…on fire …and gasoline

once upon a time…

the bastard ran an art department…

and then he didn't.

you'd think that would be the end of the story but it was the beginning…

you see…

instead of going to hell…

it got better.

the bastard got some direction…

became part of something better…

and we fixed the book.

then we took the bigger book and made it better a year later.

and it was damn good.

these last few months presented a greater challenge to our little team of professionals.

one of the company's other properties needed a new look…

and their crew lacked the skills to pay that bill…

so it fell to us to build, as the clipper referred to this redesign as, "the little dream"

we started building the bike book which seemed to have not seen a new look since 1983 back after the gun show.

then we all went back to the business of our killing stuff books for a bit and we waited for the word…

which came right as I was to go on vacay to the elephants graveyard.

the bastard was to be the mechanic again…

as he was the mechanic that kept killing stuff monthly looking tight when the ideas were all done and the precision work had to be done.

"your layout will be the king", he said and with it, we built a great book.

I built the king for killing stuff with aspirations as well and aside from a few ad size cock ups, it all snaps to grid.

so when I got back from the land of hanging chads…

I built the bike book in earnest so that we could all begin the journey we all began two weeks ago.

and in all of my days of building templates…

and redesigning magazines…

never has something I've done been more hard won…

never have I had this level of pride of ownership…

of job satisfaction.

and I think to myself…

I'm a lucky man.

I'm lucky that the heads of state wanted me to stay on board more so than the toddler…

yeah…

up yours toddler. I get to have late nights with the voices thanks to you but I get to work on better things for it. fuck you. when I sleep, I get the rest of the just knowing where you landed. and I get to do better stuff than when I was in your shop.

I could have missed out on all of this if it all went your way.

I'm lucky that I got to work on something this cool.

I look forward to the finished product and hope to god the muppets we leave this with don't change too much after we hand them back the keys.

we've all been down this road too long to let the unskilled wrecked our good works

vroom

frikkin

vroom

—the bastard

television is frikkin ponderous

so the bastard has been watching a lot of x-files with his free time.

which i would up today due to the fact that it's sort of lost it's luster after 7 seasons and the fact that mulder leaves the show at this point only to be replaced by evil t-1000

so i figure between that and a shit attention span, i should move on to something more retarded like say high school of the dead.

but as i bid the show adieu, the bastard has to wonder...

...is there really a magazine called feng shui life?

and who the hell would read it?

subscribe to it?

what the hell?

—the bastard

judge not…

… lest ye be judged.

the bastard spent all day in a conference room

with his editorial peers for lack of a better turn of phrase.

judging what will for one category be

the best magazine in said category.

and I've discovered one thing that I could never share with my evil ant overlords.

in many ways, we're all doing it wrong.

not in ALL ways but, some.

and it was frikkin illuminating.

just file it in the book that I'll write one day about my time here.

I wish I started sooner so I could remember all that I forgot.

—the bastard

…on tunnel vision

so many dead trees.

so little time.

I think the bastard ceded defeat to his wife on two or three separate disagreements when I got home because I just couldn't care.

all I see are pages and pages and pages.

it took me 40 minutes to believe I was home eating carne asada and not my one flesh as I gnawed it off of my leg trying to break free from an imagined shackle attached to my desk.

and I'm not even halfway there.

I'm not even in the goddam tunnel at this point.

—the bastard

…on the cattle and the creeping things

so we have these fancy new bathrooms at the office.

and while I'm sure it has that "new bathroom" smell when the mad pooper of our office doesn't leave a hanger in one of the stalls,

the bastard has to wonder what would possess a man to sit in his stall without his shoes on.

not once.

but, twice.

we're owned by Swedish people now.

perhaps it's a Swedish thing.

but I'm notsomuch with the sureness of this matter.

—the bastard

feel like shit…

…Deja vu



the bastard is in a bad mood.

had another crap trip.

business travel can wear you down

but,

it shouldn't have you dreaming about being the least talented guy in the room.

going do some late night reading about how to combat designer burnout without the benefits if whiskey.

i shoulda been a garbage man

—the bastard

...on motivational speaking

i was having a conversation with my ladyfriend tonight.

we're in the middle of putting together birth announcements.

and she had remarked on how she doesn't want to do anything too too nutty as our daughter is more of a night sleeper than a day sleeper.

"i'm not gonna go nuts. when am i gonna have the time to do that?", she asks

"you gonna do it anyway". air and light and time and space don't mean a thing.", the bastard responds

"what?"

so i went to the web and grabbed hank's poem about it. i used to have it on my office wall.

it helped the bastard with the "conundrum".

what conundrum do you mean?

well young jerks, it's like this.

you wanna be an artist but you need to pay the bills.

so you get a job.

now you have cash in pocket

but

no time to create.

what to do.

so a really good friend told me about a drunk named hank and this poem that i kept on the wall in my office and at home in my workspace and it was my compass for a long time.

and perhaps sometimes it still is.

air and light and time and space

"–you know, I’ve either had a family, a job,
something has always been in the
way
but now
I’ve sold my house, I’ve found this
place, a large studio, you should see the space and
the light.
for the first time in my life I’m going to have
a place and the time to
create."

no baby, if you’re going to create
you’re going to create whether you work
16 hours a day in a coal mine
or
you’re going to create in a small room with 3 children
while you’re on
welfare,
you’re going to create with part of your mind and your body blown
away,
you’re going to create blind
crippled
demented,
you’re going to create with a cat crawling up your
back while
the whole city trembles in earthquake, bombardment,
flood and fire.

baby, air and light and time and space
have nothing to do with it
and don’t create anything
except maybe a longer life to find
new excuses
for.

i read it to my ladyfriend tonight and it reminded me of a time when the bastard was struggling and he couldn't see the light at the end of the tunnel.

developing film for unappreciative assholes.

designing album packages at 2 in the morning for some shady guy who stills owes me money and moved to vermont.

reminded me because i'm here.

top of my game.

end of the road.

one year later.

i miss my closest buds because they weren't as lucky or they got fed up and left.

still standing. at the end of the tunnel. and i don't know what to do next.

you'd think it was all it's cracked up to be.

and i'm not gonna tell you it ain't

but i ain't gonna tell you it is.

but i'll tell you this,

i would really love to see lobster come into the office in that phillies hat to grub a cuppa coffee these days.

dunno what i'd give for that.

—the bastard

...on hunting

...and gathering

at some point in time, red beard talked me into this idea he had.

part of it involved hunting.

so when the hunter safety course was being offered for free in the office. the bastard was all upons.

did the bastard mention it was free?

you see,

it's like this.

i figured out after the prince of sales gave left hand rob and i a big assed bag of frozen caribou steaks (which were pretty goddam good by the way), the bastard thought, hell, knew, that he would have to give back to the karmic till.

so it was to be done.

anyways, two very generous guys showed up and told the bastard all sorts of shit about how to politely ask a guy if you can hunt on his land. and how you can eat muskrat and it's tasty and all but, it'll give you some diarrhea which sort of defeats the purpose of eating muskrat quite frankly.

day two had us meeting in the baby magazines area. when you need a conference for a full day, you can't be a chooser. it did make for good times when we did firearms safety training with inert firearms that were still nonetheless...firearms.
the bastard is sure that it made for interesting lunchtime talk for the baby mag people.

long story long, i passed the course. hunting licenses get issued in october.

—the bastard

this weak in magazines

cover lines are very important on the newstand.

left hand rob can find something wrong with at least three out of four of these cover lines.

—the bastard

...on the downside of art direction

as a new art director,

not that the bastard is NEW at this.

i'm just new at this magazine.

well,

not that i'm NEW at this magazine. i started in this particular branch of the journalistic lexicon seven years ago.

anyway, the downside to being a new art director is expectations.

expectations of good service. and the primary means of showing good service is,

staying late.

now the bastard doesn't always stay late because he wants to just hang around and drink whiskey, he's been working on employee evaluations so that he can put off getting his taxes done but now i have no excuses but to get that done.

but the other noticeable downside is the fact that i haven't seen the sun go down since this photo i took on the way out of the office on monday. and before that, i can't even remember when i last saw a sunset.

might have been on the weekend once upon a time.

or perhaps it was in a dream. all i know is, if i don't get some sunlight soon, i'm going to get a unrinary tract infection or some crap. maybe the gout. or the grippe.

can somebody spin the whell of old timey diseases to see what the bastard will get please?

yeah, i invented the wheel of old timey diseases. you gotta problem with that? good. you have the clap.

—the bastard

what the bastard did this weak

well this weak, the bastard had to get his ass to a photoshoot in connecticutt. not to be confused with getting my ass to mars.


we got stuck in traffic.

this came off of a shoot we did two weeks earlier for the toys section.


on the way home (the second time, not the first time) we saw a man in a funny hat,


or perhaps funny hair. perhaps he was a beefeater.

and last night i met the woman that is going to dj my wedding. then justice and left hand rob and i met for a drink.

and we got drunk and had mexican food.

then we saw a dog in pants while buying milkshakes. oh yeah, and left hand rob had adventures afterwards.


all in all, it was a good week.

—the bastard

end of the road

so there it is.

scoop is back on the east coast. soon my liver will begin hurting again.

in other news, it's fucking raining out again and since i walked to work from my ladyfriend's apartment, i haven't gotten into adventures and shit.

but the bastard did get rained upon.

and i made friends on facebook with someone i knew from the old neighborhood which just reminds me that i need a functioning motorcycle. but instead, i'm going to read this week's installemnt of freakangels and watch science fiction on frikkin hulu.

the book has shipped and the bastard is waiting for his proofs so, i have to play the waiting game. hrm, waiting game sucks. let's play hungry hungry hippos.

—the bastard

where's scoop part 5

...the big push

ok, the bastard has come to the conclusion that he needs to start a fight on the subway.

i have no material except for scoop's roadtrip.

anyways, she's in the home stretch. woke up in tennesee, was last seen approaching the virginia border.

in pennsylvania by dinnertime.

end of the line after that.

—the bastard

where's scoop part 4

3:15 pm: little rock, memphis by 5

we're shipping the book so, aside from the hive mind not being around for whatever reason, it's all about the shipping.

—the bastard

THIS JUST IN, SPECIAL "ME TOO EDITION"
in a special report which the bastard can only describe as "a me too update", jonny airplanes reports that he is back in virginia from his current base of operations in key west florida.

call it good timing.

call it good times.

but most definitely call it.

where's scoop part 3

scoop: "i go get mexican in amarillo"

bastard: nice

scoop: marg barg time in tx

bastard: margz am the beast aye best

scoop: i just saw the worlds biggest cross and anything you want it was palying on the radio. i in ok.

upon logging onto facebook this morning (yes the bastard is on facebook, go to hell), scoop tells us that she is sleeping in an ihop parking lot. hopefully she gets herself a rooty tooty fresh and fruity breakfast there.

—the bastard

where's scoop part 2

bastard: "aye put up a map for hugh"

scoop: "hehehehehe i', at a dq in nm and i'm thinking about buying a drug rug aka baja robe"

bastard: "hehehe drug rug. where in nm?"

scoop: "no clue about fourty mi to santa rosa"

bastard: "close enuff. just needed it fire the map. you should dine at whataburger"

scoop: "heheheheh i've heard of that i need something non meat"

bastard: "that's what dq am fore"

in other news, someone has designed a steak flavored beer but it's for dogs

—the bastard

where in the united states is scoop?

so as the basatard may have mentioned, scoop, left hand rob's predecessor at selling bullets seven times a year. has departed from hell's waiting room and she heads east by monkey powered toyota corolla along with her copilot. hopefully leaving a trail of destruction in their wake.

almost immediately on their departure, i was getting updates on their location.

scoop: "At n n out but we no no in nv or ca. I'm a free woman full of beef"

bastard: "that is the greetest phrase ever", i replied

then it hit me to come up with a map. left hand rob thought that it should look like one of those indiana jones maps. so here we are so far:


received a text on sunday night that went, "me at venetion now, i wanna get on the marg barg and play crapz. developing..."

2 hours later scoop tell me that she won cash money at the craps tables.

last we leave her, she went to the grand canyon yesterday and ended the day in flagstaff.

developing....

—the bastard

this weak is magazines...

working in the shooting sports industry does afford the bastard exposure to many odds and sods of the magazine industry. it also affords me exposure to many interesting characters in the hunting and fishing field. i mean case in point. for instance, i see ted nugent more often than i see most of my relatives. also i met a guy who organizes night hunts for wild boar in the south. before you get nutty, wild boar are a nuisance species and reproduce like rats....only they are 500 pound rats that destroy crops and are not indigenous to the place in question (the bastard sure as shit ain't tell you where). anyway, left hand rob and i get to see some pretty...........um.......... let's say, unique looking magazines. so we thought to share.

but this leads to this weak's magazine. wild boar usa is a niche publication for the wild boar hunting enthusiast. and on the cover (this wasn't my first issue) the is a little bit of jesus on every cover. it's digest size, like everyday food, or readers digest and most articles come in 14-16 point type. my copy is currently entertaining the new photo editor of killing stuff monthly who oddly enough, is a vegetarian. which means more beef jerky for me when it comes around.

—the bastard

...feeble

got off the plane at 6:30 am.

didn't sleep a wink.

hungry enough to kill and eat the cab driver who i was stuck with on the fucking van wyck for an hour.

hell, i could dig up robert moses' corpse and eat IT if it was time efficient enough.

but it ain't.

so upon getting home, the bastard has breakfast, then goes to bed.

an hour later, left hand rob calls up to tell me that somethings wrong with the cover. now, my head hurts. problem gets solved and it's back to bed.

got up at 4pm.

got to bed at 2am after a bout of the devils work.

my life hurts.

so that said, i have more to say about my travels but, it's going to come later. much later when my head isn't covered in the fog of exhaustion.

—the bastard

remiss

sorry kids.

the bastard has been remiss in his duties (heh heh...doody).

i spent this week putting together my feature well.

what's a feature well?

well young shiteyes, let me tell you what a feature well is. you see, a feature well is that really nice looking section of the magazine that you breeze past all of the shitty looking parts with the words on them. it's kind of like the sears roebuck catalog but, with guns.

then again, i think sears roebuck used to sell guns too. and motorcycles. but that was a simpler time. but i digress,

i was working on the well. and the bastard likes it to look good. and i also have a ton of the devils work to do as part of my stay out of a refrigerator box program which works in tandem with the bastard's not dying program. here's to hoping they work.

—the bastard