Radiant Comics

I finally did it. I finally loaded iTunes up with all of the album art to accompany my MP3s. It took quite a bit of my spare time this week but done is done. I never bothered with album art before because I just didn’t care. The art was decoration and not very good decoration when displayed low res and tiny. I always looked at the song or album titles anyway so I saw no point in spending any time loading album art.

What changed my mind? It started with Cover Flow. A stand alone application that emulates visually flipping through a stack of albums. It’s cool. For all of us old timers who still remember LPs and and still like to listen to albums rather than shuffle all of the time it is a wonderfully intuitive tool. Cover Flow also has a robust auto tool for finding album art. It found about 80% of my cover art automatically. I have a pretty eclectic music collection so that’s an impressive percentage. Cover Flow also has an easy to use feature (just option click) that automatically does a Google image or Amazon search for the album art. I was able to load the rest of my album art in a relatively short amount of time. All in all the program got high marks from me.

So there I was using Cover Flow and guess what happened? Apple bought Cover Flow and integrated it into iTunes. “Cool beans”, I thought as I tried out the latest version of iTunes. But there were some problems. Of course the integrated version used iTunes’ stockpile of covers and not Cover Flow’s. If there is an easy way to use Cover Flow’s stockpile of pics I don’t know about it. Selecting an album and then navigating to the proper artwork located on my hard drive is okay for a few albums but a few hundred? No way. The auto find in iTunes only found about 20% of my album art. Too low a percentage to do me any good. In addition I’ve always found the little add on programs that find album art for iTunes too time consuming also. My MP3s come from my CDs and not the iTunes music store. Hence I’ve never had album art loaded.

The final motivating factor was this week’s iPhone introduction from Apple. I’m not much of a cell phone guy but one line by Steve Jobs caught my attention. He said it would have the best photo viewing software ever. That is what I have been waiting for. Last year I digitized all of my 35 mm negatives. Thousands of them. I spent far more time on that then I ever could loading album art. I have all the files named with who is in the photo and all in folders labeled by time and place. It’s a great system for my desktop or laptop but I’ve been wishing for a small portable photo album that I could carry all the time. I’m a dreamer. The current iPod photo and all other portable media players I’ve seen just don’t cut it. The iPhone sure seems to cut it. I don’t actually want an iPhone I want the widescreen iPod (should be cheaper) that should follow.

Watching the demo of the iPhone lead me to a conclusion. Pretty soon it will be real easy to chose digital music visually. On any device. What was once just decoration to go along with the hyperlink text will now replace the text as the primary user interface. That’s why I decided to load up all of the album artwork.

The automatic iTunes art finder seemed to work a little better when I chose individual albums rather than run it universally. I also used the stand alone Cover Flow to cut and paste from. This seemed the fastest way to do things but it still took a while. It’s a good thing I find it fun to organize things. Now I am ready for the future.

Ahhhh — another blog about my love of words:

I was listening to a show the other day and one person was making fun of another for not knowing how to type. That made me stop and think. Not only because I “don’t know how to type” but because “Do you know how to type?” is an interesting phrase. It has always been that when someone asked you that question he meant “can you operate a typewriter and type quickly in a professional manner?”. Not many other common phrases are as tied to professionalism. It was almost unique in this way. When someone asks you, “Do you know how to drive?” he’s just asking if you can operate a motor vehicle. He don’t want to know if you are good enough to drive professionally. Do you know how to play football? Can you swim? Do you know how to cook? Can you play the violin? None of these have a professional connotation.

It takes some skill and practice to operate a typewriter. I’m not talking about how fast one can type; that’s a skill all on its own that remains nearly the same today on a computer. I talking about lining up the paper, knowing when to use the carriage return, single spacing, double spacing, hyphenating, and lining up the paper again if you happen to pull it out. I always found that last one impossible. I had to use a typewriter back in high school and it was tricky. When a teacher said a paper had to be typewritten there was usually a groan from the class. Why did we waste all that time learning to write in script anyway? They now wanted us to type. Easier on the teachers I figure.

First thing you needed was access to a typewriter. Believe me not every family had one. If yours didn’t than a pain in the ass became a big pain in the ass. My family got one while I was in high school so I was luckier than some. Then typing paper had to be found; no other paper would do. Typing paper was always one of those things that got put in a closet and forgotten about. So typing always began with a search. After that margins and spacing had to be set and heaven help you if you made a mistake. The page had to be typed again. White out was forbidden on some papers but not others. It was always best not to use it. I still hate using a typewriter and I haven’t touched one since high school. There is nothing romantic about it for me.

Nowadays nobody asks if you know how to type. After all everybody knows how to type. You punch a key and the letter comes up on the computer screen. You can move it right or left, change its size or color, make it any style font you have or delete it with the touch of a button. Carriage return, what’s that? The line just drops down to the next one when it’s filled up. Margins? Drag and drop. It’s easy to type. Look! Even I can do it now. I wonder how many of today’s high schoolers have ever been asked that phrase? Somebody may ask if you know “Word” or how many words a minute you type but “Do you Know how to type?” is almost extinct from our common language. I think that’s because typing is now done by everyone on a general machine (a computer) as opposed to a specialty one (the typewriter). Things just change.

Ideas can be ephemeral things. That’s why I write them down. Only sometimes I don’t. I had an idea this afternoon for something I wanted to write about. I was lazy and didn’t jot it down. Now I have no idea what it was. To be sure it was just a small thing. Nothing earth shattering. No, it wasn’t some insight into life that would have made all of existence easier. It was just some small bit of the world that interested me that maybe I had something original to say about. Now it’s gone and it makes me a little sad.

I usually am good about writing things down. I carry a little notebook in my back pocket for just that purpose. It’s not filled up with a ton of glorious ideas or anything; as a matter of fact one of those small notebooks lasts me years. I’m usually near some handy paper or my laptop so I don’t need it often. The notebook is really just for when I’m out and about and something strikes me as noteworthy. Today I was really lazy about writing that idea down.

Another thing I do is keep a tape recorder near my bed because ideas for stories and such used to come to me as I lay down to sleep. I never wanted to get up again to write them down and nine times out of ten would forget them in the morning. So I went out and bought a small tape recorder. I used it for a couple of years but I found the whole process annoying. Talking to myself in bed and then having to listen back and make sense of it the next day was a way too inefficient for me. Maybe that’s why I don’t get as many ideas before I go to bed as I used to.

I recommend the little 69¢ notebook to everyone. It was six or seven years ago that I started carrying one. I was deciding whether or not to get a PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) or some such to help me keep track of things and write down ideas on the go. I had some crazy idea that a PDA would be a great gizmo. Except they were about five hundred bucks at the time. That seemed a bit to steep for writing down notes. That’s when I decided to give the 69¢ notebook a try. Since it spends most of its life in my back pocket the first thing I do is reenforce the covers with some tape. This keeps them from ripping off of the spiral. After that you don’t even have to think about it. It’s always there. The pen is the only tricky part. I have to remember to carry one. I don’t always remember to but usually I can find one. I have never regretted my decision not to get a PDA. It wouldn’t have done much for me anyway. After all, I don’t need spreadsheets or email on the go.

Still, laziness can get the better of any good idea. I can still remember, I was standing over at my desktop Mac when I had the idea. I thought to myself, “Wow, that’s not to bad. I should write that down so I don’t forget”. Then I got lazy thinking, “I don’t have to write that down. I’ll just write about it later. I won’t forget”. Then I forgot. Missed opportunity. No one likes one of those.

Oh, by the way, “Subtle Matter” is what early Christian philosophers thought that angels were made of. What that title has to do with the subject of this piece is anyone’s guess. Sometimes I just free associate.

Sometime about seven years ago I started doing most of my preliminary drawings, my “idea generating” drawings, in ink rather that in pencil. Prelim drawings are the sketches that aren’t meant to be seen by people. The stage where making the drawing pretty and presentable shouldn’t be a priority. But priorities can get mixed up.

One of the problems with being a young artist, as I was in the decade or so before I switched to ink, is that you want everything to be presentable. As a young artist there is a lot to learn and a lot of insecurity. So you try to make everything as great as you possibly can. You judge yourself and expect to be judged on every stage of your artwork. This leads to spending an inordinate amount of time on getting a hand just right in a prelim drawing when you should be spending the time getting the entirety of the idea right. The hand’s time will come later so you shouldn’t be sweating it now. The hand could change entirely by the time the idea is completed so there is the potential for a lot of time to be wasted. And I sure wasted a lot of time like that. As did plenty of others. What can I say? It’s a tough stage.

Drawing the preliminary sketches in ink and not pencil means that I can’t erase. This is a good thing. It means I can’t noodle away at some small aspect of the drawing and then erase and draw it over and over again. Instead I work at the general idea of the drawing, the big gestures and meanings, saving the craftsmanship for later. This way I can also work on getting as many ideas down on paper as possible. Where I used to get hung up on one thing I can now work on twelve things and choose the one I want to make into a finished piece later. Freedom from the eraser is liberating.

I’m also a tool guy. I have a ton of different pencils and pens plus plenty of specialty tools that I use for only certain occasions. I’ve used different basic pencils, pens and brushes over the years but generally find ones that suit me and stick with them for a while. I am always on the lookout for new black markers to try out and use for my prelim drawings. In that spirit I just purchased one of those new Sharpie retractible click pens. It’s like a ball point pen. When you click the button on the end and the point retracts. Like most markers I try I didn’t like this one too much. It stinks (literally) like all Sharpies and I never liked working in marker fumes. I’ll take a water based ink any day. Since the tip was close to the thick end (where the tip retracted into) I had a hard time seeing and maneuvering the business end of the pen. The barrel is a little to thick and clumsy for me. Nope, a swing and a miss.

I still haven’t found anything to match my favorite preliminary drawing marker: the Pentel Sign pen. It’s an unpresumptuous little thing that I never would have suspected would become my favorite. I remember them being all over the place in the 1970’s when there were fewer marker types to be found. And none of these archival, pigmented ink, ten different tiny size, semi-professional markers we have today. It was just a mass market black marker for whoever needed a writing size marker.

I like it’s smooth consistent line. It has a fairly hard tip but not one of those that is like a rock. The tip wears down over time and gets a little harder and wider but it stays consistent. When it starts running out of ink I even refill the little sponge in the back of the pen with india ink. It just keeps going. That’s how I’ve worn down so many tips on them. They go for a while.

The Pentel Sign Pen is remarkably hard to find these days. It used to be everywhere but not anymore. I get mine at MisterArt.com and at just over a buck a pen it is a bargain. So if you are looking for a drawing marker to try, something with around a medium point (it’s not nearly as thin as all those .05 or so Pigma markers nor as thick as a basic Sharpie), track down the humble Pentel Sign Pen. It’s done me good.

Yeah, I decided to make a list. For no reason other than “because it entered my mind”. I’ve never really been a list guy but what the hell people love lists. So I thought it would be fun. I’m just a people pleaser.

First thing I have to say is that Rock ‘n Roll is dead. Well, maybe not dead but it hasn’t been the dominant form of pop music in quite a while. Rock ‘n Roll was replaced nearly completely sometime in the Eighties by something called “Rock”. They’re cousins and not mutually exclusive. Some bands move effortlessly between both types of music. The way I differentiate them is that Rock ‘n Roll makes you want to get up and dance and Rock makes you want to get up and punch something as you dance. If you are waving your fist in the air as a show of defiance then you are listening to Rock music. Rock ‘n Roll is pure fun. Rock music is a little more serious and even angry. The Beatles are Rock ‘n Roll and Led Zeppelin is Rock.

I don’t really have a lot of Rock ‘n Roll music in my collection. Maybe because, as I define it, there hasn’t been much of it around in decades. My tastes tend to be eclectic anyway so that doesn’t leave room for one genre to dominate. Plus, being born in the 60’s, I was raised on Rock more than Rock ‘n Roll. I don’t even have any Beatles in my collection and I used them as an example of a Rock ‘n Roll band just a moment ago. Shows you what I know. So here we go in no particular order (hey it’s hard enough just coming up with a list).

Spencer Davis Group – Gimme Some Lovin’ – With Lil’ Stevie Winwood on lead vocals this song roars from beginning to end. I have no idea who Spencer Davis is but I give him credit for putting together a song that make me want to jump up and dance. If you can remain seated during this one than you should seek therapy immediately.

The Rolling Stones – Honky Tonk Woman – “She blew my nose and then she blew my mind”. Sing it Mick. This is my favorite Stones song and the one that I think is the most fun. And this is a band known for fun so you gotta give it up to them. When I hear this one start I give a whoop!

Johnny B. Goode – Chuck Berry – I don’t think I have to explain this one. This is the song that defines Rock ‘n Roll. If you don’t have a copy of it go and get one now.

Elton John – Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting – I don’t know that much about Elton John but this has to be the least autobiographical song he sings. I don’t think that Elton ever used to go out and get pissed with his mates and then start fights. But he sure can sing one hell of a song about it. Oh, and fighting in Rock ‘n Roll songs is never serious. It’s just part of life.

The Beach Boys – Little Deuce Coop – I was tempted to put Sloop John B in here since it is my favorite Beach Boys’ song but it is a little too whiney. On the other hand Little Deuce Coop is about being at the top of your game. It was one of the songs I danced to as a child listening to my Aunt’s old 45s. It’s a song about cars, hanging out with your buddies, and scoring with chicks. What’s more fun than that? I want to listen to it right now.

The Ramones – I Wanna Be Sedated – How can you not sing along with this one? At least the words you can understand. Yep, they make wanting to be sedated fun and fashionable.

The Grateful Dead – Uncle John’s Band – I’m no Dead Head but this song rules. It’ll make you do the Grateful Dead bop rather than any frantic dancing but not all Rock ‘n Roll dancing has to be the same. You might be able to sit for this one but not sit still.

AC DC – You Shook Me All Night Long – What kind of crazy person doesn’t get psyched when they hear this one start up? The hands start clapping then the fingers start pointing and a good time is had by all. More rhymes per minute than a rap song.

Queen – Fat Bottomed Girls – Yes, it’s an ode to “Big Fat Fatty” and Freddy Mercury makes me believe he means it. Irony would ruin this song and Queen never lets it creep in as they just have fun. This song is all about just having fun. When the first note hits you know it’s time to raise your hands in the air and dance around like a madman.

Dion and the Belmonts – The Wanderer – The epitome of the guy song. The Wanderer goes around romancing women and then forgeting their names. Oh, and he can fight well too. Put that to a beat you can dance to and you have all the ingredients of a classic.

Ones that almost made the list. All of them were kept of because of a little bit of seriousness in the lyrics.

The Pogues – The Body of an American – Some Irish rock about a funeral. I just heard it used in HBO’s “The Wire” as the sound track to an Irish American cop’s funeral. I first heard this song when the Pogues performed in on SNL back in ’90 and I couldn’t understand a word Shane McGowan was saying except for the chorus of “Free born man of the USA”. It’ll get you dancing and singing along with the chorus.

Tom Petty – American Girl – An easy one to sing along with. This song cranks it up a notch beyond the Grateful Dead Bop. Rock out.

Warren Zevon – Werewolves of London – Any song that I get to howl along with as I dance is going to be a favorite. No doubt.

Elvis Presley – Suspicious Minds – Some might not consider this period of Elvis’s career to be very Rock ‘n Roll but he kills on this song. Find any of the various live versions and he really has some fun with it. You know this song is an excuse for him. As he’s singing about the girl in the song not trusting him when “an old friend I know drops by to say hello” you know Elvis is banging every girl in the room. Anyone one else would sing this song seriously. Not Elvis. Tongue in cheek baby!

The Clash – Clampdown – This song will get you moving. It will even get your fist in the air but you won’t be sure if it’s in defiance. That’s because no one can understand the lyrics without a lyric sheet. Once you read them you’ll want to be in defiance of some racist factory in England or some such.