I knew yesterday that this was going to fucked up day today but it’s really going on all cylinders. Kenzie got sick last night, throwing up and not sleeping, so I ended up not sleeping much either. The TV has been out since Christmas Eve, and the only time I could get them to come and fix it was this morning between 8 and noon. Also today the semi-truck arrives with our new fixtures between 11 and 3 (he called and said he’d be there just before noon, so about nowish), and then the guy is coming to switch the phone over at the store between noon and 4. It’s 11:37 and no word for the TV guy, which means my whole day is going to get fucked up and fuck up others in the process. Kenzie went to work for about an hour and then came home and is now sleeping and is in no condition to deal with the TV guy or show him up onto the roof where the dish and everything is. ‘Cause I love going on the roof!
Oh, the moving madness has started, let me tell you. And it’s not pretty. It will be when its all said and done, but not now. Right now, to use an expression I heard the other day, I can’t give three fucks about four fucks.
So we survived the holidays. Got some good stuff, notably Rock Band and a video camera, a bundle seemingly rife with the possibility of internet humiliation. We’ll see if any incriminating videos show up. I’ll be sure to point you at them as soon as they do.
Kenzie deleted all her social networking stuff because it bores her, but I find myself oddly confused by it. Not that she did it, that’s fine, but I’m just like “Okay, who’s my #1 friend now?” I kind of solved it by leaving the store in the top spot, as that makes sense. I guess. First no blog, and now no social networking. My wife is becoming a hermit. At least she’s still my hermit.
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Now that the holidays are over the move is suddenly palpable and panic inducing. One week from today (well, yesterday, since it’s after midnight) we should be all moved in and have a full day of retailing in it under our belt. It’s a little daunting, but invigorating at the same time. We’ve done all we can with the old space, but now there all kinds of new possibilities. We’re going to venture into video rental, so we’ll see how that works out. Some mainstream, but a lot of specialty stuff too. Like “Psycho Kickboxer”, “Mulva: Zombie Ass Kicker”, “Splatter Beach” and others. Yes, we have those already.
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Came home Christmas Eve ready to head back out the door for holiday travels and found out that the TV dish blew down again. Not happy. Last time it did that was during the hurricane, and that’s when they told me that the way it’s installed (a pole in concrete) isn’t covered in the protection plan I pay $4 a month for (and have for about, say, 5 years now). We’ll see if they are willing to come out now under the plan (as opposed to charging $60 for just a visit), and if not, well, maybe it’s back to cable. We’ll see.
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Watched the new “Day the Earth Stood Still” for free. Still wanted my money back. Saw “Yes Man” in the theater and enjoyed it greatly. Anxiously waiting to hear how bad “The Spirit” fails. According to Variety, it took the 7th spot on Christmas Day, so I’m hoping that trend continues. Screw that so-called version of the Spirit. It has nothing to do with Will Eisner’s Spirit and everything to do with Frank Miller wanting to do something exactly like everything else he’s done, but not the stuff he’s already done because it’s boring and nothing new because that’s too hard. His next project will apparently be a total ruining of “Buck Rogers.” I can’t wait for Twiki to be a chain-smoking pimp bot and Wilma Deering to be a sexed out future babe looking for a real man to rip off her space suit and make a woman out of her. Oh, and it will rain white space-rain, and he’ll narrate pointless “hardness” while jumping from spaceship to spaceship. His galaxy screams, and he will Rogers it.
Yesterday sucked. Found out that morning that my Dad had been in a car accident the afternoon before. Head-on collision, going 50 when someone turned in front of him. Thankfully, he didn’t have to be hospitalized, although the air-bag did bang him around a whole bunch and knocked out one of his teeth. The car was totaled, which means they’re carless for a bit. That’ll get fixed, I’m sure, but it was a rough morning thinking about the fact that the last time I saw Dad was at Kenzie and I’s wedding, and if things had happened differently that could’ve been the last time I’d seen him.
That’s hard. I’ve seen what loosing a parent does, watching Tony go through all the motions of it this year. I don’t know what would be better; the slow, lingering loss that you know is coming, or the sudden, tragic, unexpected loss. It’s hard and I don’t want to think about it, but there it was in my guts all morning. I did not care for it. I can’t talk more about it.
Just when I thought I’d gotten myself back on an even keel, I got knocked back again. I was working at the computer at the front counter, and I looked up at the door and saw a guy leaning square against it, talking on a cellphone. It was raining, and he obviously was looking for a place to talk and be dry, but against a door? Really? I figured I’d go over and do something about it. I went over and opened the door, and he shuffled a couple of steps over, still talking and still mostly blocking the door.
“Excuse me?” I said, leaning half in, half out, of the door. He just kind of nodded. I stood there, still looking at him, and then said into the phone. “Yeah, lemme call you back honey.” He closed the phone and looked at me.
“What?”
“You were blocking my door.”
“Yeah. I moved, didn’t I?”
“Well, you were still blocking it.”
Dude exploded. “What the fuck do you want? It’s fucking raining, what the fuck do you want me do, huh? No one’s going in there, goddammit! What the fuck is your problem?”
“My problem was you on my door, that’s what.” I was flabbergasted. I was every kind of -gasted.
He moved right in front of me, less than an inch from my face. “And what the fuck are you gonna do if I don’t move, huh? What about that?” He pushed the door into me. I got more -gasted.
“Well I’ll call the fucking cops, is what I’ll do.” Or something to that effect.
“Yeah, you call the cops you fucking pussy! That’s all you would do, motherfucker!”
“Get the fuck out of here!” I said, or something milder. I closed the door, and he stood there shouting at the door for a couple of seconds, yelling “pussy” and “motherfucker” at me through the glass. Tony had been up at the front the whole time, and he had the phone and actually had dialed the cops, but by the time someone answered the guy had wandered off. Tony stuck his head out and saw him going into the bar two doors down (which soon will be one door down, yay). He told them that we’d had a belligerent customer, but they had left.
It still tastes like garbage in my mouth. Really and truly, the guy pulled my bitch card and I blinked. You can dress it up any way you want, but that’s what happened. Yeah, I shouldn’t let him get to me, and yeah, he’s inconsiderate redneck white trash, but the buck stops with me and what I did. Which was nothing. In dude code, that’s your bitch card and that guy has mine now. That kind of thing puts me back into very unhappy places in my childhood, where my bitch card was passed around more than scrap paper.
I couldn’t even really think straight during the whole thing, and when things escalated, all I could thing about were my glasses and my fancy phone in my shirt pocket (yes, my front shirt pocket. Clearly, this kind of thing was going to happen eventually). If our friends Travis or Gavin were there, Jesus, forget about it. I’d probably be bailing them out right now. But no, it was me, so I’m writing about it and fantasizing what I’d do to him in a consequences-free society.
Y’know, chicken-shit stuff.
Yes, it’s not lost on me that I wrote more about my school-flashback then my Dad’s accident, but one of those is very easy to talk about and one of them isn’t. That’s just the way it is. Almost fighting makes me feel foolish and embarrassed. My Dad’s accident affected me suddenly and deeply. I’ve worked through it, but that just me.
Can we get to the good news. Okay?
So we started getting regular visits to the shop by a guy named Bill Gladman, who writes a column on a site called Comic Related. He wrote some about the store when we first opened, and then some more later on. We ran into him at Mid-Ohio-Con and he’s come in quote a bit since then. I told him about the old “It’s Only Comics” videos we did, and he got it in his head that Tony and I would be good to star in a movie he’s writing about nerds, disc golf and Kevin Smith. He also picked up a copy of the preview book that Lee and I did for “Gifted,” and wrote a nice review of it in his column.
Apparently he’s working with a small start-up publisher, and they are putting out a horror anthology next October, and they want the Gifted preview in it. It’s going to be a 80 to 150 page graphic novel, done out Tales from the Crypt style, and they are going through book distribution, and are going to be paying people to be in it.
So yeah, I’m getting published. It’s small, it’s not for a while, but it’s published for money. It gives Lee a chance to re-do the inking on the book (which he really wants to do since were really rushed at the end there) and do another cover, and maybe finish up the whole issue so we can get a line on getting the whole thing published by the time the anthology comes out, so we can use it to point people towards the comic.
So yeah. It’s been a wild couple of days. And like most things, it ends on a high note.
Oh holiday season. You aren’t as fun as you’re made out to be. Tony is off with his family attending to family matters through this Sunday, so I’ll be manning the shop through Thanksgiving. Both Kenz and I have to work Wednesday and Friday, and I have no idea if I’ll see Allie at all. Kind of a bummer, but with all the work we both have piling up, it’s maybe a bad thing.
Creatively, I find myself so constantly full of work that I don’t ever feel like I have time to be creative, even with the new-found power of writing stuff with my phone. That’s been the only way I’ve done any writing lately, although I’ve been trying to alter my schedule so that I have more time in the morning, at the store, to do creative work. If I’m here in the morning I end up just fucking about on the computer and not doing anything worthwhile. Some days it works, others it doesn’t. I got sick on Sunday and still kind of felt like crap on Monday, so I didn’t get around to it then. We’ll see. It’s that whole “the ideas are right there, I just need to actually sit and concentrate and write them down” problem. Same kind of problem I think I’ve had all my life, which is irritating.
But you know, if that’s my biggest problem then I think I’m doing alright. I’m reading more, making decent money at the shop and feeling pretty energized about the move. Just talked to a coke rep today, so we’ll have a cooler within a couple of days of moving in. That’ll be nice, not having to go to Tom’s to get soda, but yes, I will still have to pay for it. Because I don’t want to drink myself out of store and home.
Pretty much have to floorplan licked, although there are some assorted odds and ends we’re going to be going “Okay…where do these go?” on the day. For the most part, we’re ready. Just need to get all the little details taken care of, like new signage, getting the utilities ready to be switched, new business cards, informing all of our distributors and all that crap. It’s kind of the worst time to year to do it, when you want it done right after New Years, but you can’t have it done right before. And comics will be coming in on that first day you’ll be in the new place. Of course, we did our first couple of days last year with no credit card service, so we should be okay if that’s the case. At least this time we’d have a hand crank and plate, and theoretically we should be ready to go that day. But who knows. He’ll probably show up some time that day, in the middle of a rush. At least both Travis and Zane will be available to help.
Oh, and on top of it all, someone wants me to star in a movie he’s working on. I’m not sure that I’m qualified, but we’ll see how it goes.
So make a post and then suddenly, the world changes.
Okay, not the world, but this little bloggy corner of it. After mentioning the possible updating of the site it happened today, thanks to Matt, web-guru extra-ordinare. It looks the same out there, but the backend interface is completely different, and probably has more bells and whistles than I can immediately see. Best of all, it looks like the RSS feeds on it are finally working again. Here’s hoping they don’t decide to just randomly stop working again.
So who’s thrilled about us making history? Who is finally happy that he can say he’s from Ohio after an election? This one.
Of course, Ralph Nader has to go an ruin it again, by being a thoughtless dick
Fuck you, pal.
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In other news, I got a new phone, a Blackjack 2, which is superdope, and now I can organize all the store stuff I forget about, as well as email and internet from my phone, as well as write in Mobile Word when the mood strikes. It’s kind of neat.
Of course, now I have to Kenzie an iPhone, because she wants supercool internets too.
I have my crack team working on fixing the RSS and updating the Wordpress on this site, and when that happens I’ll probably start moblogging. I’ve fallen in love with Facebook, as a surprising number of people in my family are on there. I also started on twitter (user: demonweasel), but I’m still shaking the kinks out of that. That goes directly to my phone, which is cool.
The iPhone kind of scares me. It’s like a little touch-screen Terminator, ready to bite your fingertips off. I don’t need that kind of fingertipless hassle.
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I want to say something eloquent about this time in history, about what this means in the face of the last 8 years, and what it means about the long road we have to dig ourselves out of the hole this nation is in. I don’t really have the words because others have said them better than I, but I do know that this road is steep and fraught with danger. All we’ve won is the opportunity to try to change things.
Remember all that shit we gave Bush, Dems? Well, now it’s their turn. You thought the campaign was bad? We had 8 years of Vampire Bush t-shirts and “Impeach Bush” stickers, now they get their say, and its going to be nasty. Remember to be better and be gracious in victory. Even when people like Rush Limbaugh say that he only won because of white guilt and try to cloud the issue with non-facts. Remember that this is not a blank check to get “those people.” It’s my sincere hope that what comes out of this is a Republican Party that backs away from its Social Conservative wing and focuses on where they initially came from. Even though its not a party I’d go to, it gets the whackos out. Maybe that’ll encourage us to get our whackos out, or at least under control. I’m looking at you, Pelosi. You guys had two years to do shit, and shit is exactly what you did. Now let’s have some real leadership.
End of nonRant.
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The move into the store front next door is a done deal now for the first of the year. I’ve got my graph paper floor plan and my fixture cutouts made up and Tony and I play with them like chess everyday. It’s going to be supersweet.
We are currently in the process of building a new webstore that will function through Amazon, so that’s kind of dope too. It’s going to be a crazy Fall, and crazier Winter. We even had someone approach us about financing some other expansion. That’s a real and true long shot, but kind of makes us feel like big shots. That’s dangerous thinking, because we’re not big shots. We’re like, medium shots in a small shot pond.
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I downloaded way more techno/club music than I needed to. Like, by half. This is what not having a lot of music around lately has caused.
It’s nice that the day after a critically important election, all I have to worry about is too much techno music.
It’s been kind of a wild month. It’s funny when you look back on a stretch of time and go “Really? It’s only been that long?”
Things with Kenzie, of course, are great. It’s funny how I don’t really write about her that much but we are so well fit that there’s nothing to really get all “Oh man you won’t believe it!” We arer quietly, awesomely, in sync.
Work, of course, is the real rollercoaster. Up and then down and then up. Big up. The music store next door to us, which has always been an awesome neighbor, is closing at the end of the year. It sucks, because its another independent music store closing its doors and a real asset to the town. The good from this though is that, hopefully, we’ll be moving into their space, which is more than double our current square footage. It means we can display things better and clearer, as well as move into other areas that we’ve been able to work in before due to space issues.
To facilitate this potential move and raise in rent, we knew we would have to find a way to raise more funds. That was going to be the hard part.
We thought. We were wrong. We are now more fund enabled.
There are still some kinks we have to work out in regards to the move, like making sure we can actually get good rent on the place and that we can come to a good price on what fixtures in place we want. It’s going to be a real exciting time, and I’m sure I’ll be gracing you guys with pictures and all that jazz when the time comes. I’m not sure if they are going to close out at the exact end of December and be ready for us on the first of the year, or if there will be some back end work that gets done in January.
Regardless, its going to be a crazy fall and crazier winter. The weather changed pretty quick here last week, and I feel its totally reversed my poles. Went from being super-productive and ready to get to going when it came to getting stuff done for the Street Fair to super-ultimate hibernation. Even the creative juices have slowed, and I’m not really sure what to do to get them to thaw out and come back.
In the meantime I’m querying Shadow of the Past like crazy and still sitting on my hands waiting for replies. I think of the the two dozen or so that I’ve sent out in the past couple of months I’ve only gotten two rejections back. I can only assume that’s what the others are, but I still hold out hope. I’ve also been having a couple of conversations with artists about working on stuff with them in the future, but who knows if that’ll pan out either. Right now its been all business shotgun.
I’m hitting it in one area of my work, now I just need it in the other.
