Sketch Saturday: Baine

Here's a pencil drawing I did of Baine.

Sketch Saturday: Lobo

Here's my sketch of one of my favorite characters from DC. He got kinda played him out but I don't care since I'm a huge fan of random extreme violence.

Sketch Saturday: Superman

In my attempt to do more sketches of stuff, I decided to draw a couple DC COMICS characters. This here is how I see Superman as looking.

Move Your Car - DJO

Here's more DJO for your Monday. Always great... always makes me laugh.

ASK BAINE: I have a den of junkies next door.

This is a new feature we're including on ODD BLATHERINGS where we ask Vincent Angus Baine to answer some of the more...uh... "esoteric" questions that we get asked. We'll see how long we can feature it before we get sued.
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By Vince Baine

You come home from work and there's a bunch of scabby faced people you've never seen before shuffling into the neighbors house like dopey zombies to do a handful of crappy drugs. The stereo is going at all hours next door to your bedroom window. The neighbors have been on another meth bender and have been up for two days straight arguing about who stole who's fix. You walk to your car in the morning and the smell of junkie piss on the side of the house stinks the joint up. You get to your car and your antenna, hub caps or anything else not bolted to the ground are missing.

Having a neighbor who's running a junkie flop house can be a huge drag.

Yeah, sure, it's sad when people have drug problems and all that... but you know what? Fuck 'em! You can cry me a river for the fact that they're victims too or some such namby-pamby bullshit, but now they're fuckin' with your house or apartment that you pay a fuck load of money for in rent or mortgage and not to mention the hard earned shit that you bust your ass to have that these shitheads will snake out from underneath you to sell for drugs. A serious junkie problem can really destroys your neighborhood like cancer from either the user themselves or the piles of human debris that float through now and then looking for free goods. There's nothing like coming home from a hard day of work and seeing that your plants have been stolen by some fuck up who needs a fix. Or waking up in the middle of the night as some scrawny weasel's trying to sneak through a window and into your house to rip you off (What you do at that point will be discussed in the next chapter. Don't miss it.)

Yeah, you can talk to the druggie in question, and that will get you only an addicts lies ("Never Trust a Junkie." Ministry: Just One Fix) so don't waste your time. You could just go over with a bat and break the place apart and bust of couple of the heads of some of those pukes, but yeah, the cops aren't cool with that and the rats will just scurry back and steal your shit while you're in the hoosegow doing time for assault. I know... gay. The system just doesn't seem to work out for the little guy.

Outside of brutalizing someone with a bat what's a Joe to do?

Buck up young fella. Here are some ideas that you can try!

MAKE IT THE LANDLORDS PROBLEM:
Is the asshole in question in your apartment complex? One thing you can do if so is tell your landlord or Apartment Manager about it. If they're not in your complex then tell their Manager about it. Tell them a couple of times and make a log of when you did, either with email or a certified letter. Now you've created a paper trail that shows that you've warned and warned them about the drug problem next door. Be sure to inform them that if anything happens to any of your property you are going to hold them  personally responsible from here on out due to their inaction. It's core, I know... but if it's at that point, then it's at that point. The Apartment Manager knows what's going on.

Super dick move: After warning the Manager, take some of your shit and make it look like it was stolen then really put it to the Manager. Besides, who would believe what a junkie says? They'd probably just kick the trash to the curb.

MAKE IT THE DRUGGIES PROBLEM:
Another thing you can do is get a camera and a heavy and brutal household beat-up devise like a bat or a crowbar and walk out and take snapshots of license plates of cars that show up that you know are the visitors to the house who is using it as a dive. Druggies are cowards so they'll just bail rather then deal with the law and angry neighbors. If they're combative, then you have the blunt instrument. Under no circumstances are you to provoke a fight. If asked about what you're doing be to the point. "There's a lot of drug use at that house and I'm just keeping track of peoples comings and goings. If you're not doing anything bad then you've got nothing to fear." if they persist. "I'm now holding you personally responsible asshole for any theft or other problems in this neighborhood. It just takes one phone call to get your info..." and leave. Odds are they will too cause as I said, junkies are cowards...

MAKE IT EVERYONE'S PROBLEM:
The problem with the police is they're not just going to go smashing into a house on the off chance it's an illicit drug den full of ravenous meth fiends. This aint China Pal.  You can call the city's police departments crack tip line but most times they'll say there's nothing they can do but they'll send units by now and then to check it out. But you're a proactive cuss aint ya and you want this dealt with now. How do you get the cops really interested? We'll get to that. First thing you can do is make and post up flyers around the neighborhood with the words DRUG HOUSE at the top with the address. For extra "zing" take a picture of the house in question and put that on the flyer. Put at the bottom of the poster a number set delineating how many you've put up around the neighborhood. For example 3 of 12, 4 of 9, etc. You don't have to make all twelve, just two or three should work.

Super dick move: Here's what you can add to get under the skin of the local law enforcement in a "no holds barred" kinda way. Put on the poster DON'T WORRY, THE COPS DON'T CARE! Ohhhhhhh.... Nothing... and I repeat NOTHING pisses off a cop more then being told that they don't care about their community.

The junkies will find the posters or it will come to their attention in other ways. Do not tell anyone you did this. Not a soul. If it gets out you did this then you're gonna be the object of bullshit revenge tactics and the last thing you want to do is tangle with a bunch of strung out losers.

It will bring TOTAL attention to the house from everyone around the neighborhood. Everyone will now keep an eye on The DRUG HOUSE and the junkies probably will see the place as high risk. The cops will come by much more often and probably even check inside. You've now elevated your problem to be everyones problem.

You just want them gone. And with a little balls and a little effort you can get rid of 'em.


NOTE: Hey, what you do with this info is your business. Don't hold me responsible if you try anything I say and it goes south badly. That's your own damn fault.


VINCE BAINE is currently a private eye in Pasadena, Ca. He's served in the L.A.P.D. for 4 years but since had to resign. He served the Persian Gulf '90 as a Navy SEAL. You can find the album from his hardcore punk band "Wreckingball" on Amazon if it's still in print.

BAINE and all likenesses are COPYRIGHT © 2010 D.W. Frydendall.All Rights Reserved.

The Human Torando will kick your ass.

 George Stiehl and I were sitting in Wok n’ Roll Friday night, eating sushi and drinking beer and unfiltered sake. We were having a great time getting drunk and checking out the groups of ladies who were out showing off their wears. After we left the restaurant we got a bottle of bourbon. I was buzzing with excitement. I had finally, at long last, got a copy of Rudy Ray Moore’s magnum opus “The Human Tornado”.

He will own you.

For those of you who don’t know who Rudy Ray Moore is, he’s a comedian who gained stardom with his first record “Eat Out More Often”. This allowed him to gain enough funds to make his first film “Dolemite”. This film had everything for greatness…violence, sex, dancing, and comedy. Needless to say it became a success. What more can you say about a movie with lines like “You insecure-born, rat soup eating, jock-jawed, motherfucker!” other then greatness is bound to ensue.

Moore made “The Human Tornado”, the sequel to “Dolemite” in 1976. According to Moore this film is his favorite movie. One can see why. The film opens with a party at Dolemite’s mansion. While his friends are having a good time (a young Ernie Hudson is in the film as one of Dolemite’s friends), Dolemite is screwing some white chick in his room. Well, in Dolemite’s world, if there’s a group of brothas and sistas having a good time, some crazy-ass, racist sheriffs going to show up and rain on the parade. But are you ready for this? The aforementioned white chick is the sheriff’s wife! “He made me do it!” she cries, in which Dolemite replies “Bitch, are you for real?” Insert shootout here. Dolemite is now on the run.

The film goes into overdrive from there. There are some scenes that make you both laugh your ass off and scratch your head. When he has sex with the villain’s wife, he literally destroys the room with his “sexational” abilities. He is after all the Human Tornada’! The fight scenes offer sped-up footage, and over dubbing that doesn’t sync to the footage. Moore’s main martial art form consists of him engaging the enemy while sporadically shaking his head back and forth, making a sound similar to when you get into a really cold bath tub (see the sample to the left).

Do your soul a favor and see this film. I watched this film 4 times in two days. Everyone who watched it wants to see the rest of his films. There is a power with this film that takes you on a magical ride into film-watching ecstasy. Scorsese? Spielberg? They can lick Rudy Ray Moore’s balls. My new goal is to see him live. Then I can die happy.

NOTE: I wrote this back in 2004... unfortunately Rudy Ray Moore died in October of 2008. I think we should all have 10 days of silence in remembrance of this great man.

WHY MAKING WEBSITES IS THE LAMEST JOB…EVER.

I've been making websites since 1995 and have quite a number of sites under my belt. I've worked on everything from corporate sites to artsy websites to cheap sites. I even made a porn site or two (Everyone who does sites has made a porn site. It's just the way things are on the web space), so I know a bit about the cause and function of web site building. So in knowing that, I'd like to say to all aspiring web developers…

Making websites is the lamest, most dead-end job ever!

The greatest single day of my creative life was retiring from the web business with MADCREATOR.COM being the last (and greatest) site I made. People would tell me “"But Darren! You're so good at it!"” I say thee “Phooey!” I'm outlining the reasons why web site creation and maintenance, in a word…sucks.

SUCKS.

On the echelon of the things that sucks about doing sites a bit is dealing with the client. The client never understands the technology that goes into website construction. Thus the changes come at a rapid pace. “"Oh, it's easy to fix this or that"” or “"But you LIKE doing websites" are two things that I heard all of the time. No no no! All dumb statements! And they make no attempt to understand the technology too boot! Most of the clients I had for site just became helpless babies who NEED you to help them out. Usually these are the mom and pop sites. I made websites for cash not for creative reward! Another thing that happens all of the time is when you visit a “possible”client, the client asks you a series of questions. There is always some Jackass who sits there and listens to how you do things. Then you never hear from the “possible” client. It turns out Jackass tells the boss that they have a nephew in school who can do the site much cheaper. Thus they take all of your ideas and funnel them to some puke with a copy of Dreamweaver, making a dinky website for 100 bucks with broken links and shoddy design. Also, payment for website deals is ALWAYS on the backburner. It's like the client can't feel or hold the website in a tangible sense, therefore, it doesn't seem real to them. Oh, they usually will pay everyone else off but you, the web designer. I’'ve had “professional” clients (including some of those corporate web people found working under the radar at the big “"D"” and Vivendi/Universal) are totally unprofessional. They don't return your calls in time and then rush things through at the last moment! Gah! So, the number 3 thing that sucks about websites…CLIENTS.

SUCKIER.

The technology for making websites is hinky at best. What works on one computer and browser won't work with another computer and browser. I always use the analogy of programming a VCR with tennis rackets attached to your fingers. FLASH sometimes gets corrupted and will mess up your file. Then you need to restart from scratch. Or there is some font problem with FLASH, or there is some sound issue, or there is some programming bug that can't get fixed, or...you get it? The shit doesn't work when you need it to. Getting PHP or PURL to work on your server is a headache because the server doesn't have APACHE so hey have to fix that, and it STILL won't work. The number two reason why site building sucks…TECHNOLOGY.

SUCKIEST.

The world of web development is like the Wild West. You have the maverick gunslingers (Designers) and the greedy land barons (Companies). I can't tell you how many companies have dorked me over. They've either reneged on a deal, stole my ideas or designs or stole my original art. These people suck! I can give you a couple of names of people who screwed me over. Like, for example, in 2002. We designed a website for Clay Lacy, only to have them steal the design and have some place called Red Wave Studios RECREATE the site verbatim. Thus weaseling my company out of 3000.00. THREE GRAND! That's it! The biggest private jet charter company in the U.S. screws three hard working guys out of three grand. I hate them. They lick balls. There are so many other instances of this type of behavior in the web world. When the web became popular in the 90's every piece of crap Hollywood wannabe came out of the woodwork to get a piece of the action. I'm not saying all, but a large number of them are “"Hollywoodcentric"” shysters who will screw you to your face. “"It's all business" they say, but come on… and have some class you evil assholes. So the number one reason why websites suck…THIEVING TALENTLESS HACKS WHO RIP YOU OFF.

There you have it. Go on young soldier and make those sites. But heed my warning...you will get boffed in the long run.

New DJO for today.

This just makes me laugh... haha! See?