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What It Is: 4/12/10

What I’m reading: I finished Indignation last week, and returned to The Philosophy of Andy Warhol. Picked up a bunch of comics collections on Saturday, so I’ll make time for those.

What I’m listening to: Static & Silence, by Sundays.

What I’m watching: The Men Who Stare at Goats, The September Issue, the last round of the Masters, and Treme.

What I’m drinking: Funnily/weirdly enough, I didn’t have a drink from the beginning of Passover to the Friday after it ended, an 11-day span. This weekend, I broke out the Citadelle and Q-Tonic.

What Rufus & Otis are up to: Their first Sunday greyhound hike since mid-January! And, boy, was it a long one: 5+ miles, a chunk of which was plagued by gnats, another chunk of which was sodden and muddy. And then there were the car-sized ticks. And don’t get me started on the C.H.U.D.s . . .

Where I’m going: Tonight, I’m heading out to the Nets’s final home game of the season. Since they’re moving to Newark after this season (and eventually to the land-grab arena in Brooklyn), this’ll be their final game at the Meadowlands. I thought it’d be a good way to honor the memory of my pal Sang, with whom I went to many a Nets game, both when they were losers and when Jason Kidd transformed into the best team in the east. To that end, Sang’s pal Chuck is going to come along, even though he’s not a basketball fan. I’ll letcha know how it goes. These links will be dead in a few days, but here are the NYPost‘s articles (1 and 2) on the (ignominious) history of the arena off 16W.

What I’m happy about: That on the way out of the MoCCA festival, I got to bump into Gahan Wilson. I shook his hand and said, “I just want to thank you for so many decades of wonderful cartooning.” He beamed and said, “Thank you, young man! You’re very kind!”

What I’m sad about: The only person to call me “young man” lately is 80 years old.

What I’m worried about: Having to learn another niche of the pharma biz so I can write an article on it this week.

What I’m pondering: If basset hounds are really this sad:

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Funny books

During the height of the finance boom, I was able to get paid $375 per hour — and a minimum of three hours — by investment groups that wanted my advice about pharmaceutical facility acquisitions. I knew then that banks were going to implode. After all, people responsible for hundreds of millions — if not billions — in investments concluded I was an expert worth paying for advice? And that my advice was worth taking? The center could not hold.

I’m glad that I lead a relatively inextravagant lifestyle, because I managed to spend around $300 in little more than an hour at the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art Festival today. Sadly, I actually budgeted that amount before heading into NYC for the event.

The damage, in chronological order:

1. Lincoln Tunnel toll: $8

2. One-day admission: $12

3. Jaime Hernandez illustration of Maggie Chascarillo (the 7th Jaime illustration I now own): $100

4. Fantagraphics Books table: $90 (with tax)

5. Picturebox table: $25

6. Top Shelf table: $6

7. Drawn & Quarterly table: $50 (with in-show discount)

8. Barbecue turkey burger at Pete’s Tavern: $11 w/tip

9. Parking: $13 w/tip

Grand Total: $315 in a little more than an hour.

So, um, if you know any investment groups that need advice on facility acquisitions, send ’em my way!

Because you’re all clamoring for it, here’s the Jaime drawing I bought.

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You can view all 7 of my Jaime illos over here.

And a couple of pix from MoCCA are over here.

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You, Sir, Are Bad-Ass: Baby, I Don’t Care

Courtesy of The Impossible Cool, let’s end this week with a dose of Bad-Ass:

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Robert Mitchum.

Whose biography, Baby, I Don’t Care, I just bought on my Kindle. And who would sneer at me and then kick my ass for having such a device.

Every man should have at least one Robert Mitchum moment in his life. Here’s mine.

I was at a New Year’s party in NYC in 2003, a few sheets to the wind, kindasorta getting over some heartbreak, when I bumped into a cute, tall, redhead who’d drunkenly flirted with me at a party a few weeks earlier. We resumed our flirtation and got to smooching a little. Then she looked up into my eyes and drunktiredhorny said, “Take me home.”

And I looked at her, smiled, and said, “Baby, I ain’t got a home.”*

That’s my Robert Mitchum moment. She reconnected with her friends, who led her outside a little later. Two days after, I met the woman I’m gonna spend the rest of my life with.

* As far as that night went, it was true. I wasn’t driving back to NJ in that condition, and wasn’t gonna bring her back to my friends’ sofa with me.

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Happy Chipday, Part 2

We took Chip Delany out for a belated birthday brunch today, arranged by our pal Elayne! Here’s the 68th birthday boy with his cake!

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And here’s a shot of Chip with the full-page pic from that article in last week’s New York Magazine:

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We had a lovely meal, even if I couldn’t partake in some of the dishes or the complimentary champagne, since I’m trying to keep kosher for Pesach.

Many happy returns, Chip!

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Happy Chipday

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April may or may not be the cruellest month, but at least it kicks off with the birthday of my pal Chip Delany! Happy birthday, old boy! I still marvel over the fact that you thought I’d be a good publisher of your work. I took it as a compliment at the time, but now I think it was more an indictment of the publishing industry.

Anyway, here’s a neat article about Chip’s masterpiece, Dhalgren, from this week’s New York Magazine! Enjoy! And read Dhalgren somedarntime! It’s worth the effort!

Photo of “the creole Santa Claus” (even though he’s not creole) by Andreas Laszlo Konrath