Shark Week! (Weak Shark.)

There's some channel on my television that has some big doo-dah festival of shark programming called Shark Week. Apparently it's a big deal and a lot of people watch it. I'm not one of them. I like shows about drunken advertising executives, who smoke like freight trains in 1962! That's my show. Seems like I drew this illustration in 1962, but actually it was around 1992, and boy, has it faded. It was for 321 Contact Magazine produced by Children's Television Workshop. It was a comic about The Fresh Fish of Smell Air. Those were the days.

I (heart) Jeopardy!

I read a lot. Well, I guess compared to people who read a lot, I don't read a lot. But compared to most people, as least most people I know, I read a lot. I don't read a lot like those people on Jeopardy. Those people are freaks! But in a good way. How can one person know obscure Russian Literature and minutia about the cast of Friends? It's either/or, isn't it? Not with these folks. They have the time and the mental capacity for academics and popular culture. These people are my heroes. Each and every one. I love Jeopardy.

I produced a series of 10 paintings using the imagery of Bazooka Joe comic strips, but replaced the asinine jokes with text from famous American novels. The text that I chose was from the paragraphs in which the title of the book is mentioned. By the way, the text and the image have no correlation. That's the point, isn't it? Irony. Irony is so in right now. Not. I'm such a rookie.

"I'll take Potent Potables for four hundred Alex."

Happy Birthday to ME!!

Wow, it seems just like yesterday on July 10th of some other year when Ruth Ross was laboring in the Osteopathic Hospital of Wichita, Kansas pushing forward what turned out to be me. Way to go Ruth! Er, I mean, Mom. 

Other celebrity birthdays today: Arlo Guthrie, 61. Bela Fleck, 50. Gary LeVox (of Rascal Flatts), 38. Jessica (Thank God John Mayer dumped her!) Simpson, 28.

So scared of getting older

I'm only good at being young

So I play the numbers game

To find a way to say that life has just begun

Stop this train

I wanna get off

And go home again

I can't take the speed it's moving in

I know I can't

But honestly, won't someone stop this train?

-John Mayer (Stick with Jennifer Aniston you knucklehead!)

What do you think about, now that you're dead?

"Put your hand on your chin. You'll look more thoughtful!"

What do you think about when you're dead? I think (I'm still living), not much.

Can I plagiarize myself?

The top illustration was my Christmas card for 1993. Back when the daughter pictured still thought I was cool. She foolishly doesn't realize that I am still the epitome of coolness. There's been another daughter added since this illustration. She will very soon think I am not cool. Any day now. 

Many years later I was commissioned to do an illustration for a parenting magazine, an article about whining children. I had a square space to fill, and the old image of my Christmas card came to mind, and I adapted it to the assignment. There exists a fine line between plagiarism, influence, inspiration, imitation, and parody. Since it was myself that I was plagiarizing, I had no trouble sleeping that night.

Hey, guess what today is? It's the first day of the rest of my life! If I had a quart of gas for every time I've said that, (today's approximate equivalent of a dollar), I could drive to Phoenix and back. Though I've never been to Phoenix, I've got  friends there, so it would be worth the expense. But I've heard that Phoenix is the pits, so that's why it would be important to have the gas to get back. Anyway, life goes forward, and am trying to make the most of it! Started this morning. Again.