Swiggin' Beam

Been a good weekend. Fruitful. Got a lot done as far as freelance stuff goes. Feels real good to complete different levels of projects. I actually like thinking about the work at hand. Usually I'll just get to wondering about the project's progress and get a bit of a sick, uneasy feeling. Always wondering if the slides will come through or if I'll screw something up. The smallest typos haunt us the most. Little fuckers can absolutely ruin one's day. So yeah, lots of freelance endeavors (still) whirling around and slowly chiseling away towards freedom.

Slave to the man: All spoils from my weekend "desktop activities" go right to my credit cards. Gotta pay that shit off so I can pack it up and head home.

Forgot to tell you about the "moment-of-the-month" from last weekend:

Cruised up to Long Beach to hang with a friend. Enjoyed Long Beach proper and into San Pedro. Mike Watt is from Pedro. All those lyrics, "Pedro bound...." and colorful imagery of Watt peddlin' around Pedro flooded the thinker. A couple lights and a turn later I found myself in front of Watt's pad. The boat was docked, takin' a breather from the open seas. What a van. Pulling up another 10 feet you can stare up Watt's stairs way up to his 3rd floor perch. Watt's pad. Amazing, fucking amazing. Wanted to run up those stairs and knock on his door to say hello. But then again, his time off the road should be his time. I'm a fan. Not a stalker. Cool stuff. Moment of the month. Watt does things econo. he'll be on tour all fall long. Dig him.

Friday night:

Ended up in Encinitas with the dudes for a night. Embryonic Ruckville was having another one of his barbeques, complete with tasty little dips and crackers and shit. Lots of Encinitas-ish industry types walking around with handfuls of munchies. Oh yeah, "industry" as in, "snowboard industry types." Sorry, got those snowboard dude blinders on again as if this stuff was the pinnacle of action sports. Embry has a nice little joint. Good images on the walls, tunes and a nice yard to look up at the stars in. Many thanks to the man.

Got real blasted, swiggin' on a little Beam here and there. Devil's juice, fire water, dumb elixir...but I gotta say, every now and again I get a hankering to get loaded. The world just gets sort of blurry and unimportant.

Nothing real memorable about the night. Good to see Embry and Lanningham and Jardine. Otherwise, real tired of snowboard people. Real tired.

Thanks to Rose and Bridges for the couch to crash on. Had to sleep that blur off. Lost my cool, had to get it back before I manned "Big S" for the ride back to perfectville.

Perfectville, yeah. Oh man, I gotta get the fuck out of here. I'm tired of missing that big city Minneapolis. Enjoy what's left of sunday and give 'em hell tomorrow morning.

New Rig For "the eYe"

Congrats to Pat "the eYe" on his recent purchase of a rig. Got himself a little go-getter Honda Civic to battle the daily commutes with. Real proud of him. In the big leagues now with the rest of us, enjoying those monthly payments.

He's driving the rest of to lunch for a month.

Tectonic Motherfucker!

Get this: Felt my first earthquake today.

Pretty amazing. Jeff Baker, photo editor and Huntington Beach local, called out, "Earthquake!" and lo and behold I tuned in and noticed a gentle movement, then items suddenly swaying hanging around the office.

Fucking amazing.

My mind made a beeline through multiple layer of earthen crust deep in the magma, peering at the rumbling underbellys of the massive tectonic plates grinding against eachother. Action:Reaction, on a large scale.

It left me feeling a bit queasy. This uncontrollable variable below you, that strikes without warning, is just too much too ponder. I'm used to my ground being stable. Done.

So here's to the big one. I just hope I'm on the open road east when the god damn place falls off into the big ocean.

Tectonically yours,
–Aaron James Draplin

Upbeat

Today is a good day, and these are the reasons:

1. Payday. Loot/scratch/cash...times are good when the account is full.
2. Enjoying the shimmering sounds of the new Mercury Rev-All is Dream longplayer.
3. Damn near the halfway point on our page release process.

So yeah, things are good. The rig is running smooth and free, the flat is neat and tidy, the pages lookin' good.

Getting Used To The Emptiness

Back into the swing of things...releasing those pages to the pre-press folks. 30 down out of 100. Ho-hum. We still have a good week or so to get the remaining ditties completed and sent. Things are coming together well.

Lonely rooms, lonely home: The house feels so empty. I have been cleaning a lot actually. "Detailing" sounds a little tougher. Got to get into that spic/span mode, keeping things civil little by little. I'm doing a lot of organizing. Filing my miscellaneous pages, art work, freelance records, bills into one big neat DDC system. Organization will set you free. (Melissa, have a good laugh at this one.)

Been doing a lot of thinking about getting back into illustration. I've seen so much inspiring stuff over the course of the last year that makes me want to dive headlong into all of it again. Before my computer days, illustration was all the man had. I'm gonna do some sketching, lay some ink down, maybe a little color. We'll see. I've got a couple projects coming up that involve more traditional "pencil on paper" processes to arrive at a solution. Sounds good. Can't forget those roots.

Things are good. Hope everyone is living large.

Lonely Enjoyment

Enjoying having the place to my myself. Sort of lonesome too. I come home and the place is as I left it. No surprises. I have been spending my free time organizing, cleaning, consolidating, archiving all the goods of the Factory Floor. I miss the gal, or at least, those first bunch of days together out here. It was exciting. Melissa is settling into Minnesota slowly, with stints at her parent's and uncle's respective compounds. I'm jealous of her being able to be back there. I know she is dreading it, but I see so much beauty in that place.

Very busy as we pick up speed for our November issue. The October issue is at the printer in Tennessee getting banged out. The September issue is enjoying rave reviews. Many thanks to our contributors, either photographic, literary or of design nature. This monster is growing into an amazing entity.

Covert Operations

The surprise mission back to Michigan was a stellar success.

I flew out of Los Angeles on a wednesday night, arriving into Detroit the next morning around 6am. I wrangled a rental car and headed north. With no sleep, that old stretch of road was dificult. Maybe I'm just getting old cuz I had to pull over a couple times to nap. Just couldn't keep the eyes open = dangerous stuff.

I surprised Mom in the parking lot of Meijer's Thrifty Acres. It was great to see her.

Didn't do too much back there. Lots of sleeping, chowin', visiting friends and relatives.

Expect a full report later on in the Gazettes.