Not my Demographic

As if I needed more proof than the "Left Behind" franchise that endtimes evangelical narratives lacked a compelling plot line, Rob Liefield, the bulgy arm, stringy face guy's "Armageddon" is painted in a style that i can only describe as raptural realism. Cynical atheist that I am, I'm inclined to think that this is just a sardonic gesture but paired with the confusing and overblown plot, I'm not so sure.
Something about Russia and this magic guy in Magneto's old helmet something something end of the world, then suddenly, "Little did he know that that the god of heaven had anticipated this move before the annals of time. All of their efforts would be brought to naught. No one would be able to stand against the divine plan of God." Dude, why didn't you tell me back on the first page that God was gonna fix all this? I don't even need to read anymore, I'm just going to stop right at the bottom of page six.
Speaking of pages, Liefield, what the hell happened on the bottom left of page thirteen? God, come fix this layout!
Don't worry comics fans, there is plenty of modestly clothed T&A for you to slobber, I mean pray over. Someone is going to like this book, it just isn't me. Maybe the Home-school crowd, starved as they are for pop culture. I give this a resounding, "NOT MY DEMOGRAPHIC!"

Armageddon
via

Eew, memes or 78% complete

This a foods you must try meme that has been knocking around for a while. I haven't trusted memes since I read Kaleidoscope Century but this one seems harmless enough, right Onetrue?

1. Venison: good any which way you cook it
2. Nettle tea: like mint but milder
3. Huevos rancheros: an awesome dish
4. Steak tartare no
5. Crocodile no
6. Black pudding: I used to get this with the Happy Chef's great British breakfast, unfortunately not so great
7. Cheese fondue: only on special occasions
8. Carp no
9. Borscht: cold and hot
10. Baba ghanoush: so good
11. Calamari: best grilled
12. Pho: I like it without the beef tendons and tripe
13. PB&J sandwich: even better than pb and j is pb and apple butter
14. Aloo gobi: I make this at home
15. Hot dog from a street cart: nuff sed
16. Epoisses no
17. Black truffle: I don't see what the fuss is about truffles
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes: does dandelion wine count?
19. Steamed pork buns: Yes yes yes and yes again
20. Pistachio ice cream: another easy one
21. Heirloom tomatoes: yes
22. Fresh wild berries: yes, my favorites are salmon berries and huckleberries
23. Foie gras: They tried to make this illegal in Illinois, it should be illegal not to have tried this
24. Rice and beans: so many variations
25. Brawn, or head cheese: in a bowl of vinegar and oil at a Bavarian Braurei
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper: do not rub your eyes after eating this
27. Dulce de leche: the best dulce de leche is made with goat's milk
28. Oysters: Rockefeller or in the half shell or in a poorboy sandwich
29. Baklava: all time favorite desert
30. Bagna cauda no, this looks so good, I will have to make this
31. Wasabi peas: ehh
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl: I hate anything that comes in a bread bowl. I'm sure it could be good but the stews rarely hold up to the quality of the bread.
33. Salted lassi: or the similiar Ayran
34. Sauerkraut: mit pierogie
35. Root beer float: A&W is my soda of choice
36. Cognac with a fat cigar: once and I have been chasing the sensation ever since
37. Clotted cream tea: or clotted cream coffee or clotted cream anything
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O: from a stripper's belly button or in a glass?
39. Gumbo: taught me to love okra
40. Oxtail: in a soup
41. Curried goat: or any other kind of goat
42. Whole insects: chocolate covered ants
43. Phaal no
44. Goat’s milk: much better than the cow stuff
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more: once and only once
46. Fugu no
47. Chicken tikka masala: can't make it at home yet though
48. Eel: barbecued in sushi
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut: doesn't belong on the list, blah
50. Sea urchin: not great
51. Prickly pear: peeling one now
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer: check out my recipe for homemade paneer here
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal: (insert sound of me barfing)
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini no
58. Beer above 8% ABV: my favorite is the belgian stuff
59. Poutine no
60. Carob chips: my mother fed me these until I was old enough to demand chocolate
61. S’mores: overrated
62. Sweetbreads no
63. Kaolin no
64. Currywurst: miss them much
65. Durian: otherwise known as "ass fruit"
66. Frogs’ legs: like frail chicken
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini no
73. Louche absinthe no
74. Gjetost no
75. Roadkill no
76. Baijiu no
77. Hostess Fruit Pie: another non starter for me
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant. no
85. Kobe beef no
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate no
91. Spam: at a plate lunch plate on the other side of the big island
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa no
94. Catfish: hork
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor no
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake no

True Playah

It's not often that I devote this much space to a record review, my usual method of music acquisition involve a frenzied search through music blogs like Gimme Tinnitus, Sheena Beaston or places like this and scavenging what free singles they have to offer. I am like a mendicant monk, accepting only what the flow of karma and the beneficience of bands allow into my crude wooden bowl.
So it was with some trepidation that I purchased the latest album by Joe Webb. What effect would this crass gesture of commercialism have on my place on the karmic wheel? Would this action cause me to be reborn as a Creutsfeldt-Jakobian prion in the vast wastelands of Britney Spears left Temporal Lobe? Do prions have souls? If so, where do they stand in the heirarchy of the afterlife? Is it better to be reborn a prion or an AIDS virus? Would this album suck? All of these questions crossed my mind as I downloaded Cross Country.
In the interests of transparency, I must admit that Joe Webb is not a stranger to me. Joe was a key player in my failed student presidential bid back at UM Augsburg campus. Joe was also almost responsible for my early demise as it was his elbow which caused me to fall from the window sill I was perched on while electioneering (in his defense he also pulled me back into the aforementioned window). I narrowly lost the election (53% to 45%) through no fault of Joe's. Perhaps I shouldn't have run on the "case of Schlitz in every dorm fridge" platform.

Cross Country by Joe Webb

From the opening bars of Joe's arrangement of Fiddy's "In Da Club" you can hear the depth of thought that has gone into this record. It could have been just a novelty item, existing in the virtual space of the itunes record shelves somewhere between Wierd Al's ouevre and the twisted humour of bands such as Ludichrist but the sincerity in Joe's voice prevents any such classification. It's a bold move to open with this song, any one with a radio has heard this track since it's release in '03 and anyone with a brain has since grown tired of hearing Fiddy's half literate attempts to string two words together. Despite the source material this cover shines. The fiddle which underscores the lyrics sounds like it belongs in a Hank Williams song of remorse and sorrow and so it is a surprise to hear the bright vocals announcing where Joe and Fiddy can be found. Joe brings out the inherent simplicity in this song, reveling in it's nursery rhyme structure. It is due to the lightness of the melody that the lyric's meanings are brought to the fore.
In the next track Joe extends some "Southern Hospitality" to his listeners via Ludicris' '00 hit. Joe's melancholy voice is a delightful counterpoint to the boastful and arrogant lyrics.
Track three is Jermaine Dupri and JZ's "Money Ain't A Thing" dropped over an urgently picked bluegrass melody. You can hear the two rapper's trying to one up each other lyrically as Joe manages to cram the dense lyrics into three mintes and fourteen seconds (a minute shorter than the original).
Lil' Flip's '02 single, "The Way We Ball" is given the Webb treatment next as Joe snarls out the lyrics to this 3rd Coast anthem. I have to admit that I wasn't familiar with this track before this review and had to scramble to find it on youtube and am listening to the original as I write this so I don't have a lot of insight regarding Lil' Flip's intentions. Just know that you wil be humming Joe's version whenever you ball.
Every playah knows this next track, DMX's "Ruff Ryder's Anthem", originally dropped in 1998 over a faux Wu-Tang beat. Joe's lush arrangement calls attention to the anthemic qualities creating a footstomper that you won't be forgetting soon.
JZ's "I Just Wanna Love U" sounds so sweet under Joe's hand, like something you would play for your girl after you had a terrible fight about something. Careful you don't accidentally pop it into your next mixtape for your honey, the lyrics are raw but sound oh, so good.
Biggie's "Big Poppa" bounces next, Joe has removed all traces of the over sampled g-funk of the original and given us a new way to looka at the Notorious B.I.G.'s lyrical excellence. Joe has manged to remove all of the menace and anger from the track without even cracking a grin. If this is satire, then it is deadpan.

To sum up, Cross Country by Joe Webb is an excellent reimagining of some of the seminal moments in recent music history. It is available on itunes.

My God, it's full of WIN!

HORSE PORN

Music Roundup

I know it has been a long time since I published a music post but now is as good a time as any.

Mechanical Asparagus Project- As near as I can tell this is just one guy making lots of songs. I would say they are often ironic if his vocals didn't ooze sincerity. If I had to compare it to other music I would say that M.A.P. rocks the deadpan manner and sweet guitarings of the Violent Femmes combined with the dreamlike lyrics of Ween.

Ellmatic- Antique Fork Mix sixty eight minutes of songs with bizarre titles. A mix created for T' Nieuwe Werck.

The Death Set- I don't know what it is about these eighties sounding bands that gets my blood flowing but it sure sounds good.

Crystal Castles- More eighties tinged stuff. Tricked out Synth grooves.

Apes & Androids- If you ever wondered what would happen if Adamski produced a SuperTramp album you will frickin' love this band.

Well, that is it for now as I can't be bothered to track down any more links.

Meanwhile, in the Republic of Georgia

Sorry folks, technical difficulties with blogger's image upload. Just click here.

Oreo The Cat

... because i don't have enough cats on this blog ...

OverDrone Inhabits LiveJournal

Well, it finally happened, The OverDrone has infected yet another blogging tool. Now you can find examples of the OverDrone's work on LiveJournal. The reason I use LJ for the webcomic is the poor resolution Blogger has for pictures and images. Admittedly, LJ is kind of frustrating. The layouts are crap and I don't have enough css skills to truly own my page. If anyone wants to help me out in that respect, drop me a line. other critiques I have of my own work include:

• Paper: The paper I used for this first comic bled too much. That should be fixed by the next one.
  
• Word Bubbles: Too large and the writing is too spindly. again I should have that fixed by the next time.
  
• Black/white balance: just way too much white space. finding the right balance will take some time.
• Ratio: again this should be fixed soon.

In the meantime enjoy the first effort and anxiously await the next posting, ok? As soon as the lil' G story arc finishes I will be introducing recurring characters. If you are interested in my influences and where I want to take this strip go here to see the absolute master of political satire and parody. I think it is about time someone published a vicious political strip in America. and I have high hopes of offending everyone in this upcoming election season.

Too Black, Too Strong

Okay, I'll admit it, I first heard about the Obama cartoon through the radio. I used to subscribe to the New Yorker. Every weekend I would carry my copy with me everywhere I went. I would hold my copy just high enough so that the title was clearly visible while not obscuring my face. There I sat in the Wal-Mart parking lot, waiting for the wife to finish her shopping.
It was that same wife who brought me to my senses one day. Her bladder was full and she needed some reading material to get the pipes flowing.
"I thought you didn't read the New Yorker." I said in a snide voice clearly illustrating to all in range that I was the better person for being a reader of said magazine.
"I don't" She replied, "but it's perfect for reading on the toilet."
that was when the damask fell from my eyes. The edifice I had built in my head crumbled to rubble, I became aware for the first time of the sycophantic celebrity billionaire profiles, the so far behind the bleeding edge music coverage and Talk of the Town? Why should I care what that town is talking about? I live in Rockford, Illinois and sometimes I shop at Wal-Mart. There, I said it. Oh God, I feel so much better now, like an elephant has just stepped off my testicles.
Don't get me wrong folks, I still read Anthony Lane's movie reviews, Peter Schjeldahl's art columns and how could I turn my back on a mag that has both Spiegelman and Crumb scribbling in the margins. It's just that now I know that I am the scruffy bum standing outside the window of the shiny restaurant while well dressed couples make well phrased comments at my expense.
Despite all that, I had to see this cartoon that has caused such an uproar. You can see it above. From a magazine whose staff and readership are almost entirely white and upper middle class this is a bold statement. I have read around five years of this mag's recent publishing and this is the first black guy or girl I have ever seen in a cartoon. They did do a cover featuring a Hassidic Jew and a brown skinned woman kissing back in the nineties but this obama cartoon reminds me of aanother magazine altogether, a magazine that was in the bathroom of many homes in America before it stopped being funny. It was a magazine that often satirized presidential candidates and, unlike the New Yorker, also celebrities. It's mascot, much like Aloysius P. Thunderbum or whatever the top hatted fop is called, is a puzzled slightly sub normal young man named Alfred E. Newman. How sad that the New Yorker, whose previous role was to represent the lifestyle of a cloistered elite should be the magazine which manages to record forever the view from a million trailer park windows. Sadder than that even is that if you leave the isle of Manhattan, past Brooklyn and New Jersey you will find an obese nation who happen to believe that Barack Obama is a "musselman" and you want to know the worst part? I live there too.

Dead Mountain Gorilla

Just reposting some of my old art and sketches. The one above is based on that iconic image that has been making the rounds this past year. I was trying to capture the mass and strength of the gorilla, even in death. The original photo can be found here.
Messing about with Blogger's sluggish picture interface has finally convinced me to create another site to host my art. The layout is just too small for my needs. I will still post book reviews here and the occasional article but images will go somewhere else. Any suggestions from out in the internet as to where a good image hosting site is?

Origins Of Sock Monkey Shrouded in Mystery

It doesn't happen often in this modern age. No matter how small the notion, someone is willing to take credit for it. So, the mysterious origins of the sock monkey are all the more compelling due to the absence of facts. The sock monkey didn't just spring up, whole cloth, from the Earth, but there is no record of when the first one was made.
"I never had one as a child." says Barbara Gerry, "The first one I saw was in 1951, when my father gave one to my firstborn." And if anyone would know it would be her. Barbara Gerry is the direct ancestor of John Nelson, the man who invented the seamless sock knitting machine in 1873. After selling the machines for some time the family began making socks as well with that distinctive two color burl. They were working socks, made for farmers and factory workers who stood all day long.
As for the sock monkey, well, some speculate that it evolved from a type of sock doll that resembles a harlequin, examples have been seen but as Dan Bartlett, Curator of Exhibits for Midway Village museum center stresses, there could not be a doll with the distinctive red lips and rear end before 1932.
That's because the red heel was an addition made in that year, on the suggestion of Howard Monk, a local adman. The red heel was a signature of the socks made by Forest City Knitting, the company formed by the Nelson family after they left Nelson knitting.
Although we know the year that the red heel came into being there is no record of the sock monkey's existence before the late forties. Most sock monkeys date from either the fifties or the seventies. Two decades when homespun crafts were very popular. This reporter remembers his own sock monkey from the seventies, It's rhinestone eyes and ambiguous smile played a large part in the play times of my youth.
That's another curious thing about the sock monkey. Unlike many dolls and handicrafts, the sock monkey transcends gender. This weekend at the Midway Village Museum Center, I watched as boys and girls sat at tables and assembled sock monkeys. Young men, who so often scorn a traditionally female pastime like sewing, industriously stitched monkey parts. In previous years at the sock monkey festival I have seen college students show up with their sock monkeys, proudly displaying their handiwork. Another mystery, what is this hold the sock monkey has on our imagination?
"I think it has something to do with their origins, they are homemade, each one is unique." Says Doc Slafkosky, who runs the Kortman Gallery with his partner Jerry Kortman. "My grandmother's friend made mine when I was a child. Winifred Peterson, that was her name."
I should probably mention that the Kortman Gallery offers quite a few sock monkey products. "The sock monkey is in the public domain." Says Doc. "We have a T-Shirt with our own sock monkey on it. It's very popular, but anyone can make a sock monkey item and I think that's part of it's appeal. It's an example of American ingenuity and a Rockford original."
There is that too. As a child in Boise Idaho, thousands of miles from Rockford Illinois, this reporter had a sock monkey. Other thirty-somethings from around the country also remember their sock monkeys fondly. Despite it's local origins, the sock monkey has achieved a ubiquity which supercedes it's humble beginnings.
That was apparent when I walked into the Midway Village Museum Center on March eighth. Families filled the special events hall and sock monkey parts sprawled across tables.
"For the four years we've held the festival, we get about six hundred people each day." Says Jessica McDonald, Special Events Coordinator for Midway Village. "It's our biggest special event."
Jessica collects vintage monkeys, preferably from the fifties. "When I look at a sock monkey I think about the person who made it." I ask her if there's any way to trace the monkeys, if they have a provenance. "There's no provenance on most sock monkeys. I know of one women who collected sock monkeys with a distinctive multi colored pom-pom on their hats. She finally traced them back to one church group in Iowa who used that multicolored yarn but usually there is no way to find the creator of the monkey."
In the four years since the first festival there has been something of a sock monkey renaissance in Rockford Illinois. Large fiberglass sock monkeys decorated by local artists stand at the main thoroughfares. It's hard to say what effect this has had on this blue collar city on the Rock river but it's clear that some Rockfordians have embraced their inner sock monkey. And then there's the curious case of Neslon.
Nelson is a seven foot tall sock monkey, made from one very large, specially commissioned sock. As of today, Nelson is the largest known sock monkey in existence. He is also, putatively, the most well traveled. Nelson has flown standby from Rockford's airport to various places. Nelson's button eyes have reflected the splendor of the Grand Canyon and the stately grandeur of the capitol steps in Washington D.C.. Nelson has even appeared on the Today show in New York City.
But that's just one monkey, Barbara Gerry has been making monkeys and finding homes for them among the political elite. Barack Obama has one of her monkeys but whatever happens in November it won't be the first sock monkey in the White House. Jenna Bush and the president himself have examples of her handicraft. With a monkey in the White House you would think that the sock monkey’s ambitions might be sated, but no, as I spoke with Barbara I was introduced to a Japanese woman who was filming her. She had plans to take the sock monkey across the Pacific to the land of the Rising Sun.
Forest City Knitting eventually merged with Nelson Knitting and as demand for the work sock declined they turned to making athletic socks. Now the sock is produced almost exclusively for the construction of sock monkeys. No one knows who made that first sock monkey but their handiwork lives on, on the shelves and in the closets of all kinds of Americans. Their origins might be a mystery but their appeal is apparent to all.
Midway Village Museum at 6799 Guilford Road, Rockford Illinois, holds the annual Sock Monkey Festival in early March. They can be reached via the internet, at www.midwayvillage.com or by phone (815) 397-9112.
The Kortman Gallery at 107 N. Main, Rockford, Illinois, offers sock monkey products all year round. They can be reached at (815) 968 0123.

Note: this piece was written in the hopes of selling it to a travel magazine. As you might have guessed, I didn't sell the piece. Not only that, but I didn't hear from the editor at all. Oh well, that is what I get for trawling Craigslist for jobs. If you want more info on the sock monkey, you can contact me in the comments.

Knockemstiff by Donald Ray Pollack

IT's hard not to compare Donald Ray Pollack's Knockemstiff to an earlier work from a less rusted era. Oh, I'm sure there were rusted hulks back in Sherwood Anderson's day, maybe a picnic pavilion went unpainted a season or two to the eternal embarrasment of some long forgotten marching band but not a single denizen of Winesburg ever unloaded in an alley or overdosed on Anabolic steroids.
You can ascribe it to a general coursening of our culture or blame the education system but you won't be able to put this book down regardless of it's rough edges. The stories are short and satisfying, the characters remarkably lifelike (in fact I think some of them lived next door to me) and unlike so many other midwestern tales of despair, there is no salvation. The final story returns to the lives of the family in the first, thirty years later. The boy is now a man, dried out and off the sauce but you won't find any Nicholas Sparks type of revelation here, just the long shuffle towards death.
Read it now so that you can say that you did twenty years from now, when this book will be used in College classrooms across the country as a primer on twentieth century mores.
Knockemstiff, Ohio actual photos

Despair

Two Books I Read

I know, I know, it has been almost two weeks since I posted, what do you want me to say? I'm not sorry, not at all. The fact is I have to deal with things in the non virtual world and the thought of combing the Internet to find something halfway interesting to post about just doesn't excite me. In away I blame the weather. Here in NW Illinois we have had foot after foot of snow in the last month and I have been shoveling like a madman. Currently, when I go outside I am surrounded by a blank white covering over the world. The almost constant cloud cover further stifles my mindset and makes me prone to solipsism. (How do I know that you are even out there reading this, that you are not just some construct I have made to keep myself company?) When the skies clear and my horizon widens again I am sure I will give a shit about what robots are doing in Japan but right now my world has contracted. I've read probably a book a day in the last month, some things I would never have picked in better weather. About all I have used the Internet for is music acquisition mostly here and here. All of this thinking has caused me to reconsider my posting strategy as well. My feeling is that I shouldn't be simply passing on tidbits and links, those are important but there should be some depth as well. Partly this is due to my admitting to myself that this blog is not going to make money. I don't even know why I still have ad sense on here, I probably owe google money.
But enough about my seasonal affective disorder, I haven't posted in a long while. Today I'll review two diaries. The first is SnakePit My Life in a Jugular Vein by Ben Snakepit and the second is 365 Days by Julie Doucet. Snakepit covers three years, highlights from Ben SnakePit's day are documented in a three panel format. As he says himself, he really can't draw but the simple lines reinforce the repetition inherent in his formula. Often pages will go by with him working, getting stoned, being broke, eating burritos and so on. This is broken up by occasional tours. He is so right about Rockford, it is a shitty place.
I for one am impressed that he manages to concentrate his days into three sections. If I were to attempt such a thing it would go something like this....and that's just before noon.
Highlights include the part where he gets scabies and there is a hilarious panel where his friend calls him out because he draws himself thinner than he actually is. In his defense he does begin to lay a little more ink around his midsection. What makes this work all the sweeter is the CD with track listing by date.
I first read Julie Doucet in her excellent Dirty Plotte more than a decade ago. She has always done surreally autobigraphical work and this is no exception. Doucet misses days and sometimes weeks and the days are often separated by decorative borders or collage elements. Of the two books this one is more self consciously artistic. Because of her past work I tend to forgive her for anything (really, anything) but she seems put out about having to make the journal at all. Despite that it is still easy to get lost in her lines and when she feels like it the intimacy she has always brought to her autobiographical stuff is there.

[adult swim] | The Venture Brothers

Well, yesterday the temperature rose to a whopping 33 degrees, that's right, one degree above freezing. The sun was shining so I took my camera and my dog to the banks of the mighty Kishwaukee River. Pictures follow.



When I'm not walking large dogs I'm wondering if I will ever see the second season of the Venture Brothers. I know I know, I should have watched adult swim more often but that would have meant experiencing the excrecable Squidbillies and the moribund Aqua Teen. Anyway, The Venture Brothers is possibly the finest cartoon to come out of North America since Futurama ended.
The Venture Brothers

Where I've Been

Sorry about the chronic absenteeism lately here at The OverDrone but I have been wrestling with new soft and hard-ware. To illustrate my point let me show you two pictures. The first is an acrylic piece I did on a wood panel.
The second is an attempt at using Corel's paint program with a tablet.
You can see the difference, right? It is like I have no sense of digital values. It is embarrassing to me and I must work to rectify it. If that means less computer time blogging than so be it.
To make it up to my regular readers (all five of you) might I recommend these two mix tapes?

The first mix is another quality offering from those dutch boys over at T'Nieuwe Werck. The second is a mix by Justice, it is known as the "rejected fabric mix" and contains quite a few obscure bits and pieces. Just follow this link.
Well I hope that explains where I've been. See you soon.

Blogito Ergo Sum

So Yeah, I have been off net lately. I am still breathing, just not blogging. I will continue to post weekly until I have time to spend online. Please watch this video of this awesome song from CSS and come back real soon..
Let's Make Love and Listen to DFA

Rough Sky

Sorry about my recent cyber-absence. I have been involved in real world stuff fecently. My computer time has been spent mastering new tools. Above is a rough for a landscape I've been working on. Posting will be slow for some time.