Happy New Year 2020!

Happy New Year 2020!

CAREER

This was maybe my least working year yet, I only did about six months of editing and the rest was painting and being a dad.  

This year’s editing was just bouncing back and forth between “Miz & Mrs.” and “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” which were both great to work on.  I also made commercials for my first solo art show!

I had work at Gallery1988 in several shows this year, including an official “Weird Al” show where Al attended in person!  I painted my second ever mural at the “Dark Art Emporium” in Long Beach and it was a picture of my amazing wife to go with my first ever solo show.  I was in one more group show at Corey Helford Gallery in downtown LA, the official 45th anniversary of Hello Kitty.

I painted a couple portraits for The Memory Project, a charity for children around the world suffering extreme challenges.  Painting pictures of the children makes them feel valued and helps them build a positive memory.  It’s a great organization.

I once again did not vote in the Emmys this year…too busy!

PERSONAL

Still living with Chelsea, we’ve been together for 124 months now and our nub continues to grow.  I still love her and our life together with all my heart!  We had a baby this year!  We’re parents!  We had a boy and he’s four months old and he’s awesome.  We also got a puppy this February named Sweet P, who helped our old doxie cross the rainbow bridge in November.

We did not travel this year and it was the first year without a trip to see my SCAD friends.  Chelsea and I had a weekend in San Luis Obispo for our babymoon.

I met a lot of my heroes including Carrie-Anne Moss, Ben Frost, Miss Mosh, Ed Begley Jr., Matt Gondek, Fin Dac, Handiedan, Mallory O’Meara, The Miz and Maryse, Weird Al, Aaron Paul, and more!

I did a decent amount of running and exercising this year but could not stay consistent, my weight was up and down and ended on the upswing.

JAN 1, 2019 WEIGHT: 214.5

JAN 1, 2020 WEIGHT: 227 


RESOLUTIONS FOR 2019

1) Start a family.
2) Write another good script.
3) Be really serious about fitness: Get weight back to 180s, new personal best 5k, and run 1000 miles.
4) Solo art show.
5) BHOT
6) Develop visual art style
7) Cut something scripted.
8) Deliver second feature film
9) Love Chelsea like she’s never been loved before.  And then love her some more.
10) Continue being awesome.

RESOLUTIONS FOR 2020

1) Learn Illustrator and Wacom, vinyl printing etc etc

2) Write another good script.
3) Be really serious about fitness: Get weight back to 180s, new personal best 5k, and run 1000 miles.
4) A secret thing!

5) BHOT
6) Continue to develop visual art style
7) Cut something scripted.
8) Be a good dad!

9) Love Chelsea like she’s never been loved before.  And then love her some more.
10) Continue being awesome.

I know, I gotta believe!

Happy New Year 2019!

CAREER

This was my hardest working year yet, I had only about three weeks off from editing this year, and of course I was doing art stuff the whole time.  

I’ve picture locked my second feature documentary called “Keep On Running,” about marathon runners from Sierra Leone.  We’re submitting to festivals and doing some final post-production.

I started the year by finishing up my work on “Iyanla: Fix My Life” for OWN.  Then it was several short stints on an unannounced MTV series, “Hanging With the Hendersons” for Animal Planet, “Get A Room With Carson and Thom” for Bravo, “Miz & Mrs.” for USA and “Family or Fiance” for OWN.

My favorite project was that I cut my wife’s web series “Thank You Come Again,” loosely based on her experience working in an adult novelty store.  It’s the first thing she ever directed and she did a really great job! We got to travel and see the short version play at festivals around the country.

I stepped down my participation in group art shows this year, favoring quality over quantity.  I had work at Gallery1988 in several shows this year, as well as some other great galleries around LA.  I painted my first ever mural in the bathroom hallway of the new pizza pub “The 4th Horseman” in Long Beach.  And perhaps my favorite moment of the year was being invited to not one but two group shows at Corey Helford Gallery in downtown LA.  It’s the most prestigious gallery I’ve ever been involved with and both of my pieces sold! I’ve been to many shows at CHG and never dreamed I’d be able to show there.  I’m very proud of this accomplishment and hope to return there soon.

I painted several portraits for The Memory Project, a charity for children around the world suffering extreme challenges.  Painting pictures of the children makes them feel valued and helps them build a positive memory. It’s a great organization.  I once again was a mentor for the Outset mentorship through OutFest, I cut an awesome comedy short for a great young writer/director and I even taught a class about editing.  Wild!

I once again did not vote in the Emmys this year…too busy!

PERSONAL

Still living with Chelsea, we’ve been together for 112 months now and our nub continues to grow.  I still love her and our life together with all my heart! We started trying to have children this year.

We gave up trying to buy a house in this market but we did rent a house and move into it.  We did go to Honolulu and Chicago to see Chelsea’s short film play, and they were great trips.  Our ninth anniversary fell on the same day as Chelsea’s film played in Honolulu and we had a very special night.  The annual Memorial Day trip got postponed until Veterans Day again and we went to Idaho and had a fantastic time.  We fished for dinosaurs and ate the best steak of my entire life.

I met a lot of my heroes including Eric Idle, Soey Milk, Leonard Maltin (again), Lloyd Kaufman (again), Ted White, Steve Purcell (again), Dave Quiggle, Diana Georgie, Adam Rifkin, Thomas Middleditch, Dana Gould (again), Jonah Ray, Stephen Toblowski, Naomi Grossman, Jeffrey Reddick, Miss Miranda, Pernille Oerum, Sunmee Joh, Dan Mumford, and bumblebeelovesyou.

I bought marijuana when the state law was changed to allow recreational use, which I believe is the right choice for the government.

I did a decent amount of running and exercising this year but could not stay consistent, my weight was up and down and ended on the upswing.  I did not check off a lot of resolutions this year, but I did do a lot of awesome stuff I’m really happy about.

JAN 1, 2018 WEIGHT:  219

JAN 1, 2019 WEIGHT: 214.5

RESOLUTIONS FOR 2019

1) Start a family.

2) Write another good script.

3) Be really serious about fitness: Get weight back to 180s, new personal best 5k, and run 1000 miles.

4) Solo art show.

5) BHOT

6) Develop visual art style

7) Cut something scripted.

8) Deliver second feature film

9) Love Chelsea like she’s never been loved before.  And then love her some more.

10) Continue being awesome.

I know, I gotta believe!

CAREER

Followed a bad year with perhaps my best so far.  I worked about ten months out of the year on tv shows and of course was doing art stuff the whole time. 

I’m still in the notes phase of my second feature documentary called “Keep On Running,” about marathon runners from Sierra Leone.  I really hope to finish it this year.

I co-wrote a horror script that was good enough to get a manager and distributor on board.  Ultimately, another film came out that was too similar, but I’m still working with all the same people on a new project and we’ll keep seeing where this all goes.  If nothing else, it was a great experience to take pitch meetings and go through producer notes, etc.

This year, I was the Supervising Editor of a new Showtime show called “Naked SNCTM,” which is my triumphant return to late night pay cable.  I was an editor on one of the more challenging projects of my career, “Who Shot Biggie and Tupac?” a two-hour special event for FOX.  I cut a gameshow pilot that was bought by a network.  I helped out cutting on seven episodes of MTV’s Catfish.  I’m now cutting a show for OWN called “Iyanla: Fix My Life,” with the season premiere in just a few weeks.

Maybe my favorite project was that I cut a trailer for my wife’s upcoming web series “Thank You Come Again,” loosely based on her experience working in an adult novelty store.  It’s the first thing she ever directed and she did a really great job!

I participated in 22 group art shows this year, in LA, Boston and Athens.  5 of them were charity shows, and some of others I gave my proceeds to charity as well.  Those are my favorites.  I was super stoked to make my debut at a couple of galleries I have loved, including CoPro, SugarMynt and Hyaena.  Perhaps the most exciting show of the year was that I finally participated in “Crazy4Cult” at Gallery1988.  I’ve wished I could be a part of this show for 10 years, but I never thought it would actually happen.  It was a double whammy of life dream for me because I painted a pop art portrait of Pee-wee Herman and then I got to meet Pee-wee and he signed the painting!  And then it sold at the show as my personal best sale ever!  What a night.

I did my first two licensing deals, one for my “The Birds” painting that has now become my first enamel pin!  The other was my F13 painting, which was picked up by Creepy Co. for a limited edition shirt.

I once again did not vote in the Emmys this year…too busy!

PERSONAL

Still living with Chelsea, we’ve been together for 100 months now and our nub continues to grow.  I still love her and our life together with all my heart!  For our eighth anniversary in August, we kept it low key and had a nice dinner after one of my art shows.  And there was the triumphant return of the Bee History of Time!

We did not take many trips this year because of trying to save up for a house.  We did go to Vegas when Chelsea was invited to be a guest at ClexaCon and I got to meet Eden Riegel and paint a picture of her for charity!  The annual Memorial Day trip got postponed until Veterans Day and we went to West Palm Beach.  For the holidays this year we did Palm Springs and Atlanta.

I met a lot of my heroes including Paul Reubens, E.G. Daily, Babs Tarr (twice), Eden Riegel, Marc Scott Zicree, Judy Tenuta, Ari Lehman, Tippi Hedren (again), Bruce Campbell (again), Le Dosshaus, Thom Mathews, Bobby Ray Shafer, Devon Whitehead, Rob Guillory, Kate Micucci (even bought an original painting from her!), and Lloyd Kaufman once again.

I did a decent amount of running and exercising this year but could not stay consistent, my weight was up and down and ended on the upswing.  I did not check off a lot of resolutions this year, but I did do a lot of awesome stuff I’m really happy about.

JAN 1, 2017 WEIGHT:  211

JAN 1, 2018 WEIGHT: 219

RESOLUTIONS FOR 2017

1) Buy a home.

2) Cut another horror film/short.

3) Picture Lock “Keep on Running”

4) Solo art show.

5) Be really serious about fitness: Get weight back to 180s, new personal best 5k, and run 1000 miles.

6)  BHOT

7)  A secret resolution I will not tell you.

8) Continue learning to use more graphics in editing.  Use AfterEffects.

9) Love Chelsea like she’s never been loved before.  And then love her some more.

10) Continue being awesome.

RESOLUTIONS FOR 2018

1) Buy a home.

2) Write another good script

3) Secret resolution I will not tell you.

4) Be really serious about fitness: Get weight back to 180s, new personal best 5k, and run 1000 miles

5) BHOT

6) Develop visual art style

7) Learn more about Wacom/designing

8) Finish second feature film

9)Love Chelsea like she’s never been loved before.  And then love her some more.

10) Continue being awesome.

I know, I gotta believe!

Well, we’re two weeks into the year, so this may be a record number of posts to this blog within one year. 

This week, I continued working on season 3 of Triple Play for Playboy TV, which as always is a great experience to work on and I hope we keep making this show for a long time.  I didn’t get to run as much this week because of a lot of rain in Los Angeles, and it looks like the back half of this coming week is going to have a lot of rain as well.  Great for our drought, bad for my running career J

On Tuesday I dropped off some F13 merch to Cinefamily for their screening of Friday the 13^th Part III, with Larry Zerner in person.  Larry plays the character Shelly in the film, who brings a hockey mask to Camp Crystal Lake and I think you know the rest of the story.  He helped me get a copyright registration on the image that’s on the merch!  Last time I worked with Cinefamily they did a great job and sold a lot of my shirts, so I’m excited.

On Wednesday, Chelsea and I celebrated 7 ½ years together, many of them great!

We looked at some more houses, still haven’t seen anything to get too excited about.  I’m kind of hoping the housing market dips after Inauguration Day and whatever comes next.  Anyway, if I can just keep working and saving then we will have a better shot at the house we really want.

I was invited to do another Twilight Zone themed art show, this time at Bearded Lady’s Mystic Museum in Burbank.  I’ve started working on a pop art Rod Serling for the show and I’m very excited about it, very happy with my likeness.  I’ve never tried the pop art style in black and white before, so it’s fun.  And of course in my other spare time I’ve continued to work on my second feature documentary “Keep On Running” which has reached the notes phase of post, yay!

On Saturday, I had a table set up at the VHSwap Rewind It! event at Blast From the Past in Burbank.  It’s fun to get my art out there and meet people.  I had some good face time with a couple artists and a director that I would love to work for, but not a lot of sales.  Then I ran 5 miles along the LA River!

On Sunday, I had a big day hanging out with a great artist, Jeremy Cross, and a friend and gallery owner, Jeremy Schott.  We went to the LA Art Show at the convention center downtown and saw all the fancy art.  Wow, that place is crazy!  I’ve never seen a $5M price tag before in my life, but they had everything and all of it was for sale.  I saw some cool Lichtenstein prints and even some friend’s work at the show!  Very cool.  I met Gregario Escalante, I hope one day to show at his gallery.  Then I went to Silverlake Wine and picked up a silkscreen “Resist Hate!” sign by artist Eric Junker who has done some of my favorite murals around the city.

Continuing my trend of weird sleeping hours, I passed out at 9pm and slept until 5am, and now here I am!

First week of 2017

Hello!

Welcome to my annual attempt at staying current on this blog.  Surely I will give up in a few weeks, but until there here is what I was up to this week:

-Monday I worked and worked out, then went home and put in some time on my documentary's trailer.

-Tuesday I went to work and went running at night.  Then I put in more work on my documentary's trailer.

-Wednesday I went to work and the gym.  When I got home I had a bee in my bonnet to take the xmas decorations down, so we did.  Pine needles everywhere.  I also tried to fix my broken monitor but that didn't happen...but it did keep me up until 3am!

-Thursday I worked and was very tired.  I passed out cold at 9pm.

-Friday I woke up at 4am, went running, worked, and I attended three art gallery openings.  This year's first show of Gallery1988 was a pop-up pin shop.  Enamel pins are huge right now, probably already oversaturated.  Part of the reason I was there was to say thanks to them for the last show of 2016, the Coen Brothers tribute that I was part of.  The mail was delivered while I was there and they opened some small gifts from other artists that had exhibited with them during the year and I realized I should be doing this too.  I looked online and saw many galleries posting gifts they had received from artists saying thank you, so I think I should definitely get it together next year.  At the very least I would like to design my own holiday card or thank you card to send to galleries, if not art gifts.  Anyway, the next gallery show I went to was at La Luz De Jesus gallery in Wacko Soap Plant in Los Feliz.  I have been in this gallery many times but never attended an opening night, and it was great.  Finally met Matt Kennedy in person, and he introduced me to Steve Rude in person!  Steve was in town for the night just for the show, which was all about his work.  There was some amazing stuff there, very inspiring to see in person and he was so gracious and warm.  Lovely family as well.  Last gallery was Sugarmynt in Pasadena for a new solo exhibit by DefectiveBarbie.  It was watercolor portraits with a lot of surreal drip effect elements, very cool.  I talked to her a bit about her use of watercolors on canvas, which you don't usually see.  Some of my friends happened to show up at that gallery and we went out for drinks after and it was fun.

-Saturday we did some house hunting.  I went running and completed 21.5 miles for the week!  I worked on my running doc.  We had dinner with Jesse and Marika, Everett and Emma at Outback.  Emma was a little pill, but she is tiny and cute so it's ok.  Everybody is healthy, so much better than holiday break when they were all sick.  I couldn't sleep and I was up until 7am working on art for ClexaCon.

-Sunday we got up and went to see the same house from yesterday but this time with our agent.  it was ok.  I was destroyed all day by lack of sleep and mostly just laid around and watched the Golden Globes.

2016 Year in Review

CAREER

Followed a financially great year with one not so great.  I had 6 months off at the beginning of the year.  I meant to concentrate on pursuing scripted content, but in the end all I wanted to do was paint!  And so I did, and I put a lot of time and money into creating and selling my artwork.  In the end, I made a lot of contacts and even some fans and got a decent foothold into the group art scene in Los Angeles.  I participated in fourteen group art shows at galleries such as Creature Features, Bearded Lady’s Mystic Museum, The Dark Arts Emporium, Forgotten Saints, San Diego Comic Con Art Show, and even a longstanding dream come true: Gallery1988.  I became the resident artist at Cross Roads Escape Games in Anaheim, for whom I also designed a t-shirt.  I obtained a seller’s permit and had a vending table at Days of the Dead, Monsterpalooza and many smaller events around the city, selling prints and t-shirts of my work.  I sold a half-dozen original paintings, including one for $1k!

My feature documentary “In The Turn,” continued travelling the world and has now been officially distributed.  You can find the film so far on iTunes, Amazon and Vimeo.

I cut a second feature documentary this year called “Keep On Running,” about marathon runners from Sierra Leone.  I am presently going through the notes process with the director, who lives in London.

I cut two short films for the OutFest OutSet program. One is called “Hey Stacey!” and the other is called “It’s a Boy.”  I love them both and they’ve been touring around festivals this year all over the country.

I wrote a short horror film called “Inspiration” that was filmed for CrypTV.  Much of the same team from “Love in the Time of Monsters,” created it.  I also edited my first horror short called “Mystery Phone.”

I returned to professional editing in July.  As such, I was the Supervising Editor of a new MTV show called “Shinesty,” about a clothing company of the same name.  I was very happy to lend a few days work to this year’s TBS Christmas special called “Surprise! Instant Xmas Carols,” which was the official kickoff to the 20^th anniversary “A Christmas Story” marathon.  And I’m currently back as Supervising Editor for season 3 of “Triple Play” for Playboy Channel.

I once again did not vote in the Emmys this year, only the nominations…too busy!

PERSONAL

Still living with Chelsea, we’ve been together for 88 months now and our nub continues to grow.  I still love her and our life together with all my heart!  For our seventh anniversary in August, we basically ignored it because we were deep into terrible wedding planning and a month away from getting married.

Which we did!  We got married on September 18^th and it was awesome!  It’s official, bees for life, yay!  Obviously this is the highlight of my year.

Again, we did not take many trips this year because of not having money coming in.  But I did have a bachelor party in Vegas and my SCAD friends and brothers were there and that was also awesome!  And went to San Diego Comic Con for my first time, which was a blast.  And then I went to Savannah for a wedding in November.

I continued to get my Friday the 13^th painting autographed by stars and crew members, and I’ve done several more horror themed pop art paintings.  I’ve become a little part of the horror scene in LA as well and it’s super fun.

I met a lot of my heroes including famed comic book artists and creators Paul Dini and Bruce Timm, and lots of other people I met at SDCC, which you can read about in that post.  Met Tom Savini and Tony Todd for a third time, Ben Edlund twice, Sean S. Cunningham, Fairuza Balk and Rachel True, Larry Zerner, Adrienne King, John Carl Buechler, Bill Moseley twice (he bought a shirt from me!), Derek Mears, Jessie Lee, Leslie Easterbrook and Sid Haig again.

My running and fitness went great when I wasn’t working, but was destroyed this year by wedding planning.  I lost 22 lbs but I still had to rent a tux.  Then I gained all the weight back with interest :(

JAN 1, 2016 WEIGHT:  204

JAN 1, 2017 WEIGHT: 211

RESOLUTIONS FOR 2016

1) Write a good script.

2) Cut a horror film/short.

3) Cut “Keep on Running”

4) Solo art show.

5) Be really serious about fitness.  I want a new PB 5k and to fit in my tux.

6) Marry Chelsea.

7) Write a song for piano.

8) Continue learning to use more graphics in editing.  Use AfterEffects.

9) Love Chelsea like she’s never been loved before.  And then love her some more.

10) Continue being awesome.

RESOLUTIONS FOR 2017

1) Buy a home.

2) Cut another horror film/short.

3) Picture Lock “Keep on Running”

4) Solo art show.

5) Be really serious about fitness: Get weight back to 180s, new personal best 5k, and run 1000 miles.

6)  BHOT

7)  A secret resolution I will not tell you.

8) Continue learning to use more graphics in editing.  Use AfterEffects.

9) Love Chelsea like she’s never been loved before.  And then love her some more.

10) Continue being awesome.

I know, I gotta believe!

San Diego Comic-Con 2016

Despite being in heavy wedding planning mode and working full time, I took the weekend to join Chelsea in San Diego and fulfill a promise to myself and lifelong dream: attending the San Diego Comic-Con International.  It was huge!  I brought a LOT of stuff to get signed because all of my heroes were there...basically everyone who ever influenced me as an artist was attending.  So I lugged around a heavy bag of stuff all day on Friday and tried to meet as many artists I admire as I could.

I met:

-Bruce Timm
-Paul Dini
-Jeff Smith
-J. Scott Campbell
-Eric Powell
-Scott C.
-Lorelay Bove
-Geof Darrow
-Steve Purcell
-Kevin Eastman
-Ben Edlund
-Jimmy Palmiotti

And more!

I was really tired after dragging all this stuff around all day (plus adding more stuff that I bought!), so we didn't go out on Friday night.  Instead, we watched the first half of season 3 of Bojack Horseman.  It was great.

I didn't realize it as much at the time, but having that heavy bag on my back all day really did a number on me, and I have remained sore and aching the last two days.  So Saturday I didn't bring anything with me and I spent a lot of time meeting independent artists and supporting them.  I ended up running into some more great heroes just walking around on the convention floor:

-Tim Bradstreet
-Greg Nicotero
-Tom Kinney
-Joss Whedon
-Olivia de Berardinis
-Babs Tarr

And I saw some fantastic original and classic art on display.  Again, so tired we didn't go out on Saturday night either.  Although we did stop for dinner at Morton's and I made eye contact and waved hello to Michael Chiklis, who came to eat there while we were sitting out front.  He nodded to me while he held the door for his dates.  That counts as meeting, right?  Then we went back to the airbnb and watched the second half of Bojack season 3.  It was great too.

Then we left Sunday morning and came home.  I've been doing a lot of work on my She-Ra painting, but it's time for bed because I have work tomorrow :*(

I also had some artwork in the SDCC art show, and I sold four out of five pieces!  Hooray.  Chelsea had a press pass, so the tickets were free.  And she did so great at her panel that a video of it went a little viral and she got a lot of new twitter followers and some invites to speak at other conventions.  Yay!