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December 27, 2005
Year In Review: August
Started off the month with maybe the most fun weekend I've ever had:
I'm god damned exhausted!
Friday, I picked up some new music: Crystal Method's 'Community Service II' and Common's 'Be'. The Crystal Method album was definitely more of an instant gratification album, as I'm a long-time fan of theirs, and their remix of my favorite Doors song 'Roadhouse Blues' is fantastic. The Common album was more of a slow burn, taking a while to grow on me, but I'm definitely into it. The live track on there with Kanye West, 'The Food', is just great. I met up with Mike Sullivan for dinner, where I had some great enchiladas and he gave me a Big Audio Dynamite album (still haven't listened to it, actually). We then went over to Hollywood Video to rent 'Trekkies', as Mike hadn't seen it before, and we each ended up dropping some bucks on other movies, too. I came home with the first season of 'Dead Like Me' for twenty bucks.
Saturday was the big day, though. J and Sarah had invited me out for a day on Lake Jacomo on a couple of pontoon boats (not to be confused with 'Poontang Boats', as I swore J's initial email to me said). You can rent these things for 180 bucks a day, and you can fit ten peep's on each one, so it came to about twenty bucks to cover our group on two boats. I met a lot of cool people, drank a lot of good drinks, and did backflips off the top of the boats. I hadn't had this much fun in fucking ages. We went back to J and Sarah's house (which is nice, and it's too bad it took me this long to make it over, especially since it's only six minutes away from me), where everyone made a point to tell me I was doing a nice impersonation of a boiled lobster. I mean, I'm motherfucking burnt, folks. I haven't been this burnt since probably when my mom and I went to Florida back in 93 or 94. Constant pain. But we scarfed some pizza and had some great conversation.
Sunday, I wake up in time to catch CBS' Sunday Morning show, which I always love, and they had a great interview/biography of Al Green. The rest of the day, I sat around feeling miserably sunburnt and watched most of the season of 'Dead Like Me', which is really an enjoyable show. Very smart, very well-written, directed, and acted. Which, I'm sure, doomed the show to failure. Glad I got it, though. I went over my outline for the radio show again, and I'm ready to start writing it in earnest now.
-whew- What a great couple few days!
That sunburn became the most hideous thing ever. I was just constantly amazed by the way it would continue to mutate. Just awful.
Finished up Empty House, my piece for the Star:
Peter Jennings passed away:
I guess that because he was always there as I was growing up, that I never fully appreciated Jennings. His appearance on the TV was as reliable as the Quck-Trip being there at the corner for when I needed gas.
When the second plane hit on 9/11, my mom called me and woke me up (I was off work that day), and asked me to watch the news so that I could keep her updated. I ended up settling on Jennings' broadcast, as I felt I could trust his reporting the most. He'd always been so solid and able to report without interjecting his feelings, that I thought he'd give me the best representation of what was happening. When the first tower went down, I could tell he was choking back his emotions, going on with the broadcast.
But then the second tower went down.
And I hear Jennings just...exhale. This long "Hhhh" that said so much. The camera stayed on the tower going down. I'm sure the production crew were all too horrified to change away from it. For maybe five minutes, no one says anything. Jennings' mic was still live, and I could hear people in the background breaking down, but he didn't make a sound. Finally, he's able to speak, but all he can get out is "I...I don't know what to say."
That's what made the whole thing become human to me, become personal. Here's this guy, he was a rock all my life, and he's finally reporting something that's too big for him to deal with. To me, probably one of the most profound moments in television history.
His eyes watched the world for so long, and his eyes became the filter that so many millions of us saw the world through. He was a giant among men, and I know he'll be missed.
Went to see Ben Folds and Rufus Wainwright at the River Market with J and Sarah. It was a good show with good friends.
I drew what ended up becoming my most controversial piece ever:
...which led to me finally breaking all ties with the CCN, as being called a pornographer (!) just doesn't sit well with me.
Got some early feedback on Empty House, all negative:
I sent out some preview copies, for folks to read. Here's the responses I got back:
"Those are really cool. I don't think I've seen a whole strip without people before and it really works. Thanks for the preview. I hope everyone enjoys this as much as I did!"
"Damn..."
"...Its different than what people are used to seeing in the paper! The story is compelling, focused, and has emotional punch that I'm sure everyone can relate to in some way or another...The disembodied voices lend it a ghost like quality. As though we're sensing the empty house...a long time after the drama actually went down."
"Very nice, Rob. Excellent work. Especially poignant for me."
"Nicely done Rob...I think people will really relate to this."
"One word - WOW!"
"Wow. The Star must have some adventuresome strip editors. Very nice, my lad. Very nice."
"Your strips are really nice. I like the atmosphere and the mood. Good work."
Did this piece, which made me decide to hand-draw Black Chamber:
Finished writing a script for a radio drama thing, which will hopefully "see" the light of day eventually.
Best piece of the month:
And to wrap up the month:
It's getting to crunch time, folks! Two thirds of the way done!6 Green Marbles - I lost five freaking pounds this month! Yahoo!
1 Black Marble - Things are going really well at the D-A-Y-J-O-B, actually. Probably the most comfortable I've been at a job. Things are even looking to improve, believe it or not.
1 Blue Marble - I'm not broke!
7 Red Marbles - Things are going good with the comix thing, as well. Expect to see an anthology/sketchbook from me on the last Thursday of this month. 48 pages for two bucks or less! It will be called, appropriately enough, 'Rob Schamberger Makes Comix'.
3 or 4 Silver Marbles - This was a really rough month personally. A lot of it of my own doing, and other parts not. I think we must make mistakes, simply so that we can learn from them, and we have to experiment, so that we can learn from both our accomplishments and failures. I learned a lot in August.
Posted by Schamberger at December 27, 2005 08:05 AM