...

It's...
So let's follow these two guys...



Or not. (Hey, this last guy looks familiar. Hmmm.)


Anyway. Nuthin' today. So let's get on with "Tales From The Shuffle"...

1. "Foxey Lady" - Jimi Hendrix - Always nice to start the day off with a lil' Jimi. (That might not have sounded so right.)


2. "Wicked Ways" - Sunz Of Man - Despite the crazy line-up of artists, this album was pretty underwhelming. However, this track by Wu-affiliates, Sunz Of Man is one of the strongest cuts.

3. "What Have I Been Doing Since I've Been Gone?" - Tommy Guerrero - Pretty much anything by this legendary skateboarder is worth a listen. I stumbled upon one his albums (Soul Food Taqueria) a few years ago, and have been buying up anything I can (When the $ allows.) by the dude, including side project, Jet Black Crayon. You can seriously groove/chill to these beats endlessly. Check it. Highest possible recommendation.

4. "Waltzing Back" - The Cranberries - From their first (and best) album. I remember pickin' this up waaaay back in the day. Pretty much every cut on this is great (Not just "Dreams" and "Linger".).


5. "I Shot The Sheriff" (Live) - Bob Marley & The Wailers - From the four disc set, "Songs Of Freedom". It's pretty much the only Bob you need. It's got ury'thang on there.

Art Gallery: Another piece from 'The Ball Point Series' - "My Head(S)".

B


"Click" to get some bigger heads...

It's Monkey Monday...

Good Monday, ury'one. Hope your weekends did a successful job of being all that they could be. And if not, hope they do it better next time.

Today is Monkey Monday. Well, since we're all a bunch o' monkeys anyway, technically everyday is Monkey Day. Right?
Do you think monkeys like us? Do you think they know, we "evolved" from them?

Do you think they look at us and secretly scream amongst themselves, "Holy shit! I hope we don't turn into one of those guys. They're idiots!"

Or are they jealous? Do they long for this so-called evolution? Do they really want some of this? Or are they perfectly content carrying on with their simian ways?

Think about it...


Flick Pick:

Just saw Disney/Pixar's "Up" on Saturay. Watched it with the wife and kids. I gotta say, this is another standout lil' film from Pixar. It pretty much goes without saying, but these guys are on a roll. They always manage to combine stunning, cutting edge computer animation with strong, often touching lil' tales that tug at the hearts and funnybones of "kids" of all ages.

I have yet to see "Cars" (Too Chevron commercial for me. Plus that "Asshole" Flats song drives me nuts. It sucks taint. It really, truly & surely does.) or last years' "Wall-E"(Some day.), but have so far been impressed with almost everything that Pixar has put out ("The Incredibles" being my favorite, of course.). And "Up" is no exception. Check it out!


Tales From The Shuffle:

1. "Ira Rythm And Blues" - Gianni Ferrio - Cool lil' jazzy instrumental from the soundtrack for the Italian giallo film, "La Morte Accarrezza a mezzanotte" aka "Death Walks At Midnight". Look at that cool ass cover art.


2. "3030" (Instrumental) - Deltron 3030 (Dan The Automator & Del The Funky Homosapien) - Sick ass instrumental version of the opening cut to this classic collaboration between Del and The Automator. Samples from the soundtrack for Lucio Fulci's zombie classic "The Beyond".


3. "Bachelorette" - Björk - Awesome!!!


4. "Violently Happy" - Björk - It was a deuce shot of Björk of this morning! Ain't nuffin' wrong wif dat!

5. "Maquiladora" - Radiohead - B-side of the "High & Dry"/"Planet Telex" single from the album, "The Bends".

Art Gallery: Two "simian-centric" pieces for your perusing enjoyment. "Parking Lot" and "Fight!"(This one is a photograph. My sketchbook was too big for the scanner. I hope to get a better scan of this, as it's one of my favorites.) Enjoy with bananas!

B


"Click" to see them in Glourious Chimp-time...

Resolute

Hello. Tomorrow is yet another Monday. Bring on the suck!

Anyone disappointed in the recent "G.I. Joe" movie (Personally, I wasn't. I knew what to expect.It was stupid and cheesey but if it had to be in the hands of Stephen Sommers, it could've been waaaaay worse. Except for aspects of the first film and Rachel Weisz, I didn't really care for the Mummy movies, and don't get me started on Van Helsing. I actually think "Deep Rising" is his best film, bar-none. "Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen", on the other hand, pissed me off. With the exception of "Titan-" Oops. I mean, "Pearl Harbor", I'll defend anything on Michael Bay's film resume. But the story and most of the characters in Fallen were pretty lame. Jesus! What was I talkin' about?! )

Anyways. The point is, if you like G.I. Joe, but you hated the movie, check out this cool lil' animated film, "G.I. Joe: Resolute." It's a Joe movie for grown ups. It's what the feature film might have been in the hands of another director (I'm thinking, The Kingdom and The Rundown's Peter Berg.). The action is pretty hardcore. The story written by comic book superstar Warren Ellis ("Planetary", "Fell") definitely pulls no punches. People die. Joe's die. And Snake Eyes, in a stand out sequence involving the silent ninja's infiltration of a Cobra island, is fuckin'... well... Snake Eyes, for God's sake.

The look is anime-inspired, but not overly-stylized. That is a good thing. The character animation is strong and the colors and details are all top notch. At a brisk 58 minutes, it never drags. In fact, I would've liked it to be a least 30 minutes longer just to beef up some of the characters (Destro!!!), but overall it's pretty solid. It played late night on Cartoon Network a few months ago, but recently (To coincide with the feature film's dvd release.) just came out on dvd. Give it a spin!!!

Art Gallery: Today's entry is a little different today...

Here is lil' five page Blade story I did as a submission when Marvel had their quickly defunct Epic line idea.

It's definitely rough. I admit that my sequential storytelling skills need work. But I'm constantly trying to improve by drawing and drawing and drawing. (When I can. Does that totally negate the whole "...and drawing and drawing" thing? Don't think about it too much.) But seriously. I'm getting there.

I do like some of the drawing, though - some of the characters. (Pgs. 2 and 3 are my favorite. I like elements of 4 and 5. Pg. 1 pretty much sucks. I wish I could've inked it myself, but they don't want you to do that when you submit work.) It was fun, though. (That's supposed to be what's important. Right?) As always, you can go down to the Art Gallery section to see bigger versions of the pages. Check it out. Hope it makes sense.

Peace.

B


"Click" on these bad boys for a closer look...

Cool Shite... Ooops! I meant, "Cool Site."

(Saturday. Yes, it is...)

Not much today. Just hangin' with the fam.

Just wanted to let everyone know to check out this cool site:

http://www.wahabalgarmi.com/

Wahab's a buddy of mine from school. He was the one who put me on the the HE-MAN show, and was responsible for a killer "fine art" STRATOS piece.

He is the co-creator(with a bevy of artists, most recently, Joel Sigua) and writer of "THE SOCIETY OF UNORDINARY YOUNG LADIES". (Independently published under his Sturdy Comics label.) Currently available to read on his site are issues #1-3. I briefly caught up with him (And Tien Dog!) at the last Wonder Con where he was pimpin' the book amongst other cool things. He hooked with signed copies of 1 and 2 (Lucky me!) and I recently read numero tres online.

Imagine Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, but instead of being set in the Victorian era, it is set in the 1980's, and instead of starring some of the greatest literary characters of our time, it starred some of the greatest (and not-so-greatest) sitcom characters of it their time.

Cover to issue #1 (by Natividad)

We're talkin' the gals of The Facts Of Life (Always had crush on Jo, myself. Does that make me gay?), Punky Brewster and her dog, Charles and Buddy (Of Charles In Charge, natch!), Evie from Out Of This World, V.I.C.K.I.E. the robot girl from Small Wonder, Jessica Fletcher from Murder, She Wrote (!) and even Wednesday Aadams (So far, the only deviation from the 80's formula. But, hey. She's timeless!) I don't ever like to discuss the plots of anything too much because I don't want to be responsible for any "spoilers". Besides, the fun of this book is being surprised and tickled by the many colorful (Even in b & w.) characters from your past that show up to join in the festivities. I will say that story (Again, so far. I wouldn't expect anything less from Wahab if he didn't pull the occasional rug out from underneath us.) relies mainly on the spy/espionage genre - with secret S.H.I.E.L.D.- like military organizations, suspense filled interrogations, robots (ala V.I.C.K.I.E.) & dogs to the rescue. It is an extremely fun read, and Wahab and team recently got some big-ups from both USA Today & AIN'T IT COOL NEWS.

Cover to issue #2 (by Natividad)

The site also features samples of some of Wahab's illustrations & fine art work.

By Wahab Algarmi

Those who like Marvel Comics will dig his hip-hop interperations of classic (Kirby-style) Marvel characters.

By Wahab Algarmi

It also features, in the Sequential Art section, an adaptation of a short story I wrote, "Twelve Hours Till Showtime". It's a vulgar little EC-style type story chronicling the last hours of two sibling death row inmates. Wahab took my story and ran with it, doing a masterful job of bringing it to life with beautiful b & w artwork reminiscent of David Lapham (One o' my faves! So, thanks Wahab!) Anybody who knows me will recognize "the voice" right away (What with all the "f" bombs and such.). So I mos definitely "pity the fool" who don't check it out!

By Wahab Algarmi

So. If you're down for some cool shit (Come on. You know you are.), check out the site and show my man, Wahab some love.

Oh, and... read my story, too.

B

Art Gallery: "The Chase" a lil' bit o' action from the sketchbook.


"Click" for a closer look at the action...

The Following Poster is For Justin Salinas...

Hello all. Happy FRIDAY THE 13TH!!!

I've decided to try to do something new that'll kill some space in case I gots nuthin' (which is often...). Everyday whilst at work, I've got the iPod going. (I'd kill someone for sure if I couldn't listen to the 'tracks'. I don't 'whistle while I work'. I'm not a dwarf. But I am 'Grumpy' on occasion.)

So here's the deal. I call it "Tales From The Shuffle". Everyday (M-F, at least.) I will post the first five (5) 'randomly selected' tracks I hear that day. I might comment on 'em sometimes. Sometimes, I won't. If anyone is reading and they wanna make a comment or gots a question, throw it down.

I thougt of this yesterday, but didn't get a chance to post, so today we've got ten tracks...

Here's yesterdays:

11/12/09



1. "Hammer" - Bob Marley & The Wailers



2. "Sand River" - Beth Gibbons & Rustin' Man - Lead singer of Portishead!



3. "Passin' Me By" - Pharcyde - Effin' classic, dunny!



4. "Vordhosbn" - Aphex Twin



5. "The Observer" - The Flaming Lips - Moody instrumental track with heartbeats thrown in.

And here is todays...



1. "Assassination Day" (Instrumental) - Ghostface Killah - Technically it's The Rza's beat. And it's one of his sickests!



2. "Heading For The Mountain" - Cornell Campbell



3. "Rock The Casbah" - The Clash



4. "Howling" - Morcheeba - Original vocalist, Skye Edwards' voice is awesome. So soothing!



5. " No, No, No" - Dawn Penn - "You don't love me and I know now..." Classic roots reggae!

So that's that. I'll probably tend to say more about the tracks, but since we had two lists today, I'll keep it short. Lemme know what you think of this lil' segment. If you're into music like I, you might see some songs you haven't heard in awhile, some you've never heard of & some you might wanna stop and give a listen to.

Art Gallery: "Samwise" - a "Lord Of The Rings" illustration from my school daze. Probably one of my favorites from those early days. This was a few years before Peter Jackson's be-all-end-all adapatations of Tolkien's epic stories. And now Guillermo Del Toro's bout to knock us on our asses with "The Hobbit" and it's sequel (not sure of the name o' that film that bridges "The Hobbit" and the "LOTR" books. Can you tell I like monsters with boobs? (I don't know...)

B


"Click" if you're not 'scurred'...