I’m voting for Barack Obama. You should too. Go vote now.
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Charlie James
GSM 01.25 Gus vs. Sarah
I guess this is as close as Grandpa Sex Machine gets to political humor. What it boils down to–the essential nugget of sociopolitical truth that I’m trying to get at here–is this: Tina Fey is cute. Vote Obama.
(If you are reading this post on Facebook, you’ll probably need to go to the original post to see the comic.)
I’ve been reading DJ Coffman’s blog a lot lately. I came for the comic-business drama and stayed for the social commentary. He’s predicting a landslide for Obama. I’m not as confident, but hopeful. DJ has talked a lot about the rampant racism in Pennsylvania. Seeing the footage of political rallies and demonstrations there really drives that point home. The whole situation seems to suggest that the McCain campaign’s recent certainty that they can turn PA from a blue state to a red state has more to do with them trying to exploit that racism than anything related to real politics. Ugly stuff.
The other cool thing about DJ’s blog is it introduced me to the music of the Flobots. Good stuff. I could listen to “Handlebars” all day long.
Whatever your political views, please vote tomorrow (if you haven’t done so already). Apathy sucks balls. The predicted massive voter turn-out is definitely encouraging.
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.
Drink and Draw 07/03
Finally made it out to another Drink and Draw last night, and it looks like it’s been growing in my absence, so that’s awesome. Gene wasn’t there, but the bartender on duty is also an artist. Rich (Rick?) is pictured up there on the top right, but isn’t nearly as sinister looking in real life as he is in that caricature. Miriam (Mariam? Meriam?) was also new (actually she’d been there a couple times before but not when I was there)–that’s her in the lower left–and her friend Angelina showed up, too (didn’t get a chance to draw her). Four people drawing isn’t so bad. At least better than the time I was the only schmo w/ a sketchbook. Anyhow, Dr. Sketchy’s next week, so bring a sketchbook and draw a burlesque performer!
Also last night my friend Mike from work showed up with a bunch of folks–I think at least some of them will be there next week. They weren’t drawing, and I kind of missed my window to hang out with them, but Mike bought me a couple beers anyway. I’ll try to return the favor next week.
In Grandpa Sex Machine news, I managed to get a comic roughly sketched up last night. The floor project is still not finished, so no promises on completion, but wanted to let you know that comics are still in the works.
Abe’s Card
Awhile ago I was hanging out in Tim’s shop with Tim and Abe. Can’t remember what the project was that night, if there was one. Anyhow, Tim said, “Have you seen Abe’s card?”
“No,” I said.
So Abe pulled out a business card and handed it to me. It’s a red card with a black skull and crossbones on it and nothing else. I flipped it over to look at the back, and there’s nothing there. No contact info, no identifying information of any kind. I smiled and said “Nice,” then stuck the card in my wallet.
In the time since then I’d pull the card out at parties, in class, whenever, and say “This is my friend Abe’s card.” The card would get passed around, and I’d listen to the confused questions, the comments on irony, the accusations of super-villainy, and I would just smile and say “That’s Abe,” basking in the reflected glow of his genius.
I’m glad I had the chance to know Abe. Last Christmas, just before he and his family moved back to California, we were hanging out in the shop again and I told him that I felt like I had missed the opportunity to hang out with him much while he was here. Tim smiled and said, “You didn’t miss much.”
The Joys of Home Ownership
Hey. Not a real update here, I know–if you checked the links in this post, you’re already familiar with this image, but I haven’t been able to work on anything new.  Still bogged down in flooring drama.
My wife and I had been working on it off and on for a couple weeks, but got serious about it on Sunday when we moved all the furniture out of the bedrooms. The carpet from the bedrooms, the hall, and living room are gone.  One layer of linoleum from both bedrooms is gone. On Monday I rented a floor stripper/power scraper (whatever you want to call it ) thing in the hopes of getting the original vinyl flooring out of the two bedrooms. 12 hours later and I almost had one room complete, but my hands and fingers were throbbing and swollen and my abdomen bruised from the constant beating I took from the vibrating floor stripper/power scraper/electric torture device (whatever you want to call it ) thing. And yes, I know I just used “throbbing,” “swollen,” and “vibrating,” in the same sentence. I’m just too tired to craft it into a joke.
Anyhow, as this thoroughly enjoyable week comes to a close, the bedrooms are both ready for the new floor. Tim is helping me out starting tomorrow at 6:45. Of course when the bedrooms are finished it’s on to the living and dining rooms, so it looks like it’ll be awhile ’til I’m back on any kind of regular schedule here. Thanks for your patience!
Drink and Draw, with a MODEL!
Like I mentioned in Wednesday’s blaahg post, the Belleville Drink and Draw Social Club had its big Dr. Sketchy’s style life drawing session. Mimi of St. Louis’ own Alley Cat Revue was the model and was a lot of fun. The pile of scribbling that you see above is representative of only a handful of the the total drawings I did last night–lots of poses that changed quickly. It’s been a long time since I’ve had to draw that quickly in pencil–hardly any time to add value. I’d bring charcoal, but I’m afraid I’d make a big mess–I’m kind of a slob as evidenced by those drawings up there. I envy people that can draw clean and slick. It also became evident fairly quickly that I need a bigger sketchpad.
Was hoping that a girl in skimpy outfits would bring more people to the whole Drink and Draw thing, and it brought in a couple new folks (including my friend Chris), but it was still pretty sparsely attended. Gene was working again, so didn’t get a chance to draw, which is too bad because he’s really good at drawing pretty girls.