Worst case Scenario

I can't believe how bad this has gotten in New Orleans and the surrounding area. Out family that is with us is now homeless. I don't know how I feel about having transients in my house.

These sites are good for info as they are home grown and have a huge vested interest in the area (vs. CNN and otherwise) We have spent hours watching video and trying to find good info (especially about Slidell.)

NOLA.com
wwltv.com
wdsu.com

I always knew that a hurricane of this force would be bad, but I guess one never really knows about anything until it happens. Still, statistically this type of scenario was behind schedule, and why didn't they prepare better? The stories of no plumbing and electricity and rampant rape and even death in the Superdome, the supposed salvation area, is almost as bad as outside, where they are passing up "floaters" for huge amount of people in attics and on roofs. For the people who said that Blindness was "unrealistic" read the stories and look at the pictures. Even in the face of such giant tragedy as this, probably especially in tragedy like this, people get even uglier than normal. I.E. A cop was shot in the head by a looter. A nursing home in the ninth ward with hundreds of old people trapped inside and dead. Over twenty reported rapes in the Superdome. A suicide. A budding gang war. People shitting anywhere and everywhere because there is no plumbing anyway and the bathrooms are already overflowing. It is an incredibly ugly situation. I hope that it doesn't get too much worse.

Das Narrenshiff

People are going to die if this is correct. Lots of people. Or maybe it needs to be put into terms the insurance companies can understand - Billions and billions and billions of dollars worth of damage.

Marigold's family all crashed on our floor last night. They choose our fine community as their place to ride out the storm. Luckily for Marigold and I, they will be staying at the Army base for the next two days instead of in our tiny apartment. In a way, I am very happy that they are here, because I finally got to meet my new niece, Mei, and hang out with my other favorite niece and nephew.

I sure hope that this hurricane turns out like every other one from the last few years, and dies off at the last minute or turns away from New Orleans. Not that I wish death on Mobile or any other place, but New Orleans is a death trap. I'm glad I don't live there anymore, but feel sad for those that do. Especially the poor people who can't afford to evacuate, or don't have transportation, or decided to leave too late (by now is too late with all the traffic).

JohnBoy and Miracle Whip

JohnBoy was all-American. He wore jeans. His t-shirts all had big logos. He only shaved with his electric long hair trimmer, leaving a permanent shadow on his face when it wasn't a scraggly half-beard. He never wore a watch.

He went to Art School.

Miracle Whip was Austrian. His accent was as cliche as can be. He smoked like a true European - without guilt. He drank Bud, or Coors, and not just to fit in. He never heard of O.J. Simpson, but he knows Pat Robertson.

He is best friends with JohnBoy.

JohnBoy and Miracle Whip are never seen far from each other when going out. They frequent the same bars, the same restaurants. They go on double dates with each other. When they go on dates. JohnBoy likes Asian girls. Miracle Whip likes blondes.

Tonight JohnBoy and Miracle Whip have found their way into the thumping Monkey Room, a place to pick up experienced ladies if there ever was on. At least in this two barn town. While leering at the goods JohnBoy and Miracle Whip sipped on their Black Russians, stirred.

The music elevated to an ear-piercing, heart-shaking, roof-raising, toe-taping, butt-hugging, glass-braking, belt-loosening, sweat-inducing wail as JohnBoy and Miracle Whip honed in on their target - a graying Japanese lady getting down in the far corner. She was beautiful. She smelled faintly of sausage.

"I'll take the right." JohnBoy winked.

"And I'll take the wrong." Miracle Whip said as they stepped out into the swirling lights and fog.

A Young Man in School

There was a Young Man in School.
He paid through his nose
For things he could suppose
Made him more of a fool.
That tired Young Man in School.

I should do a "card" of that one for a self portrait, maybe in the next few weeks. WHICH I HAVE OFF! I am very happy that this is the last week of school, and like always, I somehow pulled through.

This was the last real Edward Lear limerick that I did, and I think one of the best so far, but I had planned to get at least one more in. I have nine completed, and ten would make a much better number (out of the 112 limericks there are). I plan on sending out promo packages to publishers in the next weeks as well. Hopefully, that might turn into some actual jobs and clients. I would love to add a beefy Client's List to my website.

Really though, I am already looking forward to next quarter. I will be taking two classes under Professor Krepel. He is a fantastic illustrator and teacher.

Read, Read, Read

Despite being really busy, or perhaps because of it, I have been reading like a bandit lately. In the past four weeks I have read three books and am half way through my forth. These are all escape books. Harry Potter, Beggars In Spain, Snow Crash, and A New Spring. All are easy to read fantasy or sci-fi. I guess I am still a dork deep down. When I need an easy time-filling entertainment, I almost always go back to this type of book. I am a little ashamed of it. Why couldn't I be one of those people that reads and rereads the classics rather than this derivative crap? Also, I have so many books that I really want to read.

Beggars In Spain wasn't one of them. It just happened to be sitting in the hallway when my neighbors moved out. Still, like all decent to good sci-fi, it set off some interesting thought patterns. This one about genetic modification and sleeplessness and all the social and cultural implications this might have on us.

Snow Crash was better, although. It went on through the power of language and viruses (social and otherwise) and the knowledge of the ancient Sumerians. Like DaVinci Code, once you cut through the bad macho genre crap it serves as a good introduction to some really interesting theories on how our brains function and how certain historical figures have exploited it.

A New Spring is just another Robert Jordan stab at riches. It isn't as bad as some of the latest Wheel of Time books - it only wastes about a third of its pages (I often skim) rather than 80 to 90 percent. Supposedly, Knife of Dreams - coming out really soon, will be the second to last book. I guess I will have to read it at this point, but I won't like it. I won't pay for it, in any case. Why even read them if they are so bad? You ask. It's like watching reality TV for me - It is in my face and I have little self-control. Seriously, I don't plan on reading these collections of poop (once great - read the first four), but I am too well connected in the world of dorkdumb.

The next book I read will be something more classic and intellectual, like this.

The New Brand New Dot Com!

Hey! Thanks to Marigold's vigilant assistance SteveHaske.com is up again! There she is bullying the seeming behemoth into majestic flight. You can easily enjoy grand displays of illustrative fortitude by simple typing www.stevehaske.com into your very own URL bar! Or, for your convience, you can click here! I plan on updating it again soon, when I have even more fantastic illustrations of fantastic illustrations!

Easy Come Easy Go

My bike was stolen yesterday. That'll teach me to lean it against the front of my house and walk ten feet away to clean up some of the garbage cans for two minutes. It sucks when all your fears of your neighbors comes true. My trust in humanity as been taken down one more notch. When people bitch about how tough their life is, I will have that much less sympathy for them because for all I know they are the a-hole that stole my bike. This person probably felt justified in stealing my bike. They probably felt that I could just as easily buy another, and anyway I got it and all my other high-class possessions through my vast white privilege. They would be right. I'm sorry about that. I probably do have better connections than this bicycle thief. I got it from my neighbor who was moving out - for free. But I really needed that bike. Now I have to walk forty minutes to class every day (only for the next two weeks though). I just did my checkbook and tuition is due soon. I can't go out and buy another bike. Besides I don't really want a new one right now. What are you, Mr. Bike Thief, going to do with it? Will you sell it for ten dollars? You don't really need a bike to get around, or you wouldn't have either waited for weeks for me to screw up and turn my back or have seen the bike while walking by and took advantage of the opportunity. Maybe you will use that ten dollars to buy baby formula for your kid. Or maybe a small hit of crack. Good for you either way.

Anyway, thus ends my bicycle chronicles. I shouldn't bitch about it either. It wasn't that big of a loss. Maybe I can learn a lesson out of this - not only to look at other people with suspicion, but to look at my possessions with a grain of salt. They are only things.

Space Race

What's with all the over coverage of the Shuttle Discovery and every nuance of its mission and landing? I know that this is NASA first time back on the wagon, but reporters are acting like this is some kind of ex-sports star's murder trail. I think that since the last shuttle blew up, space missions have gained an air of edgy danger, at least to us shmuks. We never care about much unless there is some pyrotechnics. So space has become a new sport. Say goodbye NASCAR. What is a car, super charged as it is with Nitro, blowing up compared to a whole god damned (literally) shuttle! Now that's excitement. If NASA pulls off more clean landings like the one they did this morning, us shmucks will wander away. There are better things to watch than perfectly planned and executed, multi-million dollar technical coordination. So I think NASA should mess up every now and then, just to keep their audience. I'm not talking death (although that really helps), but missing bolts, torn fabric, cracked windshields. Now that's TV!

March of the Penguins

What is cuter than a penguin? How about a baby penguin?

Inversely, what is sadder than a dead baby penguin?

I highly recommend this movie (documentary? Not really, but kind of) to anybody, but probably not to young kids. It is beautiful both visually and storywise. I can't say enough about it, so I won't try. Just see it.

One Good Turn

Our car battery died yesterday. This is fine. It happens, and we are lucky that it happened in a good place - a movie parking lot. Someone gave us a jump and we were off to the local, friendly Wal-Mart for a replacement. I thought, "This is going to take half an hour." It took five minutes to get the right battery (only thirty dollars) and a cheap pair of pliers for the nuts. Pop the hood and remove nut number one on the bracket holding the dead battery in. Only two nuts to go and then we can go home and eat boiled turkey necks and pig's feet! But wait a minute. Those silly little nuts are really pretty buried. And they are tight. And my hands are now blistered and burned. And bleeding. And it's an hour later. And it's raining. And both nuts are little less hexagonal and a little more round. And the car still won't start. And it's getting dark now.

Luckily a good samaritan saw us in the parking lot. Or heard me scream, maybe. Anyway he went home ("just around the corner") and brought back a big ratchet set and we were able to work out that the nuts were 8mm and even with the ratchet very difficult to remove. But we did it, and the car started up fine with the new battery. We were happy if a bit greasy and stained and frustrated. With all the grease and blood on my hands and face and shirt you'd think that I replaced the whole engine in that car.

In conclusion - engineers, as intelligent as you might be and as good a functioning design as you might make, don't be dumb. Unless your product is never going to need any part replacement you need to design in PEOPLE. If I need to remove the steering column to get to the spare tire it's not good design. In my case, a simple solution would have saved you reading this - wingnuts.

Serene

A group of us grad students got together the other night to talk about starting up a Coalition of the Willing. It is supposed to focus on gathering resources for freelance illustration so that we can officially lean on each other. We would send out samples, represent each other at conferences, pass on good tips, etc. etc. Everyone loved the idea, including me. The only snag is we can't come up with a name that everybody can live with and that has an open URL. There were several options that had majority votes, but one person would have a violent veto. Yep, we have the problem of too many people involved. I say someone, maybe me (but I don't want the responsibility of supreme leadership), should make an executive decision and anybody not in agreeance can just go and make their own society. Anyway, I am already starting to fizzle on the whole thing if we don't do something proactive soon. Repless Abandon is exactly what we want to do with a key difference - they are from Sheridon College and we are from SCAD.

It all reminds me of being in Jr. High and High School and spending hours coming up with great band names but not having the talent or drive enough to pull together any songs. Like the seminal intelligent rock super group - SquareNut! Or hard grinding grrrl punk band Princess Die!

What I am saying is - the ass is on the wrong neck.

Painting The Nakeds

I know that this isn't a quote blog or anything as stupid as that, but here's a song quote that I really like from Mr. Jim White -

"Dreams are just prayers without the put-on airs." from The Girl From Brownsville Texas



I gots to go to this building all the way on the under-the-bridge side of town for figure painting class. I hate riding my bike there. It takes a while, there are no safe bike lanes, and packing large canvases and palettes is clumsy. This is one of the very bad things about SCAD. With all the various disciplines split up all over town, one class might be five or thirty minutes away. I moved to Savannah knowing which building I would most be in - the Illustration one - and am conveniently close to that. But Alexander, and many other building that otherwise would be useful to me like the library, are pretty much out-of-bounds for me. This is the one and only class I will have taken in Alexander in my time at SCAD.

I do really like the bridge flying over it, although. The river is just behind the building and sometimes really large tankers park there. I keep meaning to kill lots of time crawling around with my camera back there. Also, there are the old pilings from the previous, smaller bridge that are still standing. I love that they span up into the air, supporting . . . nothing. There is something philosophical in that, but I wouldn't know what it is. It would be great to build or move a suburban-style house so that it perches on the piling in the air like those really tall bird houses. Do I have to draw it out for you? Yes. Future project logged.

Vroom Vroom Internet!

This last weekend was "No Tax Weekend" for Georgia. For all items relating to going back to school the Man takes nothin! So we headed out to look at computers. Of course, we knew that we would buy one, so we did. You see, I needed a new computer. All of my new illustrations require heavy computer involvement and the old clunker, great as she has been for the last four years, just couldn't handle the photoshop files. Here is an example:



These are multi-layered, 7in. x 10in., 400dpi suckers and I just couldn't deal with minute length edits. The limerick is one of Edward Lear's Nonsense poems. I am doing a series of cards with the limericks on the back (all red and white like playing cards) and a relating image on the front.
The Lear Limericks are perfect for me because they are silly and friendly and still surprisingly dark. I hope to get at least ten done this summer and then send some sample out to publishers. They could be used as educational Old Maid cards, or just a plain fun reading.

Oh yeah! And we now have two computers connected to the internet! So Marigold and I can both download our own separate porn without waiting on each other.