My new cat Mischa, aka Memee, is coming along just fine.  She stalks me through the house and hunts my toes by night.  Last night she came down and sat in the living room with us, a first.  I have a bell on her so I have some idea where she is.  In the above, I am trying to figure out how to repair a broken small guitar so that it works.  Behind me is the Lydia Ann lighthouse, which cannot be seen through my window, is about 15 miles away, does not look like that and the window faces the wrong way anyway.  Today I have my trouble cat Mingo in the clinic being neutered.  It is not right because he is about 7 years old, and is a lovable and sweet tomcat.  But he bullies my old kitty Jango, although Mischa tears at Mingo all night and he just lays there and meows.  I really should have done this when he was a kitten.  It took me ten days to finish this due to my overwhelming sense of how bad my skills are.  Even at that this is unsure and ill proportioned.  But I needed to post som

In one of his more brilliant they are out to get me, nothing is what it seems books, Philip Dick has his protagonist, Ragle Gumm, endlessly playing a newspaper game for his living.  The setting is a small town in the 1950's, and the game is a giant grid entitled "Where Will The Little Green Man Appear Next"?  He uses a blink comparator  and his own intuition. He has been winning for months, but there is a secret.  The newspaper allows him multiple entries, which he numbers in order of probability.  One day an editor appears at his house and tells him he forgot to number the guesses. The time is actually in the 21st century, and we are in a desperate, losing war with the lunar colonies, who are on the dark side and beyond retaliation.  The game Ragle is playing is a probability assessment of the next nuclear strike.  Ragle has had his memory wiped, he is really a fashion designer who has always been able to predict which way the public will buy and this has ma

Well, well.  I was preparing a micro essay on Omaha the Cat Dancer, thinking I would be impressing all you kids out there, and look what I find. I could not even remember the name of the comic, just that it was a famous early furry work that was highly collectible and thought of.  I saw my first Omaha in Half Price Books in Austin in the expensive old comics case.  I decided not to buy it as I knew nothing of the furry thing then.  Then the net linked to Vootie , founded in 1976 by Reed Waller and Ken Fletcher. There is a lot out there about how it came about.  Credited with kicking off the furry thing, sorta.  I mean, the Wind in the Willows is furry, but there must be a line drawn somewhere.  Both these two guys are great artists.   How completely awesome.  I was graduating High School in 76 and had also graduated the next year to Heavy Metal and not comics.  I got sick of the superhero thing and bought my last Marvel comic in the spring of 77, a pathetic Fantastic Four.   h

Dockery Plantation denizen,  Robert Crumb. https://youtu.be/HlimuVyVjTU A hardscrabble and hard lived life. If this ain't the essence of the blues I'll kiss your ass in front of the Post Office.   Yeah, I was scared when I did it.  But it was worth it! Robert Johnson.  Poisoned, dead at 28. There must be something in the water in Mississippi. https://youtu.be/-Y0VhPXOooQ God bless you, Mr. Crumb.  Thanks for the advice that I took seriously as a boy.  Tell that to Jack Kerouac when you see him in Hell. Tomorrow. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dockery_Plantation   One hell of a good artist.  Maybe a little fucked up.

When I was growing up I thought this guy was the tops, and I guess I still do.  Frank Frazetta was the last of the great pulp illustrators, although in my day that meant fantasy book covers. Not quite the last, I forgot this guy.  James Bama, and more on him later.  He is still around and working.  Here is one of his insidiously captivating bring it to life for the young boy pictures- Model to painting to book cover.  That is Steve Holland on the left, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Holland_(actor) .  Now back to Frazetta. He was one of the few artists that looked like the men he painted.  For example- We will ignore the next to useless morning star as a close combat weapon, what a great painting! But this is the stuff everyone bought the books for. My, my. He started in comics but made his name in book covers. Rogue Roman.  This picture has it all.