Tis the Season

Every year for as long as I could remember I would sing to myself one verse to the 12 Days of Christmas per day until it was Christmas Day.  So that meant on December 13th I would start singing the first verse, December 14, the second, and so on and so forth.  So I decided to make a twist on this and post my favorite Christmas themed things, one a day for 12 days.

So I'll be updating this post every day from the 13th until Jolly old St. Nick fills my stocking.  So keep on coming back each day and find what's new each day on this post.  Enjoy!

December 13, The First Day of Christmas :: The music.  I have to admit, I kinda like the jingling and the fa-la-la-la-la's when it plays on the radio.  I do have a special fondness to the Charlie Brown theme playing at least once a day (even though the theme isn't even all that Christmas-sy,) it's the only time of year I get to hear it regularly.  So here's to the artists who try to put a new spin to the same old Jingle Bell Rock, keep rockin' out those sleigh bells until Jack Frost nips you in the butt to stop 2 days into the new year...

December 14, The Second Day of Christmas :: The lights.  Call me a crow, sure I'm attracted to bright shiny objects; and twinkling lights around someone's house is the flame that keeps drawing this moth to it.  From anything simple such as a string of lights across the top of a railing from a patio to Chris F'n Griswold's epic house lighting, Christmas lights are just FRIGGIN' AWESOME!!! 

December 15, The Third Day of Christmas :: The weather.  As a kid, Christmas was a time for a week or two off of school, presents, and the occasional snow storm during break.  That was great having snowball fights with my brothers and kicking their butts stuffing their shirts with the white stuff.  But than again I lived in a place with that kind of weather (feelin' homesick for Philly now.)  Now adays, Christmas is warm, sunny, and full of cacti.  Good thing is that my family eat Christmas dinner on the patio, bad thing is that rocks hurt more when thrown than snowballs.  The weather element is what you can enjoy no matter where you are.

December 16, The Fourth Day of Christmas :: The television programs.  I'm a sucker for A Charlie Brown Christmas or those old school claymation storytellings of Rudolph and Frosty.  It was a special time for me that the TV producers and executives could remind us that "hey, were all kids inside so let all the worries of life go away for a while and marvel at poor animation and special meanings of all the good that is still in this world."

December 17, The Fifth Day of Christmas :: The mall.  Well, not the mall per say, but shopping.  I used to work retail and every year from the week before Black Friday to half way past January, the crowds of people fascinate me.  The lengths they go to complete their commercial need to find the right present or biggest gift.  It's just humorous what they do for that.  Although, the holiday season is not about gifts, it's about family, friends, and remembrance of our Lord.  I know that what I'm gonna do, how about you?!?  (There's your five golden rings for ya...)

December 18, The Sixth Day of Christmas :: The food.  I love the food.  It breaks the monotony of turkey, turkey, and turkey from the last month.  The wifie bakes cookies and other stuff non-stop while I ready myself for ham and football.  Plus, all of the Food Network shows show off their holiday flair.  And if you can't tell by this day, I do think with my stomach.  So here's to all the good food in preparation of family gathering and all that other stuff that it does for us all.


December 19, The Seventh Day of Christmas : The good will towards men.  It's a good warm and fuzzy feeling that can't be explained.  Well wishing towards our fellow man that should happen year round surrounds us all and that in among itself is a Christmas miracle.

December 20, The Eighth Day of Christmas :: The presents.  Yeah, that sounds pretty vain after what I added on for yesterday, but the presents are a good part of Christmas.  And it's not about receiving that big gift that you wanted, it's about seeing the look of someone's face as they open the presents.  As a parent, I finally can say that that joy of giving and seeing my boys faces light up brighter than the wifie's tree warms my heart.  It hurts my wallet, but it warms my heart... :p  It's a season of giving and seeing that you can give that and joy to others is a special part of the holiday.

December 21, The Ninth Day of Christmas :: The gathering.  It's always hard when a loved one or best friend is away.  Whether they're half way across the country or half way across the world.  But when Christmas time comes around, we find ways to connect with each other.  We visit those whom are fond to us, or at the very least call them on the phone if possible.  Heck, even simply emailing them or leaving them a message on your social network of choice just to say I miss ya and happy holidays is of good merit.  Just as long as we have a means of communication, we have means to gather around each other; even if you're not next to them roasting chestnuts in an open fire.

December 22, The Tenth Day of Christmas :: The days of yonder.  Just think back to the Christmases you had in the past.  How pleasant most if not all of them were.  And you sometimes catch yourself trying to relive that today.  Returning to how good that time of year was to you and what it brought to the table.  There is nothing wrong with reliving those good ol' days, and there's no better time than Christmas time to do such.

December 23, The Eleventh Day of Christmas :: The traditions.  Everyone has them, they follow though with it whether it's baking cookies or singing carols or even watching a gauntlet of Christmas themed programing, we all enjoy them and love to carry them out.  The singing the Twelve Days of Christmas one verse per day is one of mine.  The others include watching at least once A Charlie Brown Christmas and some football, I mean, who can't enjoy any of that?!?  I also try to carry out a gift for the kids to open the night before Christmas.  Usually new pajamas and we tell them they were left on our doorstep by the elves to give them a warning if they don't go to bed soon, Santa won't visit them for presents.  Whether they believe the wifie and I, who knows, but it's a tradition that we started with our boys and we'll continue to carry it out.

December 24, The Twelfth Day of Christmas :: The birth of Jesus Christ.  After all that is what the holiday is supposed to be about.  To celebrate the miraculous birth of our Lord and Savior, it is a true testament of what peace on earth, good will towards man, and miracles are all about.  Without the Lord, none of us would be where we are right now, and I am truly thankful for his birth and all that he given to us.  As Tiny Tim would end this in the most appropriate saying "God bless us, everyone"


BootLeG sampler.. signing out...

P.S. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and throw in all those other holidays in December as well, even Festivus... *lol*  Ok, maybe not that...

List O' Most Awesomest Cartoon Characters (An Alphabet Adventure)

I'm not gonna deny it.  I liked doing that Alphabet Adventure post from last time.  It challenged me as well as I hoped it challenged you to think outside the box of a top 10 or top whatever, and focus on one thing that is a constant all around; the alphabet.  Well, at least in my case the English alphabet.  I liked it so much (call me a glutton for punishment) that I decided to bring it back to another List O' whatever post.  This time; the most badass cartoon characters of all time (of course this is solely my opinion, but that's what you get when browsing into my blog.)  There's no time period restrictions or genre limitations in this list, just as long as they were animated.  No CGI phonies allowed here.  I want to see moving pictures of the cartoonish kind here.  So whether you're for kids or adults, serious or comedic, action or slapstick, it'll be on this list.

Just and FYI, I went a little link crazy trying to find links to support my decision on these choices.  Realistically just found the first good link that was represented each selected character that I could find off of Google.

So let me just shut up and get this list started... 

Aang (Avatar, The Last Airbender) : The most creative protagonist in recent cartoons.  If you're not a fan of the series, after the first few episodes will get you hooked.  He carries the show from beginning to the epic, and I mean EPIC finale.
Batman (Batman, The Animated Series) : The best cartoon in the 90's showcasing the most epic detective ever...  Need I say more...
Charlie Brown : He's the everyman, no doubt about it.  The epitome of Murphy's Law and yet because of his setbacks, he is well loved for the pure determination of the one lone chance of not failing...  I love ya Chuck, but you're a smuck...
Devestator (Transformers, Generation One) : A hodgepodge of transformers forming an ultimate distructive force, I felt like I found love again
Egon (The Real Ghostbusters) : I just love the movies and found that Harold Ramis' character was the most interesting of them all.  Figured that was the first E I could come up with... (onset is sinking in fast that this might be a harder task than I thought these alphabet things.)
Fred Flintstone (The Flintstones) : An icon in his own right, Fred and company were ahead of their time spawning new ground to what is now common place for cartoons; prime time television.  He was a mixture of cartoon slapstick and 60's era sitcom satire.  The Simpsons and Family Guy aren't that pioneering of cartoons now that you think about it.
Gohan (Dragonball Z) : He is actually the epicenter of the entire series.  He has the most power growth of them all and ideally, the series revolves around him, not Goku.  Take a good long look at it all and it'll make sense.  I'm sure of it.
He-Man (He-Man and The Masters of The Universe) : A protagonist that didn't need a story to be awesome.  In fact, I don't think it had a story, just a standard plot format for each episode.  Probably a good thing because if it did had an ongoing plot, that would've probably killed it.  Thankfully, we got the Dolph Lundgren movie to blame for that.
Iroh (Avatar, The Last Airbender) : Until recently I did not know that he was voiced by Mako before he passed away, which that in itself is awesome.  Plus the character is the wise sage of the series helping Zuko and giving consul for the heroes of the series.
Joker (Batman, The Animated Series) : Mark Hamill is insane, and this is just the perfect role for him.  The hell with Star Wars, this was his calling.
Kenny McCormick (South Park) : The early seasons were awesome, even though I heard the later ones are awesome too, I just haven't seen them.  Pretty much when they permakilled Kenny for like a season and then decided to not kill him after bringing him back, my interest faded from the series.  Plus the movie was sick too...
Lex Luthor (Superman: The Animated Series) : This guy was the epitome of what a diabolical genius is supposed to be.  Wealthy, smart, had a political grasp over Metropolis' day to day running of business and archetype as well as practically everyone there, this guy was seemingly untouchable.  Unless you're the son of Krypton.
Megatron (Transformers, Generation One) :Another prime badguy, so cocky yet he could back it up most of the time.  Plus I got to give him credit for putting up with such a whiny little snake that is Starscream.
Nelson Muntz (The Simpsons) : Trust me, I tried to think of someone for N but I couldn't, and I felt like the list was going 'ha ha' to me, so Nelson was the obvious choice.
Optimus Prime (Transformers, Generation One) : His voice alone presents leadership and respect from his comrades.  And until this day, I still tear up a little bit seeing him die in the Transformers movie (which brings me to the following statement; Michael Bay, you can suck it!)
Patty Mayonnaise (Doug) : We all had jones'd on someone hard as Doug Funnie did for her in our youth at that age at one point or another.  This is for that person that we all wanted but couldn't find the balls to approach them.
Q (You really think it's easy to try to find anyone with the letter Q, none the less remotely awesome?!?  I dare ya to try.)
Ra's al Ghul (Batman, The Animated Series) : Who wouldn't be a little freaked out buy a guy who is practically immortal.  He organized world wide crime syndicates and when he's near death, he just takes a dip in the Lazarus Pit and BAM, back in action to cause more hell.
Spawn (Todd McFarlane's Spawn) : Speaking of hell, he's all like been there, done that, got the t-shirt.  A former Marine turned special ops merc (I supposed, it's complicated even if you'd read the comics.) gets killed, goes to hell, exchanges his soul for another chance to be with his wife, and has came back as a hellspawn to complete a demon's needs.  And for a twist, he defies the demon and goes rouge.  The only bad thing is that the series ended before it's time (a shame if you knew what happens in issue 100, one of my favorite comic book issues ever.  But that's another list.)
Tick (The Tick) : It was so random, so bizarre, and yet, so brilliant.  This guy had a few to many screws loose and that he somehow manages to get the bad guy at the end of every episode (with the obvious collateral damage caused in chasing the poor bastard) makes me want to go back and see the blue oaf over and over again.
Unicron (The Transformers: The Movie) : A transformer that transforms into its own planet and is voiced by one of the most notable voices of all time Orson Welles.  Can't get much more epic than that.  Once again I like to add on that Michael Bay can suck it, just for good measure.
Venom (Spiderman) : Probably the best rendition of the villain to the comic book source.  They really tried to make it as close as the person inside filled with the rage to get even with Peter Parker as possible, even though it rarely followed the story arc.  Character-wise, Venom gets my vote.
Wolverine (X-men) : He is hands down the best mutant out there.  Period.  It would be an injustice to talk about Wolverine without missing out a thing or two.
X (Hey, just be glad that this time I was only unable to find things for Q and X in this list.  Be greatful why don't cha.)
Yakko Warner(Animaniacs) : Just one part of the trifecta of loony (the others obviously Wakko and Dot) Yakko makes it in that of all the others, he was easiest to find a letter for.  But seriously, him and his siblings started the degeneration of cartoons and pushing the censors to the limits.  And for that I salute you.  Plus I still can't get the song about the countries of the world out of my head.  United States, Canada, Mexico, Panama...
Zuko (Avatar, The Last Airbender) : The story of a tortured soul who is trying to find his destiny.  In the end he finds his place in life helping whom he thought was the enemy and striking back those whom lead him to his dark path of destruction.  Perfect way to end the list.

I hope once again that you appreciated this unique trip to cartoon awkwardness...


BootLeG sampler.. signing out...

What I try to do during my spare time...

There's nothing wrong with having a little 'me time' now and again, it's just that me time is usually I don't get that much.  I'm not complaining of such, the me time I sacrifice goes directly to my family and I love every minute of it, it's just that the little me time I try to take on I can't get my mind wrapped up to all that I want to do.  One of those things is drawing, well, sketching is what I like to call it.  It's not the text book form of the word, but that's what I've been calling my visual art work for however long I've been doing it.  I love drawing in comic book style art and well, to get good at it no doubt takes time and to keep consistent at it after you're good takes longer if you want to crank out stuff on a regular basis.  That was well good and all as a younger version of me that had nothing but time to waste but now, time is such a precious commodity that what I can do I try to maximize on it.

I was working on this last sketch for the past 3 weeks, give or take.  On and off for about 20 minutes at a time.  Normally since I consider myself an amatur, I see as this should've took me about an hour and a half (well, probably another 45 more after adding in color) to present a finished product.  This being one of my signature characters that I've created back in 1996.  A character I named Marksman, is supposed to be like part Batman, part Iron Man, part a whole bunch of other elements, but that means going into the story line more.  

I was really into illustration back then prior to when I started playing bass and writing lyrics.  I wanted to try to get something started with story line and all.  The basic premise of it was that this guy was head of some type of weapons and arms manufacturer that was contracted by the government to make some kind of super armor for black ops solders in their missions.  When terrorists had wind of the super armor, they were plotting to use it for their own vendetta to cause chaos.  The owner of the arms manufacturer then used himself as a test guinea pig for the armor, the plans were destroyed and the only existing suit is what he and he alone can use because it was they were assigned to their users based off of their DNA.  Thus, he started wearing it and became a sentential for his company providing protection and being leased by the government for extreme missions and such.

All in all, I expanded the story line with lots of twists and turns and had planned about 75 issues for the hero and even 6 special double issues that were annuals and followed up the storyline for the next year.  It was pretty awesome, and the only bad thing about all this is I lost the storywork for all of those issues.  It was about a decade ago and I was devistated.  I still have all of the original art for the concepts of all the important characters involved in the 75 issues (which I'm lucky to have kept.)  I've even tried to recreate the story line but I know that it wouldn't have had the same intensity as when it was first penned.  But I do plan on resurecting the title and making some of it.  But as for now, I'll continue sketching and producing fine art like this...

Hope you enjoy the creative process and the fine work of it all.

BootLeG sampler.. signing out...


Oh, and BTW, Happy Thanksgiving and have a safe and happy holiday season...  Just in case I fail to post prior to my Year in Review message...

Full Circle

Guess all things do come to an end. This blog, at least for the time being is not what I'm talking about. What I'm referencing is the fact that I had to do probably one of the hardest things in my musical life. I sold my bass guitars. My babies that I acquired from the many, many years of playing and mastering, I had to sell.

There is reasoning for all this. One is the fact that I try to find time to play with them all but I just can't. Secondly is that I don't have that much space here so I need to get some stuff cleared out. Third; I kinda need the money, and I offer to sell them in other times of crisis but the wifie wouldn't let me until I manned up and said 'I gotta provide whichever way necessary,' or something to that effect.

It's just that I went through so much with those guys. They were my first true outlet to most of the music I learned to enjoy and love. I've been playing bass since I was 15. I started learning piano at 6 but never really took interest in that or any other instrument until high school. I can still play a couple of keys on a piano but I craved and loved the bass. Jazz, rock, soul, rap, gospel, country, Mexican-hat-dance,\; you name it, I played it. And now it's the end of an era.

The first one this week was my Ibanez four-string guitar. That's the one that got the most play since that was when I was in a real great and talented band that was local to when I was stationed in Camp LeJeune. I bought it when I was in Okinawa, took it back here and had a blast. That was a hard one to sell (as well as all of them I sold this week.)

The second one was my Ernie Ball five-string. It was my first five-string bass guitar and I felt like king of the world with that thing. I tuned it down to play slap bass like Fieldy from KoRn and P-Nut from 311; to just about any jazz set that I could get going. A lot of my later songs were composed for a five-string so that was good in that respect. It was hard to see that one leave right in front of me too (the other 2 basses this week the wifie sold while I was at work after I gave her a high-low price on them to sell at.)

And finally yesterday (well, earlier today depending if you read the post as soon as I posted it), I had my very first bass leave me. I was a student and just learning how to play it way back when. The wifie sold it to a mom and her fifth grade son. That was a sobering moment knowing that I gave my first bass to a kid as his first bass. I hope that he treats her right (yes, I refer to my basses as hers, it's just like cars or any other male possessive tangible property, it's how we're wired.) And I'm not afraid to admit; I cried a little, but it was a well deserved cry. This was a moment of mourning of something I had cherished go away. But I'm feeling better now that I've expressed such.

It's not that I'm lost without an instrument to play. I do still have my acoustic twelve-string guitar that I'm learning how to play. It's like the next step of my musical evolution and I look forward to making the plunge. Like a phoenix rising from the ashes of bass guitar memories I will play on mastering the art of the guitar. Besides the wifie said that the next chance I get when there's a little extra cash that I'll shop for a new bass (insert gitty-school-girl wheeeeee here.)

BootLeG sampler.. signing out...