I don’t have much to report today.  I’m sending ahead, ideally at least half of my shit tomorrow.  I may even have all my shit together that I may be on the road this weekend and be back home…let’s see…this weekend.  I love it when a plan comes together.  Maybe I’ll finish watching Daredevil Born Again this week but Andor season two is starting today.  Two of my most favorite things is Star Wars and espionage and you have no idea how thrilled I am to finally have the two together in a series.  That said I would love a Jedi spy series, vast rich and untapped potential there.  I have some ideas I would like to work out if Lucasfilm and/or Disney are interested.  I don’t need to say this here but it should be said and I tend to say it every chance I get.  Quinlan Vos was poorly portrayed in The Clone Wars.  They made him out to be some sort of bro tough guy.  He is actually a fairly stoic and superbly complex person.  He was a spy during the clone wars at various times a double agent infiltrating both the Jedi Council and the highest ranks of Dooku’s confidants.  And that all was after years of training specifically in covert operations under the tutelage of the most skilled Jedi spy in their history.  That alone is a fantastic story was only told in a series of comics that I’m pretty sure were only read by me.  My point is there is still miles of great storytelling available.

     I can’t wait to be back home, in the old neighborhood, facing the ghosts of my past, my old In-N-Out Burger.  All the open mics everyday where I’ll eat shit in front of everyone.  It’s going to be so much fun!  Being able to walk the streets of my youth with the freedom of knowing that I wouldn’t be going home to an abusive “mother” stealing from me everything worthwhile.  I should’ve done this years ago before losing important people.  Of course, if the methodology of domestic violence weren’t so effective, it’s unlikely so many people would use it.  In any case, I’m finally going home!

     I’ve been thinking about how to rebuild the studio when I get there.  I have some ideas of how to configure the furniture so I can squeeze the desk into the living room.  We’ll have to set up and tear down the equipment whenever recording.  Not the greatest price to pay for all this.  I do need to figure out how I’m going to set up all the resin and other arts and crafts space.  As long as I make it down this weekend I’ll have plenty of time work out those details before the new furniture arrives.  Wow, it’s almost that I’m a real adult suddenly.

I’m finally getting my shit together.  I have more totes to start packing again and I made the arrangements for a U-Box.  This weekend Dave and I are going to clear most of my storage space at least, I’ll have the container full and shipped by Wednesday, and we’ll see if I can things wrapped up here by that weekend.  I have my apartment locked down, I’m sending out my résumé and applying to jobs just about every other day right now.  I even ordered a sofa, my first sofa I’ve bought as opposed to inheriting from other people buying new furniture, and in that order I purchased a mattress and am deciding among a few different interesting bed frames.  The first new bed I’ve ever owned.  Seriously, here I am forty-something and this will be the first new bed I’ve had to look forward to since I was six years old.  And of course, that was a bunk bed!  I’ve never been one about status or wealth but yeah, a middle-aged man should have more in his life by this point.  I don’t have a family, not because I don’t want a family simply because I could never afford to have one.  Because as a teenage child in utah, I had more sense than to “get married” and have five kids before home room.  I put that in quotation marks because those people are only playing house.  This whole god damn state has fifteen children per adult and not one parent among them.  Certainly not in its “government”.  I didn’t mean to go this way right now but I just realized that I hadn’t posted yet today and I’m on my way to the shower.  That is to say that I’m on the toilet and pushing this Middle-aged-man-what’s-dying-alone-diet shit through this middle-aged man anus, my thoughts often and quickly turn to utahns.  My point is, I’m finally doing things as a middle-aged man that most people take for granted in their twenties because mommy and daddy carried them into their thirties.  Moving on.

     The other day I was watching some of The Drew Carey Show and I was reminded that Kelly Perine is a very skilled performer.  He played Chuck the Security Guard on that show and he was always hilarious!  He did some pretty wacky things as that character but he was more often than not the ‘straight man’ in those scenes and did so across from some fairly absurd visual gags and some crazy lines.  I haven’t watched too much of his other stuff other than the commercials he did throughout the nineties and early oughts, but someone who can get the laughs he did performing on The Drew Carey Show, he definitely deserves some acknowledgement for his skill and talent.

     Ok, I need to get going on things today but I hit my goal here and it looks like my keyboard is running down and needs to be charged so, I’m calling it here.

So, my power was shut off the other day.  Everything is fine.  I just forgot to pay the bill…for several months.  I often forget just what it’s like without electricity.  We think that our houses or apartments are dark and/or quiet when we have everything shut off and there isn’t anyone else around but that truly is not the case.  My eyes are considerably more sensitive to light than peoples’ and my hearing has always been borderline super-human, which means that with the little bit of light created by the small LEDs in a few recharging devices throughout my apartment is just enough that I can effectively negotiate the mounds of garbage and bullshit more easily than anyone else.  The faint hum of electricity whirring through our walls is the most faint of white noise that admittedly I don’t notice until it stops.  This gives me some faint idea of how tinnitus feels.  With my power off for a whole day I couldn’t stop myself from noticing the void of sound.  Even playing podcasts on my phone much of that time, I just kept not hearing the electricity that wasn’t around me anymore.  And that night when there was just a faint stream of light coming through my bathroom window, one really understands the effect of light pollution.  Seeing so few stars in the sky most of my life and the few brief moments like this is boggling to the mind just how little it can take to get us back from where we are.  I’ve been in this circumstance many times before but this time, knowing that I actually had money on hand, I was able to appreciate and almost enjoy this experience.  Remembering what it’s like before the profound ubiquity of interconnectivity and electronic devices consuming our attention and time.  Don’t worry, my iPads and phones were charged so, I was able to draw most of the night.  So, I wasn’t having to battle with my own thoughts as much as I would’ve normally.  

     I’ve been thinking about when I was child and would almost daily take five dollars out of her purse when my “mother” was asleep and then walk about three miles to In-N-Out Burger to feed myself since she couldn’t be bothered.  I would be walking three miles of Van Nuys Blvd. in the middle of the night.  I didn’t have a walkman and it was about a decade and a half before the advent of the iPod, let alone the iPhone.  Point is that I would be making that walk without anything to distract me from my own thoughts.  Which means I was spending about two hours actively working to not break down weeping in public.  And then the hour or so walking back where I stopped caring about it and then break down weeping in public.  What I’m saying is there was a time when people not only could but had to think for themselves instead of just regurgitating the mindless prattle they picked up off the internet.  A thing I STILL can’t comprehend when the whole rest of the internet is actual and legitimate information!  Seriously, what the fuck?!  Anyway, and something one can learn on the internet is that ‘anyway’ is an adverb which means it doesn’t pluralize.  Anyways, it turns out is just the bastardization of the word anywise.  Try saying that to sound linguistically competent.  Back to my original point.  I recommend fully shutting down the power to your home sometime.  And I’m sure most of you don’t know, there’s a junction box behind a metal panel in LITERALLY EVERY HOUSE, APARTMENT, AND EVEN SHANTY!!!  It’s just a series of switches connected to the electric circuits of the domicile, which means you can cut off the power to entire rooms, and there is even a master switch that cuts off the power to the entire home.  Take a day and just turn it all off for a little while and explore your own thoughts for a day.  I mean, don’t necessarily try this if you have family members on sort of life support…or maybe you want that.  By now you know my experience with that circumstance.  Again, just give it a shot sometime.  You just might like it.

Ok, I’m finally writing about Indianapolis Comic Convention!  It was a fun show!  I really enjoyed despite having to go through TSA to get to it.  It was rather a pain in the ass trying to figure out what equipment to take with me and then pack it for air travel.  All the same, it was fun going to another convention in a different place.  I’m debating but leaning more toward going to other conventions but I’m going to schedule the arrangements a little bit earlier.  I found out to late about the Steel City Con this last weekend and there is another con down in Louisiana this coming weekend but the timing isn’t great for to make it.  But we’ll see how things play out in the near future when I work out going to other conventions soon.  In any case, Indianapolis, let’s go.

     I admit, it was a little jarring at first.  There were some similarities but then even those felt off a bit.  One thing I thought was interesting were the panels.  The programming was interesting.  Varied in scope and interests but the attendance in the panels wasn’t quite what I’m used to.  Really, most of the panels I attended had almost no audience.  It’s gotten me thinking about creative interest as it relates to geographical location.  I’m curious now about the regional accessibility to creative endeavor.  Shit, I guess I have to start making the rounds to other conventions so I can work this out.  Anyhow, the event floor was an interesting experience too.  The crowd was rather less crowded than I anticipated.  I even took the time to chat with a few more celebrities than I usually do.  I got to talk with Bruce Greenwood about how much I appreciate his work on arguably one of the most important  series, Young Justice.  I creeped out Denise Crosby, being a fan of Redshoe Diaries as I am, and I made a few cracks about Robert Knepper.  For the record, I’m a fan and appreciate his talent and skill as a performer.  I kid because I love.  But a bigger thing for me is that I got to shake hands with Mitch Pileggi.  I’ve always been a fan but he told a story in his panel that greatly endeared me to him further.  Then I met Katee Sackhoff finally.  I have a piece that was just kind of cool until she signed it and now it’s fantastic!  And the live recording of The Katee Sackhoff Show was great fun.  I enjoy Rainn Wilson far more now.  Sunday was probably the busiest day but even then the floor was simple enough to negotiate.  I’ll have to see if I can get hard numbers for attendance and all that and see how it stacks up to FanX.  Of course, I picked up some dice and Lego figures I don’t really need.  I got a couple nice 3-D pieces.  A Golden Girls Rushmore and a MST3K moon.  And I scored a VHS copy of Blade Runner and a documentary about Sam Kinison.  I can’t wait to have a few minutes to watch that.  I really enjoy the possibility of meeting new people with similar interests who are actually working to do things and get shit done.  I got to meet some people who produce their own video content, Trapped in Anime or trappedinanimetv on social media things, they make fun videos.  Someone else I met is an actor and game designer local to the Indianapolis area, Da’Rell Miller produced a self contained card game with his cousin.  Evidentual Myths is a quick play card.  They designed the game specifically to be played as quickly as five minutes.  Ya know, on a fifteen minute or lunch break at work.  A type of game I’ve always appreciated very much having spent the last two decades in a series of no-pay, dead-end jobs all too slowly draining the life from my being.  I haven’t had a chance to play it yet myself, what with my half-assedly packing and working to get moved.  I had a really good time all said.  I really think I’m going to spend a lot more time going to other conventions now.  Now I just need to figure out how to get paid for doing this so, I can afford to do it more.  Hint hint…

     Alright, I need to get going with the packing and all.  I just about have a plan worked out to get all my shit moved down efficiently.  Now, I just need to figure out how to trick Janina Gavankar into falling in love with me when I finish getting moved back home.  Then I can be happy, right?…RIGHT?!

I’m finally getting back to things.  First, I finally took a big-ish step today.  I pulled the cables from the table.  I’m officially packing up the studio.  The table is pretty well cluttered at the moment but it still looks, feels different.  I locked down an apartment back home, right in my old neighborhood.  I can’t wait to get back!  I just need to figure out the storage situation and then decide what to do about transportation.  I can use any advice anyone has.  I’m looking at either using some sort transport pod or just driving it down myself.  The pods will cost about as much as getting a truck but driving myself means three trips.  An idea I’m not opposed to but I’d really rather not come back here if it can be avoided.  Anyone who’s had to drive in utah, you get it.  I already have an idea how to work out my resin and other art projects and things, I kind of have an idea how to reestablish the studio in the new place.  I think I’ll need to modulate the whole setup so I can configure and tear down quickly when we need to record.  I can’t wait to walk Ventura Blvd. again, get donuts from the shop down the street, eat at my old In-N-Out Burger again.  I can’t wait!

     Now then, I mean to write about Indianapolis Comic Convention not long after.  Here I am now, finally.  It was a pretty good show.  But first, I’m going to talk a little about my first trip really anywhere.  I’ve never been able to just pick up and go somewhere.  Yeah, I went for the convention so I could do all this.  But I tend to need to a reason to do things like this.  It was interesting.  I’d never been that far east before.  It was an odd sensation being closer to the Atlantic Ocean than to the Pacific.  Otherwise, it wasn’t entirely terrible.  Of course I did see one or two confederate flags so, there’s that.  Growing up in LA I seemed to have this intrinsic sensation that everything east of Barstow was the deep south and then I was banished to utah and saw just how true that is.  And then seeing those flags anywhere just further proves that.  I went to a Hardee’s for food one night.  The menu was familiar and different.  I think I have a pretty good idea what it feels like to be in a parallel universe.  But anyone who knows me knows I judge a place by two criteria.  Their motorists and their cheeseburgers.  The latter first, I went to a Steak ‘n Shake.  Solid food, those burgers are huge and messy and I didn’t see a napkin in the whole place.  The fries are seasoned shoestring but good.  Those burgers, though, very yummy!  And the shakes are fantastic!  Their mix-ins for the peanut butter cup shake are ground just enough that you enjoy them but not so much that they jam up the straw.  Obviously, it doesn’t compare to In-N-Out and you know why but Steak ‘n Shake is pretty close to second.

     Now, the driving.  Overall, they’re not bad.  I did see some shitty driving but not as much as utahns and nowhere near as blatantly atrocious as utahns.  In general, closer to LA than to utah in regards to driving.

     In full, my perception of Indiana generally positive.  I may only go back for future nerd conventions but I will say that I don’t hate it.  Maybe I will go visit some time just to visit.  There are some interesting landmarks in the downtown area that I didn’t take time to really appreciate.  Also, downtown Indianapolis, That is a pretty good looking downtown.  I dare say, worth the time to visit.

     Now, I’ve written quite a bit here, so, I’m going to write up my review on the convention separately and post it on Tuesday.  So, have fun and I’ll be back later.