Almost famous

As I look over my website stats, I’m not surprised to see odd search terms giving me hits.  People google  proctology and are given link to my site.  They Ask Jeeves about a duplex kidney and are sent here.  The vast quantity of search terms that point this direction are variations on a theme:  grandpa sex, sex with grandpa, hot sexy grandpa, are all shockingly prevalent.  Seriously.  I’m not trying to judge, but…

Anyhow, a couple months back I noticed a lot of searches from all over the world for Charlie James.  People from France, Turkey, Hungary, Brazil, and the US, all searching for my name.  I knew I shared a name with an old St. Louis Browns baseball player, but I was resonably certain that these folks weren’t searching for either one of us.  I googled my own name and couldn’t find anyone that held any status worthy of such interest.

That’s when I turned off the safety filter.

As it turns out, not only do I share a name with a female porn star, but so does my wife.

New projects and old age

So I tried watching the MTV Video Music Awards last night and felt completely out of touch.  I had always heard that the big target demographic that advertisers are after are “Men, 18-35.”  I always thought “Weird.  I won’t suddenly change into my father at the age of 36.”  Well on Saturday I turned 36, and as I tried watching the VMAs on Sunday I realized that I was right about not changing into my father, but the problem was that I hadn’t changed into a hip young kid, either.  I am irrelevant.

The whole Myspace thing seems like a place for kids to spend time online–being angsty and putting themselves at risk for abduction.  So I joined Facebook and thought, “Yeah.  Looks like adults are here.  People I graduated High School with.  Nice.”  Then I got my first piece of “Flair,” and as I looked throughout the choices of flair and realized that I have no opinion whatsoever on either the Jonas Brothers or Twilight, it became apparent that 98% of this Flair thing was not targeted at me.  Once again, I’m irrelevant.

So…36 Saturday, VMAs on Sunday.  Feeling old.  Then Kid Rock came on, and I thought “Seriously?  He’s still around?  He sucked when he was new, like 10 years ago, didn’t he?”  That’s when I realized that I’ve been out of the loop for a lot longer than I previously thought.

Anyhow, the monsterbubbles.com overhaul is complete–go check it out.

Also, I’ve opened up a skateshop kind of a thing. The folks at popdeck started up a print-on-demand service they call deckpeck for getting skateboard decks printed.  You can buy some of my art printed on these decks for a mere $50 (plus shipping).  So check it out, and buy a board.  Please?

Sorry no Grandpa Sex Machine updates–no time to color lately.  I’ve got several all sketched out, I just need to color.  Once they are up I’m going to concentrate on another project for a bit.  More on that shortly.

Assorted items

Sorry no new funnies for awhile.  Here’s what’s up with me:

  • Floors finished, baseboards finished, thresholds nearly finished
  • re-design for monsterbubbles.com nearly complete–hoping to go live with it before the end of August
  • working on posters for a few local theater productions
  • trying to find time to draw the pile of Summer Olympic-inspired GSM ideas I’ve had
  • Set up a Facebook page for GSM

Take special note of that final item, please.  If you have a Facebook profile, and if you dig Grandpa Sex Machine, help a brother out and become a fan, won’t you?

Anyhow, hoping to have some sort of picturey thing to show you later in the week–maybe GSM, maybe just sketchbook stuff, but I’ll try to have some sort of content soon.  I’ll be headed back to the day-job on Wednesday.   Later!

Haiku for a Laminate Floor

Clean, flat, fragrance-free
Dude, you gotta see my floor.
Timmy’s my hero.

Not quite finished yet (still have to do the baseboards), but the floors are down and a VAST improvement over the gross carpet that was on top of the busted linoleum that was on top of the original asphalt tile. Thanks, Tim.

Anyhow, no promises on the the next Grandpa Sex Machine update, but I will say I’ve got a couple drawn and waiting to be scanned and colored. Hopefully we’ll get the baseboards done quickly and I can get back at it. Of course, when the remodeling junk is finished, I’ve got some web-design work to do–that pays better than Grandpa does, so it’s my number one priority. Later.

Not slacking, honest

Sorry for the lack of Grandpa Sex Machine this week, but like I mentioned before, home remodeling is taking priority right now. I’ve been sneezing incessantly since this whole thing began–good times.

Wanted to mention that the Belleville Chapter of the Drink and Draw Social Club (which I’ve been absent from for the past couple weeks) is having a Dr. Sketchy’s inspired evening this Thursday. Mosaics on Main has invited the Alley Cat Revue, so for a $10 cover charge you’ll be able to draw burlesque performers. So once again–all you St. Louis area artists–bring your sketchbooks and come hang out with us tomorrow night!

Well this just sucks.

DJ Coffman posted this yesterday, and I just got around to reading it now. Pretty lousy news. If you haven’t been reading Hero By Night, it’s really good stuff–DJ has really made an effort to re-capture the fun-ness of Kirby-era superheroes.  Show some support for DJ and the HBN–go buy all the back-issues you can get your hands on.  Probably too late to make any real difference, but at least you’ll have a stack of high quality reading.

My passion for WHAT?!

If you are logged in on eBay, the front page has this bit that says “Fuel your passion for _____” and then fills that blank with your most recent eBay purchase and lists several related items.  That’s great and all, but my most recent eBay purchase was a one-shot Goon comic by Eric Powell entitled “Satan’s Sodomy Baby.”  This results in an unfortunate and disturbing choice of words.

If I truly had a passion for Satan’s Sodomy Baby, I doubt that any fueling of said passion would be wise or, in fact, necessary. 

Harvey will kick your entire ass.

Harvey CD Release Party!So, I’m going to take a second to plug this band, Harvey, on account of their ability to kick all kinds of ass. Three of these guys are former students of mine, but I can’t claim any credit for their prodigious talent–they were awesome before I ever met them. I saw them perform a few weeks back at Mosaics in Belleville and they put on a great show. If you’re in the Alton area Sat. night, go to the shindig there. I can’t make it, but you totally should. They rock socks.

Tom Waits’ True Confessions

So Tom Waits is my MySpace friend, right? (I know! How cool am I?) Anyhow, I just read this bulletin and quite enjoyed it. I think my favorite bit was the “words to live by.”

I just upgraded to the latest WordPress and ComicPress and am in the middle of tweaking things, so please forgive me if it all gets jacked up for a bit.  Very busy w/ end-of-the-school-year junk, so it might be awhile ’til it’s all ironed out.

Art on the Square

Like always, the #1 ranked art fair in the nation had lots of art and lots of food.  Big variety of media, genres, and food.  I got a gyro and some ice cream, but didn’t buy any art.  One of the crumby things about being an art teacher is that I can’t afford to actually buy any original art.

Last year, one artist really stood out, and I was happy to see him there again this year.  Cbabi Bayoc is a painter/illustrator and his work is so much fun to look at.  If you get a chance to see his work in person, you should–the pics on his website don’t do justice to the color intensity in the original paintings.

There was also a lot of food.