Sucko and the Salmon

I've been frying up trout and salmon for dinner lately.
My recipe is simple.
1. Coat the fillet with Cajun Seasoning.
2. Fry it in a cast iron skillet with melted butter.*
3. Open the kitchen door so the smoke alarm doesn't go off.
4. Fish is ready when the thickest part flakes and doesn't look like sashimi.

I never liked salmon until I started cooking it this way. I decided to expand to other fish. First up was catfish.
It lacked the meaty texture of salmon and trout. In fact, the meat seemed strangely familiar. Light and delicate like...
...every smelly decomposing fish I'd handled in my tropical fish shop days! This shouldn't be on my plate I thought, this is what I find when I lift up tank decorations and discover what's drifted underneath. Yecch!
Then I remembered Sucko. He was a suckermouth catfish I had about ten years ago. He had funny underslung lips so he could suction himself to rocks (or vegetables I provided) to slurp up food. There was something silly, almost cartoonlike about him: the goofy lips, the googly eyes...
He grew quite large over the years, and when he died he was too big to flush.
It's Sucko!I couldn't shake the thought. How can I eat a Sucko?
I won't be frying up catfish anytime soon.

*olive oil works too. Yes, it's fattening, but I just eat the fillet for dinner. No bread, no veggies, no salad or desert. The trade off is worth it.

Chronic Honkers

Ever ride with someone who hits the horn more than they hit the foot pedals?
Chrissie is a chronic honker. Woe to the cad in front of her who doesn't accelerate the millisecond the light turns green! Woe to the scoundrel who dares to pass in front of her!
The honk of wrath shall fall on their ears!
I'm not sure how to classify it. Paranoid? Childish?
Once a car in front of her stopped to drop someone off. There was nowhere to pull over so they had to stop in the street, slowing down Chrissie for several seconds.
She leaned into the horn like she was deploying a weapon.
"C'mon," I said. "They're dropping a guy off. It's not like traffic's backing up-"
"They're blocking my way!" she huffed, hitting the horn a few extra times. I was mortified.
Even those who don't block her way may still risk her honk. Once she gave a sound honking to some chump who turned into the wrong lane. I didn't think it was that big of a deal since

1. It was very early and there was no other traffic.
2. He was in the opposite lane and in no danger to us.

"Why'd you honk at him?" I said.
"He's not supposed to do that!" she said.

I avoid getting in Chrissie's car at all costs.

Silverfish

Silverfish are creepy. They make slugs look cuddly.
Who hasn't opened an old book or magazine and had a mummified one drop in their lap?
Their silvery sheen and Art Nouveau curves can't override their powers to freak people out.

Exclusive: Interview with my Cockatiel, Tosca!

Interviewer: Namowal says you're cranky and prone to biting. Is this true?

Tosca: So a bird can't bite someone once in awhile? What's the big deal?

Interviewer: Why do you bite? Does she scare you?

Tosca: Nah. I only bite her when she makes me mad.

Interviewer: She makes you mad?

Tosca: Oh yes. Mostly it's her hands. They're always trying to pat my head or make me perch on them. Who wants to perch on some stupid hand? So I tell her to quit it, and if she doesn't quit, I'll bite.

Interviewer: You talk to her?

Tosca: Sure. I talk to her in CL. Cockatiel Language. If I step back, flash my eyes and open my beak, that means stop that now or I'll bite. Namowal ignores the warning each time. So I show her some beak.

Interviewer: Namowal once had another cockatiel. Tell me about Quasi.

Tosca: I'm glad he's dead! I never liked him. He was a jerk. An ugly jerk with a jacked up lower bill. Always acting tough with me. And he'd totally kiss up to Namowal. He'd let her pet and cuddle him! It was disgraceful.

Interviewer: Is it true you once peeled a price tag off and glued your mouth shut? That Namowal had to take you to the vet to fix things?

Tosca: I suppose you never did anything stupid when you were young?

Interviewer: You realize that Namowal gives you food and water everyday?

Tosca: Big whup. Like I couldn't find food on my own! It's insulting!

Interviewer: Is there anything positive you can say about Namowal?

Tosca: Well, she plays a musical instrument I really like. Real loud and shrieky- I always sing along. A bagpipe like thing, except the air intake is by an internal fan instead a mouthpiece. She plays it by my cage each day. I think it's called "A Hoover".


**Bonus Pic**
Below is the original drawing I uploaded. Something's wrong. It's been fixed in the top picture. Can you spot the difference?

Starlings

I'm not supposed to like starlings.
Most books will tell you what a wretched piece of crap this bird is. Usually something like:
"The European Starling is considered a pest, and included here only to help you repel it. One of the least loved backyard birds, these dumpy, screechy, greedy creatures ..."
The trouble started in the 1890s when Eugene Schieffelin introduced a few modest flocks (from England) in New York*. Now there's millions of them in North America. Their rap sheet includes:

• raiding cattle feedlots (they eat the cow food, not the cows)
• evicting bluebirds and woodpeckers from nesting cavities
• smacking into airplanes
• hogging all the food at the birdfeeder
• making a mess

How hated are they? They're one of the few birds you can legally shoot, poison or beat to death. Even some people who consider themselves bird lovers have no problem killing this bird.
I enjoy starlings. I shouldn't, but I do. They're cute. I like their spots and iridescent feathers. I like their raspy voice and the way they flap their wings and puff out their neck feathers when they sing. I like how they collect shiny objects and get into mischief.
I like how I can watch them in so many places- parks, parking lots, or from my window.
I know they're bad, but I can't resist them.

*Popular lore says this was part of a plan to introduce all birds mentioned by Shakespeare to North America!

Face

I rarely draw cartoons of humans, and when I do, I usually use a mirror or a reference.
I tried this one from without either.
I used an underdrawing to help place the features but they still seem a bit floaty.

Update (self-critique a day later):
Left eye too big, right too small and too high up,
Nose too big and turned too right,
Mouth should be more forward.
Shading incomplete, awkward.
Hair details a bit sloppy...
And as I observed yesterday, the features seem to float.

I'm not playing the I'm a baaaad artist! Please tell me I'm good! game here. It's tricky to draw human heads. At least with life drawing I can hold out a pencil and measure proportions. For Cartoon Girl I cobbled together what I remembered about eyes, skulls, noses.
When I look at a really good cartoon- even if it's very stylized- the features seem anchored and interconnected. How the heck do they DO this?

Dance, Mary, Dance

Here's an experimental dance loop I pulled from my next cartoon*.



*In the animatic, she (and another character) are much smaller, and watching something else.
Originally they were just blinking and tilting their heads but I decided to make things more lively.

Blu-Cheeze Singles

Quick 'n' shameless cheese shopping...

The Horrifying and Delightful Scent of Chlorine

Scents trigger memories and feelings. It's weird.
I smell of rubbing alcohol and Warning! Needles! pops in my head. I sniff the old bottle of the floral room spray I used in college and I'm suddenly a freshman in 1987 (Will I like college? Will I make friends?)
Then there's the chlorinated pool.
I smelled my first one at swimming lessons when I was little. I was terrified. The pool was huge. And deep! I didn't trust the teachers. Who were they? How could they teach me to swim? What if my head went underwater and nobody pulled me up? I just knew I was in danger.
The smell of chlorine still triggers my Be nervous! reaction. Of course, more evolved parts of my brain follow up with Whoops, we don't seem to be at swimming lessons. No need to be nervous. Calamity closed..
That's my reaction to the scent in the daytime.
Years ago, on the way to a pool after sunset, I caught my first burst of chlorine and noticed it didn't hit the be nervous! nerve. Instead it was relaxing and nostalgic- like when you first smell the beach (or the hotel air freshener) on a trip. A complete opposite reaction.
I think I know what's going on.
My swimming lessons took place in bright daylight. Any after dark swimming was done on special occasions, either with friends or at a hotel pool on vacation.

Somehow, my brain does this math.

Chlorine scent + Daylight = Danger!

Chlorine scent + Night = Ah, it's great to be on vacation!

Brains work in weird ways.

Caffeine!

If my brain were an automobile, I thoughtit's driving with the parking break on.
I'd looked forward to having a morning off. I'd clean the kitchen! Get projects done! I'd be a productive morning! Yet I felt tired and dull. What was going on?
Then I remembered- I hadn't had any caffeine. Usually I start my day with a Diet Coke and a cup of coffee. No wonder I was so dopey.
I scrounged some coffee from the freezer, plugged in my old Mr. Coffee and hit the glowing red button. The machine clicked and sputtered. Soon the kitchen smelled like a Starbucks and I had a cup of it at my side.
Thank goodness for coffee! I thought, absorbed in my drawing. It's like a switch was thrown. I'm awake! Alive! My brain is a whirring blender of thoughts and ideas! Whoohoo! Better not have too much I'll have trouble holding the pen still...
Then I noticed I hadn't actually drank any.

Mealybugs!

Earlier this summer I bought some lovely potted crotons. They're a bit tricky to care for, requiring lots of sunlight, high humidity, and not-too-wet not-too-dry soil. Neglect them slightly and the leaves drop off.
I coddled my crotons, misting them, double potting them, setting up a pebble tray, checking the soil moisture level etc.. Then I saw them. A tiny patch of mealybugs on one of my plants. (What is it with pests this year? Carpet beatles, rodents and now mealybugs? What's next? Racoons? Bears?)

Wikipedia says:

Mealybug is the common name of insects in Pseudococcidae, a family of unarmored scale insects...

I have a different theory:

Mealybug is the common name for Buggis WhiteTrashis from Planet Slob, whose mission is to "Go to Earth and Destroy Houseplants". Hairy and lazy, they travel by teleport, leaving many a plant tender to wonder how on Earth did they get in here!? Their skills include killing plants, sitting around, and dribbling their powdery crud nearby. Easy to kill (in part, because the concept of "running away" hasn't occurred to them), they are nonetheless tough to eradicate because there's a billion of them on Planet Slob, waiting to teleport to the next available plant...

$!@!! Mealybugs.

note- their trick of spontaneously showing up on your plants is actually because, when freshly hatched, they don't weigh much and can be carried by drafts.

Cryptomnesia

I fear Cryptomnesia- the scary-but-true phenomena where you can steal somebody's work without realizing it!
After he wrote Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson discovered that he'd borrowed details (the parrot, the skeleton-as-pointer, some settings) from older works, even though, when he wrote them, "they seemed to belong to me like my right eye."
More recently, a popular novel was yanked from bookstores* when people discovered it lifted sentences from other works. The author claimed it was an accident. "Aw C'mon," critics snipped, " How do you accidentally steal an entire sentence...!?"
...but it can happen.
I think it works like this.
I see (or hear) Work X (a story, a movie, an expression etc...). Time passes. My brain remembers some details, but not the I saw this before detail. Reverse deja vu. I think it's mine. I incorporate it into my work...
...and someone notices that my masterpiece sure looks a lot like Work X.
Suddenly I'm a hack. A thief!
Am I cranking out other people's work as my own!? Too bad Blogger doesn't have a "plagiarism check" along with the spell check.

p.s. for the record, the background text in the picture isn't mine.

*the movie deal ended about this time too.

Glitter Cheese Party

Years ago my (then) roommate and I threw a cheese party.
We got a copy of Glitter, Mariah Carry bomb.
The snacks were cheese based- cheese crackers, mini cheese pizzas, cheese cake, and cheeze ball puffs. We had veggies too, with Bleu Cheese dressing.
For decor we cut holes in tissue paper to simulate Swiss cheese. I painted dark spots on two tall yellow candles for a similar look.
The fun started when we played the movie. We'd munch on the snacks, and pelt the screen with cheese puffs whenever the film got cheesy.

I Need a Shock Collar

Social skills never came naturally to me. I was in my twenties before I learned that you were, in fact, supposed to look people in the eye when you talked to them. Or that when someone asked "how are you," the polite thing to do was to repeat the question to them after you answered. By my thirties I'd discovered that people were way friendlier if you looked them in the eye and smiled when you saw them*. Who knew?
I still make blunders in conversation. Usually I don't catch them until later. So what I need is a custom shock collar that zaps me on the spot. Zap worthy offenses include:

• Talking to loudly. (What seems normal to me seems very loud to others)
• Interrupting (I just have to throw in some smart ass remark or anecdote)
• Know-it-all-ism ("d'ja know I just read about a study where..." )
• Talking too much (I try not to do this, but I suspect it happens. )
• Talking about esoteric, weird or boring (to other people) stuff ("Ever heard of Pacific Ocean Park?" )
  

Then again, I suppose peppering my conversations with "Youch!" wouldn't be a good idea.

*More than once I've accidentally smiled a bit too long and sent a message I didn't intend...

Animation Blocking in Flashland

Here's more animation blocking from my next cartoon. I'm getting the timing and action to work on crude drawings first. Then I'll clean them up.
When I did "I'm So Tired" I used started with a very simple animatic. The characters were drawn and colored before I made them move. The resulting animation was a bit stiff.
This time around, it's staging and movement first, details and color last.

Tasers, Jerks & Idiots

Open Letter to the Rat in my Backyard

Dear Rat,
I thought you were cute. You reminded me of your gentle domestic cousins. Still, you scared birds off the bird feeder and ate a lot of food. This couldn't continue.
I installed a baffle on a feeder post.
You learned a climb a nearby wall and jump.
I sprayed and scattered hot pepper mixes on the feeder.
You sneezed and kept eating.
I bought a feeder within a cage to keep out larger creatures (that is, you).
You squeezed in anyway.
Things got worse. You invited your rat friends over. You made a mess. You destroyed my squirrel feeder and chewed on my bird feeders. I worried about disease and property damage. Would you chew your way indoors?
I baited my larger Hav-A-Hart trap. A midnight inspection found you trapped within. I slipped some food and nesting material through the bars so you'd be comfortable until I could relocate you in the morning...
...except by then you were gone. You'd eaten the food, worked the door open, and escaped.
You, my friend, have signed your death papers. So get out of my yard now or you're going to the big hamster wheel in the sky.
Sincerely,
Namowal

Buzzy Buddy

click picture for larger image.

I found this fledgling hummingbird on my lawn a few years ago. He sputtered around like a broken helicopter, rising a few feet and crashing. I'd have left him there*, but two cats seemed very interested. I scooped him up. Both cats came up to me and stood on their hind legs, begging for their toy.
I moved the bird to a jasmine bush in my back yard (away from the cats) and snapped this photo. He resumed flying lessons for the next few days before taking off for good.
I get a lot of hummers at my feeder. Each time I see one, I wonder, Is that you, Buzzy Buddy?

*he wasn't hurt- he was just trying out his wings like a proper fledgling.

Soap Operas

I don't get these at all.
When I was little I figured it was one of those mysteries I'd understand once I was older.
I'm older.
I still don't understand their appeal.
They all look alike. Semi-glamorous setting, high end clothing, coiffed hair, and not much else. I feel like a space alien watching another species when I look at one:

If I were a space alien, here's the notes I would take:

Observation:
Person X says something to person Y. Person Z says something. Closeup on person X. Ajax commercial.
Analysis:
Heck if I know. I can't figure these people out. That being said, I can safely conclude that Ajax is tough on grease.

"We Can Tell You're On Something!"

In 2000 worked night shifts.
I was driving home around four am and accidentally turned right on a red light (the sign was placed between two corners just meters apart. I thought it referred to the second corner, not the first) Red and blue lights cop lights flashed in my rear view mirror. I pulled over.
Officer Jerk asked for my license and registration, and turned his flashlight on my face. "She's blown," he observed, as partner Officer Jerkette looked on.
I wasn't sure what this meant, but they cleared up. My pupils were huge. Surely I'd been partying all night and was as coked out as a 1977s dance club.
I wasn't alarmed. For one thing, I'd never done coke (or meth, or crack) in my life. Secondly, my pupils are unusually large. ( I'd seen an eye doctor about it a few years earlier. He confirmed they were big but otherwise healthy). Surely the cops would realize this was a mistake.
Not so. They didn't buy my explanation, patted me down, and searched the car for my "stash".
They were convinced I was a drug fiend. Every thing I said was interpreted that way.

Me: I was coming from work! It's just up the street. Ask them yourself.

Officer Jerk: We don't need to get your work involved in this.

Me: Yes, ask them where I was and what I was doing. They're my alibi.

Officer Jerk: You came from the Alibi Room?*

The Advil and other over-the-counter items in my purse? Obviously these were to quell the side effects of my evil habit.

All they found in my car was a blister pack of some sort of herbal vitamin suppliant. It was obviously a legal, commercial product. Officer Jerk just knew it was something worse.
"What's this?" he demanded.
"It's yours if you want it," I said, knowing this "evidence" wouldn't get me in trouble.
"That's okay," he said. "I don't like to put things in my body." Jackass.
He thought he found the jackpot in the trunk. I kept a sketchpad with me, plus pencils, and a sharpener which I kept in a baggie to catch the shavings. Officer Jerk raised the shaving-filled baggie in triumph.
"And what might this be?" he asked, like he'd caught the naughty kid at the cookie jar.
When he put the flashlight on them he agreed that they were, in fact, pencil shavings.
They also found a true crime book. They thought that was funny. Har de har.
I thought them finding nothing would be the end of it. It wasn't.
"We can tell you're on something," Officer Jerkette kept saying. "Admit it! We can tell by the way you're acting**!"
"I'm not on anything!" I said. "Can't you just run a test or something?"
"We can arrest you and do a blood test," she said, gravely. "And when it comes out positive that's six months in jail. Is that what you want?"
By now I upset. Getting blamed for something I didn't do. Something I never did. Having everything I said twisted to support their stupid theory. The fact that I might be arrested for something I didn't do. Tears rolled down my cheeks.
"If you didn't do anything, why are you upset?" Officer Jerkette demanded. "This doesn't add up."
Next came roadside tests. Close your eyes, spread your arms, touch your nose etc.. By now the sun was rising and commuters could slow down and watch the show.
"Admit what you did," they said, at least five times, "And we'll let you go.***"
Then they stepped away to discuss whether or not to arrest me. I suspect at least one of them had reluctantly figured out that maybe, just maybe, I wasn't a coke-blowing, meth-smoking, crack fiend after all. After five or ten minutes of chatting, they said that they'd "give me a break" and "only" give me a ticket. That was nice of them.

*A nearby bar.

**Earlier that night I had worried that there was something "wrong" with me that made people think I was weird. (I was something of a black sheep at that job- not shunned, but defiantly not one of the gang.) And now professionals in uniform were telling me how odd I was acting...

***Have innocent people ever fallen for that line and confessed to something they didn't do? I'll bet it's happened.