More adventures on the bus

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Yesterday was a twofer.

The first wacky encounter was in the morning. A bus was running late, so a bunch of us got n the next bus going the same direction. An elderly gentlemen, looking to be in his mid to late 60s, a regular, sat across from me. However, he was not the only one. The entire bus was packed. About half way through my ride, I noticed that he leaned back kind of funny, and put one hand in his pocket. This while I have a book up to my face, which is a pretty good disguise for people watching. So the guy reaches pretty deep into his pocket, and across the front. Really deep. Uh, oh. He’s not looking for any spare change, this is pocket pool.

Pretty soon his actions became a bit more animated. He was playing first string for all it was worth, and all the while staring off at another passenger.  I looked to where he was staring, and realized he was looking at someone I know. I use the word “know” rather liberally here, as there are perhaps 20 people I come in contact with on a regular basis on the bus or train, and talk to on the odd occasion. This particular lady is Russian (or so I guess based on her accent), near my age or older (guessing from her wrinkles), maroon haired (because there is apparently no ending to maroon hair color), dresses well, and works at the Farmer’s Market which is next to one of my larger clients. She was wearing a yellow tank top, and she has a rather nice figure, so I guess the old guy was getting a little side boob action.  So now I have a dilemma, do I tell her? Do I stop him?

This went on for a few stops, and then the man actually stood up, probably to get a better grip, and proceeded to stare at her, and touch himself.  At this point he had that focused stance one uses when really looking at something intently. You could tell his higher brain functions were gone. He had not a care for the rest of us, or what we thought.

So then the bus stopped at my stop, and I got off after Russian lady.  Only the man got off too (no, not that got off, sheesh). I couldn’t let him follow her, but I also didn’t want to say anything to her. So what I did was drop my plank, and roll up next to the old man. He was looking at Russian lady, but seemed to notice my stare, because he turned to look at me as she crossed the street. Maybe he turned to look because I yelled, “hey”. When I had his attention, I said, “Dude. That is very uncool.” Then I pushed hard, and crossed the street. Now I had caught up with Russian lady, and while the old man was crossing the street, I started talking to her. He had no idea what I was saying, but hopefully he figured it was about him (it wasn’t). This had the desired effect as the man walked past us, and after I was sure he was aways away, I said my goodbyes, and crossed on the next green.

The second event was a little less creepy. On my way home, while waiting for the Orange Line (a fancy name for an articulated bus), a man was walking along and talking very loud.  “Jesus Christ, I am so drunk,” he was saying. That and he went on and on about how great he was. When he noticed me looking at him, he walked over and introduced himself. He was a great guitar player, he assured me, played with every body, and was so famous, if he showed up, any band was glad to let him sit in. Alas, I forgot his name, but I can tell you that he has his own radio show on 88.9 fm, and that he is about 6 foot 3 (I say this because he got very close, as drunks are wont to do, and I was staring straight into his mouth). He had long brown hair, and a cropped beard/mustache, which was long enough to remind me of ZZ Top.

I have no idea if he was a famous guitar player or not. The name didn’t ring any bells (which doesn’t mean much), but I have had experience with someone like him. There is a person I know, a distant relation, who when off his meds, would tell everyone he was the drummer for a famous band. I suspect this man had a similar mental illness. Regardless, for all his size he was relatively harmless, at least to me. I said my good byes, while he sprayed my face with spittle, as drunks are known to do, and left him at the bus station.

Some days, it just doesn’t pay to take the bus.

Wow! Even more crap!

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I just got an exciting email today, breathlessly telling me how I can learn all kinds of Down and Dirty Tricks with Photoshop CS4. And this lecture, one of the most successful seminars tours in history, is being presented by two of the best graphic designers on the planet. Wow!, I mean wow!!!!!

Oh pa-lease. What horse shit.  I mean common. Do the people at Kelby Training really think I’m going to buy this shit?

Let me back up a bit, and explain my position. For those who don’t know, I have a fair bit of knowledge about Photoshop, and it’s use as a designer (hello, look around the portfolio, if you don’t believe me). Also, I have a fair bit of knowledge about pedagogy (look it up, I’m not your dad) both in general (I am a former teacher with a degree for such things from an actual college), and specifically with Photoshop (I’ve taught PS classes on and off for about 15 years). It is fair to say I have stood in front of lots of blank faces and tried my best to explain things like what resolution means, the importance of naming your layers, and how to use a layer mask. Granted, I am not nearly as well known as Corey Barker and Dave Cross, but I do have some chops.

So here’s the thing. When you get in front of a group of people to teach them photoshop, inevitably one of them will have the latest photoshop tricks book, and ask you to show them how to do tricks. Mind you, I don’t blame them for this; I too want to have a million dollars worth of knowledge, but pay only $16.95 for it. At some level, we are all lazy and would like to find the easy path. I am just as guilty of this as anyone else. But here is the truth. Photoshop is a complex tool for doing an incredible array of interesting tasks. However, none of these tasks are easy. None. That’s right, its work. Most of it quite hard. Not just hard work, but sometimes, ass-kicking, tears in the eyes, pulling your hair out, hard work. Yep. In case you didn’t quite get it, no matter what you do, who you are, or how great a designer you are, at one point Photoshop will kick your miserable ass. And I mean HARD. Dude, you think I’m fucking with you? Look at my ass (on second thought…maybe not). Let me tell you. Photoshop will kick your ass, and I have the boot prints to prove it.

I know this is not a popular message, most of us would like to have the equivalent of gourmet knowledge at fast food prices. However, the real world is not like that. The real world is messy, difficult, and complex. It often takes knowledge, and hard won, sometimes painfully paid for, experience to tell the difference between a slight mistake, and a certain catastrophe. That’s why they call it a profession. It takes professionals to do professional grade work. That’s also why I charge and arm and a leg for my work, Because I have had my ass kicked so many times it practically has a calluses back there. I’m professional enough (or just plain weary enough) to not try and repeat those mistakes again. And when I’m working for you, I do my damnedest to keep you from suffering the same fate.

So when I see someone trying to sell an easy route to a complex task, it pisses me off.  Not that I have anything against Corey Barker and Dave Cross, hell I wish them luck and wealth. Making money is always hard work, and I respect anyone’s hard work. However, I deeply resent that they are selling out our common profession, our birthright, for a mess of porridge.

Worse still, photoshop trickery has created the single largest group of crappy designs on the planet.  One cannot open a magazine, or drive their car in a large city, without being bombarded with designs that rely more on tricks than concept. Hey guess what guys, good concepts are hard to find, tricks are easy. Mind you, I too have turned in my fair share of tricky solutions to complex problems, so I am guilty of this same crime. But good god, if you cannot even out a background image so your type will read (after all, you are designing an ad, not the fucking Mona Lisa) why do you think adding a drop shadow to the type will make it better? And if a drop show does not improve readability, why the fuck do you think making the type 3D chrome will be any better?

So what Kelby Training, with all their success, will not tell you, is that there is no trick to being a professional in graphic design All the photoshop tricks in the world will not make you a good designer.  That only comes from hard work, and a few ass kickings. Sorry. I know it’s not a pleasant message, but it is the truth.

Oh, and one more thing. If you work in advertising, then for fuck’s sake, DO NOT FALL FOR IT. It’s bad enough that we have to sell crap to make our cash. For God’s sake don’t believe your own lies.

Don’t mess with me

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The other day I had a difference of opinion with a fondue pot. Actually its a Hersey’s S’Mores maker, but it’s just a tarted up sterno powered fondue tray. Instead of heating things like chocolate with the flame, you roast marshmallows. Otherwise its the same principle.

The tray is large and ceramic, with four little rubber feet stuck onto the bottom. Only one of those feet had decided he had stuck on long enough, and it was time to see the world without the burden of the rest of the tray. We had a few words about this, but the rubber foot was adament. So was I. Guess who won?

Its not smart to mess around with a man who has something like 20 different kinds of glue, and knows how to use them. No I didn’t go all thermo-nuclear on the rubber foot; I kept the epoxy back on the shelf. Instead I pulled out the foam safe CA glue I keep in the freezer, the thin kind. Most people do not know that CA glue (CA is short for Cyanoacrylate glue, commonly called super glue) comes in thick, medium, and thin. Thin CA is wonderful, but wickedly non viscous. Slippery as the devil, and twice as lively. It took me years of playing with the stuff to keep it off of my finger tips. I’ve learned to dab just a tiny bit, and then smear it around with a toothpick. If you do get it on your fingers (and it dries before you glue them together!) you can remove the glue with a bit of sandpaper, or an emery board, a trick I learned from my father-in-law.

Anyway, this darn foot was giving me troubles, and now it is not. Case closed.  S’Mores anyone?

Clean, Glorious Clean

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The wife and I broke down our computer setup in the office, took everything out, and cleaned the desk area top to bottom. Man was there a lot of dust bunnies behind my monitors.

Now my computer has a new internal 250 Gb HD (to replace the one I had which had issues with SATA 1.5), a new external 1Tb backup drive, and a new external ( the old internal 1Tb, the one with SATA issues, now in a new SATA 3.0 enclosure) which will get used for something (I don’t know yet). We also switched from a regular wired router to an Apple AirPort Extreme Base Station, which sounds a lot cooler than it is. The APEBS is just a wired/wireless router, and was dead easy to install. We needed something because we also got a MacBook Pro so we could travel with all of our accounts, and so Trevor could also have a computer.

We have been rapidly becoming a three computer family, only we had two computers, and they were so close to each other they could only be comfortably used from one chair; effectively one at a time.  A recipe for familial strife if I’ve ever seen one. Now the two computers in the office are far enough apart that both Teri and I can get online, and Trevor can compute from anywhere in the house. Glorious! Three boxes, no waiting.

My eldest sister is wise enough to have her two computers in separate rooms in her house. Smart. Teri and I still share an office, a fact that cannot be fixed short of a massive increase in square footages (and boy do I have some awesomely cool plans for expanding our evil empire). However, until funding permits, we’re still stuck together. Now we can at least both be online, and not trip over each other.

The second office station still has some issues, boxes and such need to be moved so the second chair can get back in there, but at least there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

Now all I have to send out the Xmas cards. Oh yes, we do has a wonderful new design this year. Guaranteed to make any NRA member practically burst at the seems with pride. I’ll put it up on this site, but only after all the cards have gone out. Gotta give close friends and family a slight break. I’m sure you understand.

More Bad Poetry

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I wrote this poem/song about the experience of living in LA. Anyone who has ever spent too much of their day looking at the line of stupid cars ahead of you, will know exactly what this means.

Thousands Millions Billions Trillions
(a song)

We all live in the same town;
the town of lit-up dreams.
We all drive the same car.
We all have the same job.
We all crowd the same roads
by the thousands, millions, billions, trillions.

We all live in the same town;
thirsting for the big time.
Lusting after the same car.
Looking for the same job.
Filling up the same roads
by the thousands, millions, billions, trillions.

We all look up,
look up to the top,
and stare that the chosen few.
We fight each other
tooth, claw, and nail
for the scraps left
off their table.
fighting to fill the same job
by the thousands, millions, billions, trillions.

We all live in the same town.
We all have the same dream.
To be unique we ride the same train.
To be different we all act the same.
We all scream our individuality is real
by the thousands, millions, billions, trillions.

-Erk
8/11/97
8:45 pm

Poetry from the past

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As you read this:

Words will have flown from my finger tips,
scattered amongst the electronic,
tides and eddies of the web.
Twisting into terrible lives.
Their fierce energy hitting brain tissue,
with a powerful smack.
Huge verbs and nouns,
ripping and tearing.

Prophesying with a single voice;
Doom.
Doom.

Doom.

-Erk
9/23/95
10:00 am

Buffalo Hunt

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There is a poem my mother used to read to us as a child by Charles Malam called Steam Shovel. The opening lines are:

The dinosaurs are not all dead.
I saw one raise its iron head
To watch me walking down the road
Beyond our house today. 

This morning, as I was loading up our car at the hotel we stayed at in Fresno, I was reminded of this poem. Across the parking lot from the hotel is a restaurant called Huckleberry’s.  It’s a nice enough place, we actually ate there this morning. The food is a bit heavy for my liking, but most people I know would enjoy it.

What I noticed while loading the car was the clientele waking into or out of the restaurant.  I saw something like 20 people either going in or out, and all of them were obese. Were talking 60-100 lbs overweight or more. Every one! It was like seeing the beginnings of an over-eaters anonymous meeting.

Mind you, I carry 15-20 on my belly I could do without, so I’m not claiming perfections here, nor do I have the spare time to be a gym rat anymore — but com’on people!  The fatty food you are eating is killing you! Really really slowly, but it is still killing you.

So what came to my mind was that us American’s were cursed by some AmerIndian Shaman, into becoming the buffalo we killed off many years ago. To paraphrase the poem, the buffalo are not all dead, I saw them walking to a shed…

Then I noticed all of the other restaurants in Fresno, and I have to say there are a lot of ones that serve red meat and potatoes, while I saw only one that looked like it sold “healthy” food. I’m telling you people, the ancient curse is starting to take hold. We are becoming buffalo.

On Mental Illness

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It is very hard to describe what mental illness is like to someone who has not gone through it. It is a subtle change that takes place not in the world, but in your head. The changes it brings come slowly, and the mind is quick to mask most of these from the person, so that one generally does not notice it until it is manifest. Even the subtlety of the attack, and the way the brain works to co-op the victim, very much like a virus stricken computer suddenly working hard to help the erstwhile hacker, makes the process all the more unbelievable. You simply cannot imagine you are acting crazy right up until the moment you do. And then you can’t figure out how in the hell you got there.

It’s very much like waking up, and going about your day, only to find at the end, when you go to take a shit, that somehow in the course of your day you took off the white underwear you very carefully chose in the morning, and replaced them with a green pair you have never seen before, and then proceeded to put them on the outside of your pants. The worst thing is not realizing you just spent the last part of your day walking around the block, talking to your neighbors, eating at the local restaurant, all with green underwear on the outside of your pants. No the worst part is not knowing where you got the underwear from in the first place. Like there is some secret store you go to buy green underwear, but only when you are so crazy that you cannot remember.

I am lucky in that I have only a very mild form of depression. Pretty much the worse that happens to me is I suddenly find myself almost entirely rudderless, and with only the littlest bit of ego to manage most adult tasks. I can function, after a fashion, but I have very little initiative to do anything but go home, and crawl into bed. For instance, I can sit on a corner waiting for a bus, but I cannot raise my hand and waive down a taxi. The thought of doing something new, like riding in a taxi, is almost paralyzing, even though it would get me home sooner, and I had the cash in my hand. I can even realize that I am depressed, and need to get myself to a safe spot soon, before it gets worse (like all mental illnesses, it can get worse), but I cannot manage to do anything that is out of routine or unsafe. Mind you, the very next day I can wake up and take twenty taxis, without batting an eye, so the effect is not permanent. I’m lucky in that also know now pretty much when I’m depressed, and have a good handle on my limitations. I am also able to work when depressed because I have learned how to not shut down completely when there is work to do. It’s always in the denouement after late night work that is the hardest.

I can leave a client’s office, after a long day’s work, and walk out to the bus stop to wait for the bus, very much like I did last night, and then at some point while waiting for the bus, suddenly and completely shut down. I was planing on going to a restaurant to celebrate a friends birthday, and sometime after I got off my normal bus, and waited for a new one to take me to the restaurant, I lost it. I could not wait for the bus to come (it never did), and while pacing for it, I grew more and more agitated until I got to the point that I started having a very strong desire to yell at any car that passed, and it was all I could do not to scream at the the occasional pedestrian. Even I know, while in the grips of depression, that this is not normal. So I watched 20 taxis pass, all of them empty, and waited for my normal “safe” bus to come, and take me home. Almost 2 hours after I left the office I stumbled through my front door, and crawled into bed.

On the way into work this morning, I saw several taxis. All of them seemed perfectly safe. Now, if you will excuse me, I have to call a friend and apologize for missing his birthday. Fortunately for me, he is a good friend and will understand.

Portfolio Update

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I’ve just recently updated my printed portfolio, and thought to do the same to my online one. There’s quite a few new pieces to look at, if you’re into that sort of thing, so have fun. I’m also thinking of adding a new section devoted to tips and techniques I’ve come across that might make it easier for others to retouch.