New Art Thursday: Everybody Draw Muhammad.

I wanted to talk about this.

First of all, I think he turned out looking more like a 2nd Edition Gnome than the Prophet of Islam. Secondly - I have no idea if the translations of "just a man" are accurate - I used Google Translate and checked 'em against any other I could find. I left some languages out just because I don't have font support on my laptop. The top bit in yellow says, "there is no god and Muhammad was just a man." I don't think I'm happy with that part.

Now I want to say something about why I drew this image, and about my problems with the whole "Everybody Draw Muhammad" thing.

I joined up because I stumbled upon the "Everybody Draw Mohammad Day" poster and searched around a bit for the story. Then the news outlets picked it up and I went ahead and joined the Facebook group (well, one of them, anyway).

I thought long and hard about what I was going to draw (which is ironic, since I just drew him sitting there). At first I was going to draw Muhammad in some parody of an iconic American image like American Gothic (with Aisha) or one of Warhol's or Rockwell's works. Then I changed my mind and I was going to draw something about the hero of a major world religion having had sexual relations with a six year old.

I opted out of that one, because it turned me off drawing. I was going to make some kind of political statement, but let's be honest, I'm about as political as a rubber fish. I was going to copy the "Hope" or "Change" Obama Image - but decided that could be construed the wrong way, and probably was going to get done to death anyway.

I ended up just drawing him, since that seems to be what gets people in a fuss anyway; shit, Parker & Stone only drew a bear costume and said it was him.

"Fuck it," I said and looked around the Facebook pages and I was kind of disgusted.

I know that all I'm looking at is Anonymous (even though it's not), but there were so many lines crossed today. I'm not sure I'm happy about more than one of them. But I'm especially disturbed by the presence of Anonymous in the same social network as my family and friends.

Yeah, yeah, sure. I bet quite a few of my family and friends are Anonymous (and if you don't know what I mean by that - I'm referring to the message and image boards, and any forum really, that allows contribution without identification. Usually these places are filled with the most disgusting and vile filth that you have to wade through to get to the gold you're looking for, be it comedy or porn or what-have-you).

But I didn't understand the necessity of drawing Muhammad fucking a pig (or a goat or a sheep or a horse or a missile[wtf?]). I didn't think it was necessary to harp on the whole pedophile thing. They know he was a pedophile, they like him that way. It's fucked up, but all you really had to do was draw the prophet. If you're going to get your fatwa just by drawing the man eating an ice cream cone.

Holy Shit! I should have drawn Muhammad eating a damn ice cream cone!!!

Damnit!

aRGHHH

Okay, I'm done. I just thought too many people took a look at "oh here, we're sticking it to the Muslims," and shouted for joy because they thought it was open season to say (draw) anything they wanted to draw of Islam's icon (I'm loving that word today for some reason). It just rubs me the wrong way.

I guess, if you look at it right, I'm being hypocritical. They see any depiction of their prophet as blasphemous and evil, which is what I did. Drawing the man in compromising positions is meant to draw out "even more anger than angry enough to kill you." Which I don't get.

Do you suppose this was a contest to see who could actually get killed over it?

I just wanted to protest the response to South Park (and other cartoonists), and maybe strike a blow for free speech. I knew it was going to piss some people off, but I didn't want to do any more than that.

I think all religions end up being an overall force for evil and wickedness in the world, but that doesn't mean we have to treat those who believe in them now like trash. Nobody really deserves any respect, but maybe we ought to give everyone a little anyway.

I'm not sorry for my participation in the event. It was challenging and kind of fun (and yeah, a little bit "fuckyou" to the man (I'm looking at you Comedy Central, you fucking cowards); but I doubt I would do it again. It was too hard wading through all the filth to find the good ones.

New Art Thursday: Clones

These are the three player characters (and their Jedi companion) from my d6 Star Wars game. I'll need to add color to bring all the separate pieces together, I think - I made the image so that it could be broken apart for use on my Obsidian Portal campaign wiki. In a few days, you'll probably be able to see the finished product(s) there.

Ninety Days 04-07: Ketchup

I got my ass handed to me by a tiny little pissant kidney stone. It stopped my posting for a few days. I'm better now. Here's the catch-up video. There's really no transcript necessary. I wasn't quite feeling up to recording myself. You love it.

This post makes reference to New Art Thursday (and Clones), as well as Free Fiction Friday (and The General's Assassin). So I've linked to them from here.

Ninety Days Intermission: Who kicked me in the nuts!?!

I got sidelined by a slight case of being unable to do anything other than whine about my kidney stones.

I had New Art Thursday just about ready to go, and only need a rewrite on Today's free fiction. Will knock out both of them (and the accompanying video) tonight after work - provided I'm feeling up to it. This is not an easy thing to deal with.

Mittwoch 01 - Was ich nicht weiß

Es tut mir leid, mein Deutsche ist shlecht.

Video Transcript:

Guten Morgen, YouTube.

Mein Name ist David, und dieses ist deutscher Mittwoch.

Ich verstehe ein bisschen Deutsch, aber Ich kann nicht es sehr güd sprechen.

Ich möchte lernen besser, und Ich werde meine Fortschritte hier zu teilen.

Mittwochs.

Ich bin Lernen mit Michel Thomas Basic German und Rosetta Stone; aber Ich auch komme aus Frankfurt am Main. Ich sprach Deutsch als Junge.

Das ist alles.

Ich weiß es nicht mehr.

Wenn du kannst mich mit meinem deutschen Hilfe, bitte tun.

Auf Wiedersehen. Bis nächste Woche.

Gerne fünften Mai! Trinken Sie viel "Cervesa"!

Ninety Days 02 (eDave - Internet Marketing for Flakes)

I sure hope this video is better. I feel like I did a better job. No Valium or whatever the hell I seemed to be on yesterday. Unfortunately, this video only serves as a kind of placeholder. I haven't got much to say about this topic yet, because I haven't done anything about it, yet. I hope I managed to make it at least somewhat enjoyable, anyway. Later.

Video Transcript:

Dave here, hi.

First of all: Sorry, to anybody who forced themselves to sit through that first video. If I had any idea that I was gonna be that boring, I would've strangled myself with the umbilical chord.

But since I didn't, I want to talk to you about "how to start internet marketing if you're a flake."

Originally, I was going to title this video "how to start internet marketing if you're partner's a flake," because I was supposed to pick up some appraisals on Tuesday, so that I could post the video about dealing with those today. Only today is Tuesday. All day yesterday, I thought my partner flaked on me, and I'm a moron.

Oh well. So now what?

I-I originally thought I was going to make these videos all elaborate, with picture-in-picture and all kinds of funny little things, up here, down here; and I decided that I can't do that, because that's time consuming.

And, I have a whole lot of stuff to do every day right now, so I don't have time to spend three hours - four hours making a video for YouTube.

What I'm doing today, eDave, is about me going into the jewelry business. Uh...

I'm picking up some appraisals today, so I can't tell you anything about what I'm doing with those, but - basically - what we're doing is, in order to come up with the capital to finance this operation, we are using eBay.

We're selling our products first, through the auction, on eBay to try to generate the revenue (reduntant much?). Now, I don't know jack-squat about eBay, but I have friends with some experience, and they're going to coach me through it, I hope (or at least give me some advice).

I have to get a credit card, because I don't have one (go figure). Anyone out there want to send me one, I could use one. I need to max one out for my movie anyway.

Anyway.

My goal this week is to get a credit card, if that's what I need to get a PayPal account. Get a PayPal account, get my appraisals, get some pictures. Post some stuff and sell it - make some money for the website.

That's about it. This is just an introduction to what I'm trying to do, and uh...

In order to go along with the title of the video though -

[damnit.]

Internet Marketing for the Complete Flake
Step 1: Make a goal. Write it down. What are you going to do?

Now that you know your big, over-all arching goal (No. I don't know what "over-all arching goal" means) - for instance, me? I'm going to create an eBusiness; but I'm a flake. I forget to do things. I drop the ball. I stop doing things. I get destract-

Hey, what the hell is that? It's a comic book.

No. Do the business, do the job, get it done. If you get distracted, be hard on yourself. Kick your own ass, make yourself do the work. That's pretty much it.

I think that's it (Thanks for watching).

Now I've got a lot of writing, reading, eating, studying, drawing, practicing, and exercising to do. So, that's it. See ya' later. Bye.

One more thing. Any of you actual internet marketing guys who got sucked into watching this video; if you want to give me some advice, I'd appreciate it. Leave your comments below. Thanks.

Ninety Days 01 (Intro)

This video is horrible. Horrible quality, horrible pacing, horrible plot, and just bad direction overall. I'm so sorry. I will try to do better (I promise). Transcript at the end of this post.

Schedule of Video/Blog Posts:

• Monday: Thoughts & Things / My Guitar Can't Weep
• Tuesday: eDave (internet commerce)
• Wednesday: Mittwoch (meine deutsche Sprache Fortschritt)
• Thursday: New Art Thursday / How to get a job in comics.
• Friday: Free Fiction Friday / Novel Writing for Lazy Bums
• Saturday: X Paper Cranes / Motorcycle Madness!
• Sunday: Movie Updates

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Video Transcript:

Hi everybody. Dave [here].
As I get closer and closer to 40 - I'm not there yet, but I'm getting there - I'm realizing that I'm on the wrong path.
Everything in my life points to a total disatisfaction with where I am, and for the last ten years or so, all I've done is whine about it, and wallow in it.
Yesterday, I was cleaning my bathroom, and it was overdue. I mean, it was disgusting, and something in me broke, and I went to clean the bathroom.
I-I was in there for awhile, scrubbing away. All of the sudden, I wasn't thinking about what I was scrubbing, I wasn't thinking about what I had to do next, I wasn't thinking about my life, I wasn't thinking about the girl, I wasn't thinking about anything. I wasn't thinking about the quivering mess. I just was. Am.
I came out of it with this... I don't know what the word is (epiphany?). I came out of it with this certainty that I'm not doing right by myself. I'm wasting my life. So I decided that in the course of the next 90 days, I'm going to take a handful of goals, and I'm going to accomplish them.
And I'm going to videotape that, because, 1) I need to be accountable to somebody, and I have friends (and I trust them), but having the screen and the camera there, in between us, makes it easier for me to step up to this. 2) I'm going to do a lot - a lot - in three months, and maybe when I'm done, someone will want to know how I did it. This is a record.
So, so what I'm going to do.
In the ten years or more that I've been goalsetting, I've been sitting on my ass, in my filth, pretending that I was going to do something more - and not doing it. I made elaborate plans, and I never did - I didn't follow through with hardly anything.
So I took all took all of those goals, all of these plans, all of these pages and pages and pages of notes and I condensed it down to just 10 things.
Ten things that I'm going to accomplish in the next 90 days.

1. The first is, I'm going to lose 30 pounds.
2. I'm going to learn to play the guitar... better (I'm not that good).
3. I'm going to start a web business.
4. Ich werde deutscher Spreche lernen.
5. I'm going to build a portfolio, and I'm going to get a job penciling comics.
6. And I'm going to write a novel.
7. I'm going to fold 1,000 paper cranes. Because.
8. I'm going to buy a motorcycle.
9. I'm going to create a good movie with my friends.
10. And I'm going to go raw vegan. I was much healthier, and I felt better when I was raw, when I was vegan.

I'm going to post again tomorrow, and the day after that and the day after that - for 90 days. And after that, I don't know what I'm going to do.
There's a link to my blog, below. And on that blog, you'll find a transcript of this video, and a schedule of when I'm going to post about which of these goals.
That way, if you're interested at all, you can follow me.
I think that's it.
Thanks for watching.
Music: Julandrew "Crazy As" via Jamendo.com (viva Creative Commons)
the Game.