The Return of Stickman #1208

The Return of Stickman #1207

I don't eat frozen dinners, but my wife often takes them to work for lunch. Like so many of her colleagues, she fears any change on the packaging as it usually means a change for the worse on the contents.

The Return of Stickman #1206

The Comic Critic Reviews Tron

Late in 1982, I transitioned from being a teenager who had just entered college to a twenty-year-old young adult. That can be an awkward age for anybody. Watching Tron is a strong reminder to me of what that time was like. Like me, it still reeked of the ‘70s, with its bell-bottoms, long hair, and multiple Disney movies starring Jeff Bridges. I tried all sorts of things to be cool. Some of them worked, but most of them crashed and burned and can only be looked back on as the hilarious idiocy of youth. Now I find Tron both painful and wonderful to watch, just like reading my old journals. Oh, I was such a geek.

Speaking of being a geek, here is a video I made this morning.

My Sketchbook from Bumbershoot 2010

As promised, here are the sketches that I drew during Bumbershoot. I draw whatever the music inspires in me. I was lucky enough to get some of the band members to sign them after.

Aterciopelados


The Budos Band



Fences


Justin Townes Earle


The Moondoggies


Plants and Animals


Ra Ra Riot


The Raveonettes


Surfer Blood


The Thermals


Visqueen

Bumbershoot 2010 Day 3

We decided that we would rather spend more time in bed than eat a proper breakfast. Instead we settled for a continental breakfast at the KEXP lounge before starting our final day of music listening bliss.

Ra Ra Riot – A very fun way to start the day. I only got one member to sign the sketch I did during the show. The other members were long gone.
Brent Amaker & The Rodeo – This over the top western band all dressed in black sang wonderful song with hilarious and cranky lyrics. We wanted very much to pick up a CD or a t-shirt to remember them by but unfortunately they had neither. Bummer! Still, they were an early welcome surprise concert that we immediately changed our schedule to accommodate.
The Moondoggies – The parents of the drummer happened to be sitting next to me while I did the sketch. I got to meet them, their son, and the rest of the band members, all of who signed the sketch. Said goodbye to mom and dad moondoggy by giving them two beer tickets I had in my pocket.
The Thermals – All the strokes for the sketch I did were done in time to their music. I was really digging the music and they really dug the sketch, which they all signed.
The English Beat – These legends were so totally memorizing as I sat in the second row that I couldn’t take my eyes off them, let alone draw anything.
Meat Puppets – The sketchbook stayed in the backpack, as it would for the rest of the day because the sky started to leak a little.
Jenny & Johnny – Originally on our schedule, then off, it came back on as we got out of Flatstock and had time back in our schedule.
Laura Veires & The Hall of Flames – We were too late to spend more time at the comic exhibition because it closed down at 8, which is where Laura was playing. So we sat down and listened before heading over to The Spits
The Spits – Okay, we actually didn’t stick around the watch The Spits. After finding that we were 25 minutes early for the concert we confessing to each other that we were exhausted. At which time limping to the car and driving home to our very welcoming bed sounded like a wonderful idea. We hope The Spits will forgive us.

Bumbershoot 2010 Day 2

We started the day by fortifying ourselves at The Hurricane Restaurant, a haunt well known by most the cartoonists in Seattle. We went into Bumbershoot at 11am, even though the bands don’t start playing until noon, to get in line for some canvas tote bags Toyota was silk screening on-site. Then it was off to the hidden KEQP stage where we would be seeing most of the bands on our list.

Fences – Krista introduced me to them; I’m going to add into my playlist rotation. I had a chance after the show to get all the band members to sign the sketch I drew while they were playing.
David Bazan – I stopped sketching while listening to these guys because the images they conjured in my head kept changing too quickly.
Aterciopelados – We listen to their albums a lot. Maybe if I understood Spanish I would have been more prepared for their colorful performance. The crowd was full of faithful fans.
Redwood Plan – The soccer gear the lead singer wore was a very valid indicator to the amount of energy she put into her performance. The rest of the band kept up too.
Bouncing Souls – Sometimes you can’t listen to a full set if you want to catch another band. We reluctantly had to leave them to see…
Surfer Blood - This is another band that Krista introduced me to. And again I need to listen to more of them. And again I was lucky enough to have the whole band sign the sketch I drew. They liked it so much that each member pulled the others out of the green room to come out and sign it.
Motion City Soundtrack – I think we enjoyed them even more Bouncing Souls. Both were at a new outdoor venue next to the EMP. Still, no rest for us as we marched across the center to see…
Delorean – We’re not fans of the new arrangement at the Broad Street Stage but we are fans of this group and stayed until folks shouted for an encore.
Weezer - We really enjoy their albums, and while we heard rumors of their live performance we did not expect the spidermanistic interaction that was both hilarious, spontaneous and wonderfully entertaining. Rivers Cuomo singing Beverly Hills from atop the port-o-potties had us in stitches. We left with the throngs all excited about the performances we will see on Monday.