The Red King Syndrome

I've had the last couple days off of work and have spent them relaxing, somewhat.
I have been painting a jungle for a book. Not a published book, mind you. Soon to be published would be more accurate.

Or "soon to be e-published"

Not long ago, my friend Mike and I decided, why not take Mike's vast stock of poems (and he makes GOOD poems) and try to get them published? And why not publish them via a website specifically for publishing books?

I've had a Lulu.com account for years now and have not done anything with it. My dustbunnies comic book is still unreleased, and may never be. And my monster book remains far too short to be really worth publishing. Who wants a 9 page book that isn't a graphic novel? I thought so.

The problem with the monster book is that it isn't really anything. It's a book full of monster drawings in various mediums. The kind of things even the blandest retail sketchbook you could grab at a comic convention would probably contain.

It's just another project on the backburner. When it comes to backburner projects, Mike's poem book has always been a priority because Mike is probably clinically mentally damaged in some form, but noone knows of the great poems he makes every month or so.
So the whole gist of this book we're working on is that it's a makeshift compendium of his best old poems, new poems, and perhaps some nooone has read yet. And accompanying each poem would be an illustration made by myself.
We'd always been planning on doing this, but it came to fruition finally. One illustration for one of the poems is done already, and here's a wee version of it here:


The book will be called "Reverberations" and hopefully will be done soon.
The title came to us at the local Diner after we had wandered the hollows of Ybor city and smoked a couple of nice hand-rolled cuban cigars. Ybor is home to some Kings of cigar-making. There's something very calming about a cigar. 6 bucks for a tube of leaves.
Anyway, off subject.
At first we tried to come up with titles just by looking for odd words used in media we could see around us. At first I tried picking words out of Reax (a very good local Tampa music magazine), and we thought "why not the word CONTEXT" since it means and implies so many things?
Then I looked on the back of a ketchup bottle.
"Preservatives"
"Artificial"
But both words seem to go against the whole point of a book of poems.
We started fiddling with other terms like "Starscraper" "Mindscraper" and other vaguely science fiction terminologies.
And eventually Mike decided Reverberations and so that will be the official title.


As I've said before, wandering Ybor city is a fascinating experience. The whole locale seems to change entirely depending on what day you happen to be there. Centro Ybor is basically one large road chock full of traffic. On either side are dozens upon dozens of night clubs, bars, delis, art galleries, specialty stores, cigar makers, and restaurants. In the middle of Centro Ybor is an odd cross road where the trolleys used to go by. In this crossroad is Sidesplitters, a comedy club that lots of comedians perform at. I've never been inside but I've heard good things. Tampa Digital Studios is also there. Other than some local art shows, galleries and a few commercials, I am still kinda unclear as to what they do. I've pondered walking in, but I dont think its really open to the public.
At the end of this sideroad is another sideroad that leads up some stairs to a movie theater. Bars surround it. And underneath the bars is a restaurant called Fresh Mouth Burgers. I think it's the only part of Centro Ybor that's been here since the beginning. It's adorned with some very frightening arc deco paintings of doll people with HUMONGOUS mouthes. But damn, their burgers are good.
If you choose to go DOWN the sideroad of this area, you will find yourself facing a dimly lit road leading to some unnerving skyscrapers and a Gameworks. Gameworks is like Chuck E Cheese for grown-ups. It has a eatery inside, a couple of full liquor bars, and arcade and video games all over the place.

If you go the opposite way you pass a bunch of pubs and bars and other places and eventually a place called...aw man. I think it's called the Czar? I dunno. It's a weird fancy little dance club / bar all adorned and styled after communist propaganda posters.

Boy this blog post is even less interesting than the rest of the drivel I write here.

MOVING ON

Apparently a new trailer for The Dark Knight premiered at a comic convention. It's set to debut to the public in a couple of weeks.
edit:
apparently I am several days late.
here: New Trailer here in a few days.


Cloverfield is out tomorrow. We get to wear Slusho shirts at work. It's amusing to look back on it. All the crazy theories and crazy websites and crazy mysteries surrounding the film. The photos, the mirrored movie posters, the conspiracy theories, lovecraftian rumors, viral websites.
Some even going so far as to research the film every day vigorously, and then to report their findings every night via webcam. God, the podcasts. The podcasts.
Every night. Me and Mrat raping google of its goods for leaked pictures of the mysterious "thing" in Cloverfield

The movie comes out. And whoop-dee-doo it's your usual run-of-the-mill Monster movie. Entertaining? Yes. Revolutionary? Nope. The American's Godzilla (as it was hyped)? ahahhaha oh no. Considering the only character anyone cared about, Hud, got eaten while the two whiney self-righteous protagonists get to be the spotlight of the end of the film and they wept bitterly into the very hardy digital camera.
Too much Blair Witch. Not enough Starship Troopers.
I will still recommend the film, of course, cause its a fun waste of 2 hours.
But not fun enough for me to not skip the first half hour of the movie should I see it again.
At least it's tame enough to watch at work. Spoil it for everybody. Mwa-ha-ha etc.

And now I have to pee.

edit 2:

UPDATE
I scribbled this silly guy the other night.

keep in mind i scribbled this in like 15 minutes. He's missing a thumb. And something is wrong with his shoulders.