On other websites and the side-bar here, at least until future entries scroll the text out of existence, I identify this comic strip with the title “the grapes of asp.” I initially titled it “the grapes of rasp,” not realizing that “rasp” was not actually a snake, but merely the name of a snake-headed rulon crony in Dinoriders, and also the name of a robot I and Jerry Caro came up with in first grade that we imagined traveled around stealing chocolate brownies while saying “RASP…RASP…RASP…” Rasp as in “I have you in my rasp” instead of grasp because kids are dumb. Then (now) I remembered that “asp” was a snake, and it seemed odd that asp and rasp would be near synonyms. This is a pointless bit of trivia. There is a more poignant bit of trivia about this comic page that also concerns chocolate, but it is depressing and I will defer it to a future posting, which means I will probably never post it, which theoretically suits me, who can only survive by not being aware of things I know that bother me.
A highly not-yet-finished picture called “hats coming to visit.” there is an accompanying music piece… or rather i made some stupid minimally remarkable music, absentmindedly named it that, and then constructed a picture of a literal interpretation of those words. It is easier to post unfinished drawings and not feel bound to them than it is with unfinished music. The only reason the music is unfinished is because that dumb comic book is also
I have a heap of resentment for people that I don’t consider to be “real artists” who post loads of drawings with minimal thought, effort or restraint on to the internet. By perhaps not chance, several of them play musical instruments or engage in digital audio tomfoolery. Sometimes I wonder if I am a hypocrite, for being a visual artist and occasionally pretending to be a musician. But I’m not because I assure you I spend loads longer on my noises than they do on their scribbles. You can’t be a popular music artist just by having an ugly squirrel/raccoon/dog thing for a mascot.
No actually probably you can; if you buy the expensive version of fl studio there are enough default filters that sound exactly like trash off the radio with minimal user input that an actual squirrel could probably design a hit track but I am obviously not doing that because those are all marked “demo” (and rather difficult to purge from and wholly unwelcome in my USABLE instrument list) in my version so it isn’t the same.
I do not mind there being demo versions of fancy music effects; I object to them not being able to be removed from a version of the program that is NOT a demo.
Try to imagine a middle finger in my face that cannot be removed from the vicinity of my face, that I paid $160 for, dangling a sign that says “gimme another hundred!” If you successfully imagined that, you may have a future in software development.
This is also the one year anniversary of my father’s demise, and the ten month anniversary of my not finishing the second post I wrote about that. although that isn’t really significant for an unposted piece around here until it reaches the ten year mark. In any event I think he would be glad to know I am just as unaccomplished and unfocused in my pursuits and just as inclined to blame people who did not cause my problems as when he was alive, were he alive, because that would mean he proved the impermanence of death, a matter sought after and never attained through the entire known existence of humanity, if not all life as we understand it. Of course THEN I would be disappointing by comparison to THAT, but everybody else would be, also, and my shortcomings would be less acute.
Look, there! He is imploring us to look there at a windmill. How could he do that if he were dead? The crushed ant corpse that I evidently neglected to notice was stuck to the photograph until a year after scanning it, THAT is what a dead being looks like.
page 26 of part 3 of something or other
Not totally ready, and it doesn’t prove anything, (I will probably undo the one unusual development in a disappointing way on the next page) but it is mostly legible. I have to wake up “early” tomorrow for a dentist appointment so this will have to do for now! All the dentists want to come meet with me so I can tell them how to deal with dopes. Dopes have no teeth, which is extremely frustrating.
i still have to print that comic book of a part long before this one, right? Yes, and in fact I did, and there was so much stuff wrong with it that fixing it is yet ongoing. I needed to be needlessly obsessive compulsive about an actual new page to remind myself I am not just reliving the same years while my body turns to decrepit mush, hence the new page. Talking about what I still need to fix on the old pages makes me tired. Great I need to go to my sleep heap anyhow. Good night and goop muck.
You see this? Don’t try to read it. Not even there where it is legible. This is ALL blowhard wikipedia writers citing and comparing statistics of the money Finding Dory accumulated relative to other movies of various time periods across various time periods and NONE of it will matter once the next Avatar, Avengers, Frozen, Meet the Deedles sequels have come out, except to make their own bullshingle statistics sections longer. And this doesn’t include the NON-domestic grosses. It is gross wherever it goes.
This contextless blurb “Perfect May Be An Understatement” on the back of the box, attributed to Mark S Allen of “ABC” which incidootily is owned by the same company that produced the film, and what I initially came here to complain about, “perfect”ly illustrates what is wrong with the state of our mass media. 5 stars, 10 outta 10, 100% on Rotten Tamaytas and even the word “perfect” itself have been used so often to describe things that are just kind of good that they are now treated as if they are not good enough when a production to be rated is marginally better than kind of good. Our superlative language is just as inflated as our currency. When I declared Black Panther to not be radical I was presenting my opinion, but perfect CANNOT POSSIBLY be an “understatement” because the singular purpose of the word is to describe a thing which is as good as it possibly could be. Being better than perfect is only possible if perfect doesn’t mean what a dictionary says it does. In which event it is a pointless word because there are already words to describe kind of good whose meanings are less debatable.
I mean not to accuse that Allen is biased because ABC pays him to say nice stuff about disney-owned properties. I mean ABC wouldn’t hire somebody who has any remotely divergent or considered opinions. He has a wikehhhpedia page with a big smiley unblemished soulless picture of himself and a huge list of awards he has won but no indication that he ever had a thought in his life or even A life outside of being visible and awarded for being visible. Like Ryan Seacrest or Regis Philbin, he only exists to be in California and on television and radio and to like stuff that he sees and be quoted saying so by whoever requires a quote.
Just to be certain I looked up Regis’ morning show, which is in fact filmed in New York City, the only other place this sort of person is allowed to be, but EVIDENTLY Ryan Seacrest now has Regis’ old cohost spot. I believe these people spent a year “searching” before they found Ryan flurpindurpin Seacrest like I believe perfect may be an understatement.
And beyond that I know Finding Dory isn’t perfect because it still features the voice of Albert brooks — look at that orange fish in the shot just accidentally, I could tell before this was even screened in my presence that the fish was saying something scratchy and abrasive I did not want to hear. And every other male voiceover sounds mysteriously similar in jerk raspiness quotient, including a manta ray, an octopus, a beluga and a clam that is so grating and fake-comedic that even the other grating unfunny characters don’t like it. And even the ones that aren’t raspy are still obnoxious and neurotic and phony but then suddenly abruptly serious with sad music and from a non-voice actor just like every voiceover in every animated movie made since shrek came out and constantly throwing immersion-breaking “real world humor” at viewers like every cartoon since 1994 aladdin even though in aladdin it came via a being with magical time-transcending power who ultimately is a ripoff of daffy duck, who ceased being a bankable character around the same period (and also gilbert gottfried but he at least sounds inhuman and the remaining actors weren’t cast so their names could be advertised). It lacks the pacifist carnivores in a selective context that is presented as if it is plausible and sustainable that the first film irked me with, but there is about 3% effort put into making any of the characters sound like characters and not actors talking into microphones. I appreciate that it has less Albert Brooks than the other film but there is still a gorkload of albert brooks and people who talk the same way. And the obnoxious nebbishy dialog-
NEBBISH I said. I was trying to avoid saying “Jewy” but you have forced my hamlessness. I think the hurriedly talking over each in other in calm but annoyed voices and constant instances of “sorry” is supposed to make the characters seem “real” but real people aren’t like that unless you live inside an episode of Dory-voice Ellen Degeneres’ 1994 sitcom “Ellen,” which I as a child actually enjoyed, it being a tv show with live actors rather than a cartoon with talking animals, but for the sake of my example I shall say “Seinfeld.”
Which is how that “bee movie” got made eleven gosh darn years ago but that flopped because it actually presented itself as for scumbags instead of pretending it wasn’t because people don’t want to admit they are scumbags. Finding Bory isn’t a movie for children. It constantly jumps backwards and forwards in time, like it thinks it is Watchmen with fish. It heavily features the conventionally dreary heard-in-ads songs “What a Wonderful World” and “Unforgettable,” for crying out hopelessly. This is a movie for adults who think they are creative and open-minded because they watch movies for children. And Disney markets to THEM because they have more money than children and more contacts on the internet to hype-vertise at, but if they have children will also impose it on their children and think they are GOOD PARENTS for doing so.
I believe there should be cartoons for adults, but I think the pixar approach is disingenuous.
Findor Doingy also features Ty Burrell doing his best impression of the creep from archer after his character turns from also sounding like Albert Brooks partway through. I had to look up who it was just to be sure it wasn’t; that is H. Jon Benjamin. I know that’s his only voice but it confounded me to think that somebody else would be hired to try and sound like him. But the continued success of things that I hate indicates that confounding me is, from a business perspective, a very good idea.
Additionally, computer graphic technology has advanced to the point where environments look totally real, great, so you might as well just use real environments and superimpose the characters over them like Walter Disney himself and indentured friends were doing back in the 1940s without any computers, and contrary to now where it means the budget is 200+ million dollars, those filmmakers did it to SAVE money since so many of the art-laborers had been drafted into military service. I do not see the point. But these things all do a billion in sales, big buck$, inflation notwithstanding, because toddlers have no taste and adults live by rituals, and toddlers grow into children with their own rituals based on parents directing their toddler tastelessness toward stuff that they the parents like. I have been on deviantart long enough to see that hasn’t lead to a generation of more sophisticated children. Thankfully Violet (the niece) tends to lose interest midway through these things and wants to paint or play with playdough instead, and says nonsense that she makes up instead of movie quotes, but without my searing hatred for the companies that make the movies so hopefully she will have an easier time later in life being surrounded by people controlled by them than I do, in the event those people and/or those companies don’t overtly run the government by then.
The First Steps Toward Worship
featuring Adol “Born Again” Christin. There is no way that Adol’s deliveries can be over.