My wife is off at her monthly nutritionist appointment, so I’m hanging out down the road at the Dunkin Donuts (yes, I recognize the irony. The tasty, tasty irony). I had a bit of time to kill, so I figured I’d draw something. Ended up with a sketch of eccentric electrical wiz Nikola Tesla. Around our house, it’s definitely Team Tesla.
Last night, I did the first rather strenuous workout I’ve had in…well, let’s just say it’s been quite some time. I went to the fitness center our property has set up and did 8 miles on the stationary bike (in under 30 minutes, I should point out) and then walked for 15 minutes. My knees are, to put it mildly, not happy. At all. That I can walk today is a miracle in and of itself.
It’s Monday, every student’s favorite day of the week. I expect an Occupy Movement-style protest from my kids over homework one of these days, but they’ve been having trouble organizing (executive dysfunction at work, I guess).
Today’s sketch is of my other sister-in-law, Allison. She is the baker of the house, providing us with tasty treats and delicious breads on a pretty constant basis. Hurray for Alby! Also, she got us a lovely weekend trip to a bed and breakfast for our anniversary this coming weekend, so she is the bestest of sisters-in-law.
Spent a good chunk of the day today with my wife’s family for her mother’s birthday. Admittedly, I spend a good part of every day surrounded by my wife’s family, as her two sisters live with us. The middle sister and I have a rather playful antagonistic relationship. Mostly it involves me sneaking up behind her and pretending to assassinate her (we’ve both play way too much Assassin’s Creed, but I digress) or getting into slap fights. Hence, today’s sketch.
Fair warning: what follows is kind of rambling and may not make a whole hell of a lot of sense. I am not, nor do I claim to be, any sort of expert on LGBT issues or relationships, being about as heterosexual as one can possibly be. That being said, the stuff I talk about below really struck me as socially important, so I thought I’d share.
No, where the show really shines is in the portrayal of one of the only two monogamous, committed relationships in the entire series: Wally and Gus (the other, between Carlos and Natalie, is notable for being a healthy, interracial marriage where race never even really seems like an issue between the two). Wally and Gus, two older, gay men, have the healthiest, most realistic relationship in the entire series, and possibly the most realistic portrayal of a gay relationship on all of television.
What’s more, the characters around them treat the couple as perfectly normal. Now, it saddens me in this day and age that I’d even have to point that out, or that it might be uncommon or strange, but that’s the sad reality we live in: it may be the 21st century, but most folks are still more than a little uptight about LGBT relationships. But Andy, Kevin, Jim, Posey, and the rest all treat Wally and Gus as just two other people who live in the building; no more, no less.
That’s what’s so enormously progressive about this particular show, and why I think I appreciate it despite its blatant mediocrity in pretty much every other aspect of its existence: the writers made these two characters feel natural and real.
Their best episode is the series finale, a touching ode not only to the bad cinema of Ed Wood but to the power and draw of True Love. In the episode, Wally is an up-and-coming film director working with some of the biggest stars of the screen, directing a big-budget sci-fi epic that everyone is certain will be a blockbuster success. But then he meets Gus, and everything about the film falls apart: Wally puts Gus in the lead role even though Gus can’t act his way out of a wet paper bag, the rest of the cast quit, and the studio kills the project. Wally takes his film to a small-time studio, reworks the entire script to fit his new leading man (and less-than-stellar supporting cast), and does a no-budget Ed Wood-style b-film that is so bad, he hid it from the world for 50 years. When Kevin discovers the movie and hypes it up with the neighborhood, Wally’s sense of self-worth is devastated, but it’s nothing compared to how horrible he feels for putting Gus in a position of ridicule. The thing is, Gus doesn’t really give a damn what people think of him, as long as Wally’s happy. And ultimately, Wally figures that out, deciding that a movie that brings people joy (it’s a hilariously bad film) can’t be that bad, and he can live with his shame at having produced a real stinker if he’s got Gus. Which he definitely has. The final shot of the episode (and of the series, as it turns out) is of Wally and Gus in bed, content with each other. It’s a heartwarming, emotionally-charged moment for a show that usually did jokes about alcohol and hookers, and it hits all the right notes. Honestly, if you watched no other episode of the series than this one, you’d think it was a pretty damn good show. I think if they’d been able to produce more stuff like this one 22-minute piece, the show wouldn’t have been canceled.
Giant nerdiness ahead!
A few years ago, a coworker and I ran a Star Wars RPG club after school. The two of us split the eight or nine students into two groups and ran a parallel campaign, planning things out so that eventually everyone met back up at the end of the school year for the Epic Showdown with the Big Bad Guys. It was a lot of fun, though I’ve always enjoyed being a player in games rather than running them. To that end, I created a character of my own who joined the party and fought alongside our Jedi heroes.
Because this was an extended universe RPG, we took some liberties with things like Jedi powers and the races that were available. I ended up choosing a race called the Miraluka for my character. The Miraluka are a species that is born with no eyes, but senses things naturally through the Force. This seemed like a perfect species for a Force-sensitive martial arts character, which is exactly what I created. Over the course of a couple of years’ worth of games, my character became a Jedi Knight (eventually even Master), took control of an ancient clan of Force-sensitive ninjas, and basically gained the ability to wrap the Force around his hand and punch people hard enough that they exploded. It was, as you might well imagine, kind of awesome.
Anyway, I was feeling a bit of nostalgia for that today, so I decided to draw my old character. The session of Star Wars RPG I ran last year featured new characters (who were also chaotic neutral at best, demonic evil at worst), so he didn’t get to do more than make a quick cameo appearance in the game. This year, there hasn’t been a demand for the game, so we haven’t had a chance to play. I’m kind of hoping some students get the urge to play again, ’cause I wouldn’t mind dusting off the character and having him punch holes in things again.
Today’s sketch includes two things I’m fond of: the return of my chibi art style (not really all that different from my usual style, just more…compressed, I guess) and an appearance by the cutest, dumbest cat in the world, Ninja Steve. Ninja Steve (and her sister, Cecilia) is a rescue cat my wife and I picked up four years ago. The two cats were barely six weeks old and suffering from a number of fungal infections (they were feral cats that had been humanely trapped so they could be put up for adoption), but they were tremendously cute and we got the pair of them. Today, they’re not really all that big; Ninja Steve tops out at around 7 pounds, while Cecilia is a svelte 5. And they have very distinct personalities: Cecilia is definitely the Alpha of the two, does not like to be picked up, but needs constant attention and love. She’s also the more playful of the two. Ninja Steve, on the other hand, loves nothing more than to lay across my shoulder. Or on the back of the couch. Or on a pillow. Or in a sunbeam. Honestly, that cat only ever really moves with any sort of speed when we put food in their bowl. Ninja Steve is pretty chill, except when that bowl is empty. Then, there’s no consoling her.
Anyway, both cats have a tendency to sit up on their back legs and…well, I guess it’s beg for attention. They look kinda like meerkats when they do it. And Ninja Steve will often make little chirping noises (pretty much constantly whenever she wants attention). So, this is a pretty common sight around the house.
As always, feel free to send in a suggestion for the next sketch!
While driving home yesterday, I saw some pretty impressive skyline views here in Northern Virginia. I decided to try to capture some of those views with my phone using the Hipstamatic app. I’m pretty pleased with the shots I came up with, which you’ll find below.
