherever it was on the 4th was how it was going to be online for all the world to see. And now I am going to take a break from this sort of thing for a week and go to Vegas.

In other news, I should be getting the casts from the bank sculpts next week. If you are interesting in reserving one, e-mail me at captain_capitalism@hotmail.com this edition will probably be limited to about 20 tops. They are probably going to be $75-$100 depending upon materials costs and how long it take me to hand paint the durn things. I am still trying to figure out how to mass produce them...but it is pretty cost prohibitive.

Freedom is My Muse 2: Electric Boogaloo

It is darn near impossible for me not to say Electric Boogaloo after putting the numeral 2 at the end of a title. If I don't type it or say it, I am thinking it. Those amazing marketers behind the Breakin' franchise...we hardly knew ye.

Things have been very busy. I have been working hard at trying to finish the Culture Club cartoon in almost all of my spare time. June is generally a very busy month. Lots of birthdays and holidays falling one weekend after another, but I have done my best to keep at it and get something done.

I pretty much had the cartoon complete on July 3rd and Stephen Parker and his girlfriend Carey came down from Los Angeles. Stephen and I went to graduate school together at the Vizlab, and he works on fancy films out in Hollywood; but as a veteran and true patriot, he knows it would be down right communist to celebrate the birth of America in California. So he came to Texas, where we are so patriotic that we threaten to secede, and we tried to best last years' "Most American July 4th Celebration."

Most of the following photos were taken by Brandon Bollom, another member of the "4th gang".

First thing, we woke up and got Dunkin Donuts with stars and stripes sprinkles on the way to the shooting range.

After celebrating our 2nd amendment rights, we headed to Austin Books where I picked up a US agent statue to participate in capitalism. Post-comics we had some barbecue. With our bellies full of brisket and sausage, we headed to the lake.

Mandy and I recently "inherited" a boat. The first weekend we had said boat, it sank a little, (what a strange phrase). This was the second weekend we had the boat. We made it about 15 feet into the busy lake, and the boat died. We narrowly got it back to the dock going about 1 mph. Later we found out they did not drain the gas tank after the sinking, and that the gas had water in it.

In the true American spirit, we made lemonade out of lemons and swam at the boat dock.

Afterwards we headed up to see the fireworks show downtown. Now, despite the Ruskie "1812 Overture" introducing the show, it was a fairly nice exhibition. We sat next to a group of people who were sure that the fireworks were getting "too close" and that they were going to hit the planes flying far above.
I hope everyonce else had a good 4th. We will try again next year.

Going to Mold...that does not sound as cool as it should

First off, click on this picture to see the Captain Capitalism sculpt right before it went to mold making this weekend.
I cannot wait to see these guys in person. Still trying to figure out how to make them into banks, paint them, and figure out how much to charge for them. Much thanks to Mike Petryszak for helping bring this childhood dream to life.

Been making headway on the next cartoon, "Culture Clubbing."

Until it is ready here are a few teaser images, first some Mary Blair inspired representatives of various cultural stereotypes:

I re-did the two kids that Captain Capitalism talks to in the cartoon the past few weeks. Now they are roughly based on two brother who work at Powerhouse Animation: Sam and Adam Deats. Sam and Adam are two very talented guys who also happen to love anime, almost as much as the kids in the cartoon...

I'm with the help

Mandy and I went to the Richard Garriot estate for William Shakespeare's birthday last Thursday. Austin Shakespeare was having a "gala" for the occasion and showing a sneak peak of Romeo and Juliet.

According to the internet, which should never be trusted, galas tend to be black tie occasions:

But this is Austin, TX. We should have known better. We did. We talked about it on the way there.

When we arrived, I was asked if I was there to help serve. Ah, gotta love Austin. I'm in a tux; guy in the car next to me, wearing shorts and t-shirt. I felt a little out of place.

Mr. Garriot's place includes a nice little Elizabethan style theater. The play was fantastic, and I highly recommend checking it out in its full glory, May 7-June 7.

Friday night, I saw Mr. Garriot again, at a Fundraiser for Brewster McKracken.

Then on Saturday night, one of our coaches from CTC defended his title at a local show. Kamal (the fella in the middle) is a former olympic wrestler and did well in a really tough fight.

Things have been so incredibly busy, doing all these extra-curricular activities has not gotten cartoons done.

Cool Naked Lunches

Last Friday, Mandy and I went to the Birth of Cool exhibit at the Blanton Museum. If you live in Central Texas, or the exhibit tour comes to your town, I highly recommend it. But that may just be because, as my wife said "It's like an everything Brad loves exhibit." There was no fighting sports, praying mantids or Hamlet performances, but it was close...

The exhibit focuses on the retro-modern movement, especially as it relates to the west coast. The exhibit features furniture protoypes from Eames, Miller and more

It also had lots of great images from West Coast Jazz, and stations to listen to pivotal works. When we went, (it was an event for museum members) they had a combo playing Dave Brubeck. I love Brubeck, especially Time Out. I have a record player at the office and have worn down that album, probably much to the chagrin of my office neighbor, Frank.

The greatest part of the exhibit though was a wall where 3 TVs played 3 cartoons; "Beep Beep", by Chuck Jones, "Gerald McBoing Boing", and "Toot, Whistle, Plunk, and Boom" directed by Ward Kimball. It was so great to be in a museum, watching people watch these cartoons, especially seeing folks laugh out loud still to the Chuck Jones cartoon.

When I was at the museum shop I came across a postcard of William Burroughs, which was kind of synchronicity. Not because I am big Burroughs fan, (though I have a great recording of him reading that is pretty fun), but as I started to say in my last post, I have been working on trying to start a figure drawing class for animators in Austin.

I used to love figure drawing, and have not gotten enough of it in the past 8 years.

So I have been trying to find a place to hold classes for the past 4 months. It has been surprisingly hard. I followed many dead ends, and had some very bizarre encounters. I wont name names, but there was someone who wanted to charge each student $50 per student, per class...just to hold the class in their space.

Details will follow soon, but we have a date. I am very excited.

The first class will be May 30th. I wanted to have the class around lunch time on Saturdays. So I thought we would call it "Naked Lunch." Thus the Burroughs reference. Ironically the models will not be fully "undraped," as Prof. Schiffhauer would say, because folks will be able to get drinks (coffee and beer) from the coffeehouse next door and there are apparently laws about nudity and liquor proximity, even if it is for the purpose of learning how to draw.

On another topic, I recently customized my laptop. I bought a Toshiba Satellite R-15. It is a tablet PC, (you can draw directly on the screen) and has a larger monitor than most tablets (14"). Rich Simms at Powerhouse, let me try one out, and I was tired of being chained to my Cintiq at night. Unfortunately, they dont make them anymore, so I had to get one used and take it to a shop to fix up, but the outside was still very scratched up. I asked the gentleman at the repair shop how I could paint the laptop. He told me I was crazy. So I decided I definately had to paint it. Here is how it looked:

Here is what it looks like now:

And it runs like a champ. Hehe. I know, I could have been working on cartoons. Speaking of which, this week is pretty crazy...hope to share more soon.