Hello tonight!

Well... what can I say...   I emphasize, PLEASE, skip this post, its just me being a total boob. I'll updated with something better in the next week, perhaps. That said;
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
My computer totally shit out on me a month or so ago. I had to buy a bunch of new stuff. Installed a new hard drive in my macbook pro. The sadness; Lost a good bit of important, awesomeness tracks for the blues project album...  sadly running behind schedule for that project. Thats ok, it'll be worth the wait... At any rate. I haven't been able to fuck with my mac for awhile, but I've been focusing my attention in other areas. My analog journal for one. Spray paint for another. I spent a few weeks working on "Spray paint art". That was fun. It's all a bunch of generic looking shit though, so I haven't been doing that still, but perhaps I'll throw a few of the better ones I made up on the blog in the next few weeks. I just moved and my camera and other important shit is still boxed up. Curse words are the bastion of inarticulate shit-heads. hardy har har.

What else?...  oh, right...  i have been pondering over and over the cursed subject of dialogue for ages.... it has prohibited me from making my next animation time and time again.  I finally have thought, [more or less] "what the fuck do I need dialogue for? I'ma narrate practically this whole mother fucker, and use dialogue very sparingly"... Anyways, i'm revising my second draft of my newest script...  maybe i'll actually follow through with it this time, instead of giving up on the idea because it was probably retarded, like last time.   The ideas always work out pretty good in my head... but the more i commit to paper, the stupider it seems re-reading it.... It never translates right. Ho Hum. I almost have to follow up with this new idea though, cause if I don't... then what the hell has this all been building towards?

I wonder now if I'll delete this post tomorrow when I re-read it... Perhaps...  Normally this kind of drunken candid talk repulses me the next day when I re-read it. My vocabulary leaves something to be desired... poop, farts, and other childish exclamations! I think I have to get over that though, cause if i can't ever commit something to paper without ripping it up afterwards... then what the hell is the point of all this nonsense? For better or worse, i've gotta come to terms with myself and accept it. I'm a bit drunk on this late friday night, so my apologies for the nature and the aesthetic of this post, words like retarded aren't cool to sling around lightly I suppose. For what it's worth though, i think i most certainly must be some kind of "special", if you know what I mean, [and i know, that you know, that I mean, i think i'm retarded hahaha!]

Hey while I'm on the subject of just filling my blog up with a long retarded post, whats up with this drakearnold blog?  hahaha, Am I so in love with my ego that I want to blog about myself, thats absurd, how stupid, hahaha! I should blog about something else more important probably...  For gods sake, even a critical comparison of common house hold dish detergents would be more informative...   No, but seriously though...  maybe I do this because thats what they told me to do in college? hahaha, "try to market myself"...  i think that merits it's own paragraph.

Hot damn i like making things. I don't care if its legos or cinderblocks, crayons or oil colors. yarn or rope, i don't know, insert another weak ass analogy or metaphor or whatever here... The point is, Thats just it. I love to do whatever holds my attention for just long enough for me to get mediocre at it, then drop it and move on to something else. Then i weave all these shitty half talents together in a gnarly way to make my animations and what not. When they are finished, i dedicate them to my website, their permanent home, and ultimately their grave. Cause honestly, once i've put my stuff on my website, thats about the extent of it. I might update my blog, or put a link on my facebook, once, the same day, but thats it. I don't give a rats balls about marketing my shit. Business and salesmanship and the competitive nature of the art industry leaves me baffled. I've always loved art because at its core, its how anyone chooses to express themselves through any means they see fit. If only i knew then, how perverted and dirty the world of art would become to me. Even now i see this post as being a source of alienation from potential jobs i might apply to and etc. but at the same time, i have basically ceased to give a fuck, as i've probably plastered about two or three hundred of my resumes around town and hardly ever get a call back... Also stuff like Minimum Wage doesn't help I'm sure... The only people who probably actually read this dumb ass rubbish is my parents anyways so who cares right, hahaha! ... let me start again;

I am searching for a soulmate...  quite a few actually. first up;
1] Business man- Take 90% of income from my work in exchange for some how converting anything i make in to money, or exposing people to my art or your genitals or whatever... I'll never make it in the "real" world, cause damnit, i just don't care and don't want to try to push my shit on people like some cheap butthole... man... have some dignity...  i already do way more of this than i feel comfortable with... why the hell do I have business cards, i don't do business! [ I guess i know why, but its a boring story]
2] Code Master- Cause trivial website work is boring as hell and interactive shit is great! Calling all masters of insane, dark, arcane magic, computer math languages. I hate action script, so won't you help?
3] Writer/Editer- Flesh out my ideas into believable dialogue... my shit is so crumby it needs to quadruple revised...
4] Audio Engineer- I'm bad at being a mix master... All my shit sounds muddy and fuzzy... MUZZY!
5] Twelve adopted Korean children- Animation laboratory dungeon thingy...  Mass production, assembly line art factory doo-dad...  Animation takes a really long damn time by yourself man!

In other words, i'm bad at everything, and can't do anything, hahaha! No but one more time, I need a new paragraph...

All that is fine and dandy I guess, but ideally, i think i'd love to collaborate. I wish I could just come together in a group of like minded people and try to all let our powers combine to do some captain planet shit... or rather, do some captain, make this planet suck less shit... What will it be in the end I wonder? Its only a matter of time I assume until all the right elements are together at the right time and place. Damnit man, if you shifty, faceless future step uncles of mine are out there... then speak up and be heard! I assume its all the people I already know and love. I hope it is them...  When they rise up to do great things, i hope I can be there to aid and abed them. Working with other people damn it. What better thing could anyone hope to achieve. Working towards a common, mutual goal, as opposed to working towards ones own personal ambitions...   Holy crap! I thought when I wrote five or six pages in my journal earlier i had satiated my urge to blubber on eternally but lo and behold... I've become a very shallow, self centered jerk... when did that happen I wonder? Good night, the longest, eternally boring post...  I hope i have the self control tomorrow not to edit, delete, or correct this nightmare post in any way. I'll just bury it under more recent post in the next few weeks I hope.
Drunkenly belligerent,
Hampster Egret Jr.

Blues Project: Acoustic Previews...

These videos are acoustic versions of some of the songs I've been recording with my esteemed colleague, Michael Dunston, for our forth coming album of blues covers. We don't have a name for ourselves or the album yet [because we don't care about thinking of names as much as we care about playing music], but the album should be out in the next few month; early 2011.

"Big Fat Squid" - As seen on "Brak presents 'the Brak show' starring Brak"

"I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" - Hank Williams

"Built for Comfort" - Howlin' Wolf

"Stormy Weather" - Harold Arlen & Leo Reisman's Orchestra

Sultry Sultan

Sometimes I see published images that are just a few quick pen strokes from being truly completed... While flipping through a coloring book at work a few months ago I came across one such image. The look of sheer ecstasy and rapture on sultans face says it all.

Its terribly low quality, as I took this picture with my computers web cam, but I think you can still get the gist alright.

Blues Project

A few months ago, I got this great notion, to get the blues... I started finding old ass blues standards I liked and recording them. I got my close friend Michael Dunston involved, as he is the king of sultry guitaring and an audio engineer of great talent. Since then, the two of us have got about seven or eight songs at or near completion. In another few months, we will have a whole album worth of blues material. This post is pointless, as at this point, I am not yet ready to speak at lengths about the material on the album... I am excited however, and couldn't contain my enthusiasm much longer. In summation, look forward to having your sphincter blown out at the sonic gravity of our heavy hearted blues...

Painting...

This is a painting I did a few months ago... It was at the University of Tampa for the last few months, as it was in the UT Alumni art show, and then I didn't bother to go back and pick it up from the school for another month or two. But now it's home again, so perhaps I'll get around to finishing it. Originally I had intended there to be at least twice as many of the blue figures pulling on the yellow persons strings... Maybe I'll get around to adding some more...

Get What You Give

No Parking:

I fractured my clavicle a couple of days ago, and as such, have been eating a good bit of pain killers. A thought crossed my mind today and I found it to be so hilarious, in my drug induced euphoria, I spent about ten minutes making it in photoshop...

Drawing @ Work

Sometimes when I'm bored at my place of occupation, Rigatoni italian restaurant in south Tampa, Florida, I take some time to relax and draw in the host book. I took some pictures recently because I figured one or two of them would be worth posting.


Hari-kiri because of no restaurant reservations... Death before dishonor, ha ha ha...


"Chia" business man ?


I think I saw a drawing like this in my friend Cory's notebook. I liked it, so I imitated it...


The cook at work drew a green shirt on this guy whom I had intended to be topless. He also gave him a drum stick as well for some reason?


I always wished I had stalks...


Random...


Stalks and Pincers... a dream come true.


Pollo Retardo I


Pollo Retardo II


Furclops


And my personal favorite, "Sword and Sorcery Dog"...

Some old videos...

I recently stumbled across a couple of videos of me singing and playing guitar from about two years ago. They are particularly sentimental to me, as I had recorded them exclusively for the purpose of e-mailing them to my girl friend Julia, whom I was courting at the time. In an effort to force myself out of the crazy, self contained universe I've created in my head, I put these up here. I imagine i would have been terribly embarrassed in the past about how bad I suck as a singer/guitarist or how lame I am in general as a person. As it stands though, these videos are old, and I don't really give a fuck what any body else thinks anymore. Haha, on that note... enjoy:

Julia

I think this song is a bit high for my vocal range, hence my eyebrows furrowing up into a grotesque expression of stupidity through out the duration of this song. Hilarious and by far my favorite thing about this...

First day of my Life

On second thought, maybe I just do the Cro-Magnon brow when ever I sing & play? Who knows, it's not like I usually watch myself, haha...

Beat to the Punch Again...

I was in a store the other day and saw the coolest thing in the "one dollar" aisle:



Immediately I thought: "I should throw a party and provide everybody with free 'drugs' to enjoy"



The next time my guests had a bowel movement, it would hilariously resemble something more like this:



Unfortunatly, somebody else already had that Idea and it turned out something like this: Boston Ravers Hospitalized

New Animation & an Art Show

Above is something I've been working on for a few weeks here and there while I have been teaching my animation classes at that summer camp. It was made using that free, open source software called "Pencil", I talked about in a previous post, since that is what we were using at camp. Because of that, the quality suffers versus something I could do on Flash... One of my old UT professors contacted me today though and told me I should submit something to the UT Alumni Art show, so I slapped credits and music and on it and turned it in. It is not necessarily what I would consider "finished", but it's good enough for now I suppose. I also submitted a painting, but that too wasn't finished, and I hadn't taken a photograph of it yet. I'm kind of excited because it's my first show in 2010. Perhaps I'll post some photographs from the show on Saturday or something. Opening night is Friday at 7:00 @ the Scarfone-Hartley gallery on the UT campus. Come on over and enjoy the free wine while it lasts!