Blade Runner is one of my favoritest movies EVAR (as the kids would say).

I believe I’ve talked about my liking of cyberpunk things before, and Blade Runner is definitely in that category.

When Blade Runner was rereleased in 1992 in the Director’s Cut (with the lost narration and the not-The Shining ending) I drove to Richmond from Charlottesville to see it. I drove the 68 miles without a second thought. I wanted to see the newer version.

My mind races with thoughts about BR and my relationship to it. I think it was Mr. Johnson, my short story teacher from High School, who was convinced I could write, who lent a copy of the movie on VHS to me and Chris Greazel. I think it was a fuzzy dupe and Chris and I tried to watch it on my Grandparent’s VCR (neither of us had one at home). Is that a misremembrance? Not sure. But we dug it.

Maybe some of my Japan fetish came from this film. There’s the giant video mural of a geisha eating some candy or gum. There’s the idea of cityspeak in the movie, which is a mishmash of Spanish, Japanese, German, what-have-you. There’s a blue-eyed Edward James Olmos with blue contact lenses, as a cop, sort of hispanic, sort of not, dressed like a natty vato in an East L.A. style.

As an aside, there’s an artificial owl when Deckard goes to see Tyrell for the first time:

Rachael: Do you like our owl?
Deckard: It’s artificial?
Rachael: Of course it is.
Deckard: Must be expensive.
Rachael: Very.
Rachael: I’m Rachael.
Deckard: Deckard.

Very little said, but the implication is that nature is dead. We killed it. It’s only 2019, but we killed nature off. Artificial snakes and snake scales.

Chris and I would go to Little Tokyo for years to get Japanese food in downtown L.A. based off the fact that the movie begins with Deckard getting noodles at some dive in downtown L.A.

I haven’t done much scanning of vehicles that I worked on, but Chris would draw vehicles incessantly, and this inspired me to do the same. Many things were retrofitted vehicles. Syd Mead did the production design for Blade Runner, and he was credited as the “Visual Futurist.” That term is as good a description as I could ever muster for my friend Chris.

I think it was in the late 1980s or so that we took a trip to Pasadena to an event called “Tools of the Trade” — it was a tradeshow for artists. What amazing toys! I remember thinking the puffy fabric paints were really cool. And brushpens! Those were some high-tech things. But the main reason we went was to see Syd Mead. Chris even got an autograph if I remember right. You can read more about Syd Mead and his amazing talents at sydmead.com. The Wikipedia article about him could use some work. Syd also went to Art Center, a school both Chris and I hoped to attend, though as I said before, I never really applied myself to the task of applying to any school.

The infamous Art Center story is that one day after class Chris and I just decided after school to go up to Art Center and see what was in the gallery. Art Center always has cool stuff in their gallery, student work of all kinds. Chris was enthralled with the trans works, while I liked the illustration, art, and advertising works. Really amazing stuff, and things we aspired to. For years, it was a ritual of ours to return there to see what was in the gallery, and if we had time to hit the library and see what obscure transportation magazines from Japan Chris could find.

Oh, the infamous trip. So we just decided to go. No calling anyone. No messages. No notes, we just went. We got out of school at like 2 or 3pm. And we just went north. Took maybe 2 hours and change to get from San Diego to Pasadena. I remember, we just sorta winged it, and maybe got lost once on the way there. All the while playing tapes on this old tape recorder and player I had. The 1972 Volvo had an old AM radio in it. It was built like a tank, but did not have lots of power. We had a great time driving and talking and musing about — well, everything. We talked about the plausibility of various aspects of Star Trek and Star Wars. About alien intelligence, about the future of the world, the inevitability of a nuclear war before the end of the century. (In fact, I think I lost a bet to Chris that there would be nuclear weapons detonated in anger before 2000). Mind you we were in about 1986 or so here, so we were 16 and 17 years old. Just kids, really. Anyway, we had a great time, and we saw the gallery, and it blew our minds. Chris has been there before, but I think it was my first time there. I was sort of the instigator. The way it shapes up in my mind is Chris and I were eating at some fastfood joint (maybe it was the Carl’s Junior down the hill from University of San Diego?) and Chris was saying how cool it was. And I was in my “Say why not” phase and said, “well, let’s go.”

Man, I love the internet. Here’s the map of our journey, more or less. One hundred and thirty miles from USDHS to Art Center.

I forget how it all played out. I think I must’ve dropped Chris off at his car near school, then gone home. I think it was at about 1am or so that we got home after driving the distance and stopping for Chili and Coffee at some Denny’s, was it in San Clemente? I think I added oil on the way there. That Volvo burned oil.

I got home greeted by my mother, who was more upset, as in angry, than I had ever seen her in my life. She gave me a good talking to, stressing the fact that there was no notice given for this outlandish trip. I think my Dad was on call or aboard ship or somewhere else. I don’t remember. But my Mom was furious at me.

My memory really is hazy here, it was 20 years ago, but I believe when my Dad heard about this trip he quite liked it. I think he liked that it was this spunky thing that I went and did without really thinking of anyone but myself. I suppose the dichotomy between my parents here is a touchstone for how I learned to think of myself and how I make decisions. My mother, the responsible and familial parent, and my father, the iconoclast. Somehow in that mixed message parenting I managed to survive my teen years and had some fun too. Mostly, admittedly, I was not really taking good care of myself, but I did learn a lot. Which I suppose one way or another, you can’t avoid during your adolesence.

This week I’m going to see Bruce Sterling, an author who became famous during the Cyberpunk era, but whose work I had not yet read at the time of the Art Center trip. He will be speaking at Art Center. The last time I went was maybe 10 years ago. It’ll be fun to see how the place has changed.

It won’t be spur 0f the moment, and my Mom will not be upset at me, and I am giving notice that I’m going, but perhaps I’ll be as inspired this time as I was that time. We’ll see.

Mr. J.C. Roth taught high school physics at Uni High — USDHS — University of San Diego High School. I have no idea what years he taught there, but he was a great teacher who I totally underappreciated.

I got semi-famous at school for this caricature, perhaps my best caricature ever. Roth had a wonderful face and for all his New York gruffness, was a very kind man. He had moxie and chutzpah and when I think of the best teachers I have had in my life, I think of him.

He was smart and engaged and did not take any crap. You could not fall asleep when Roth was teaching.

I remember when we had a guy in our class who was voted “most likely to succeed” and was in the yearbook for that. Mr. Roth said very seriously, something like “that’s great, though my experience is that those kids tend not to do so great, it’s true” — totally deflating the kid and not something you would expect a teacher to say. Roth was totally not joshing the guy. He was telling him his experience, which — well, who knows how many years he had been teaching?

People liked this caricature so much they would ask for photocopies of it. I wonder if any of my old classmates still have a copy?

Further, I wonder what happened to Mr. J.C. Roth? He reminds me now of the character of Kramer from Seinfeld. I remember Roth talking at one time about how the best way to drive is barefoot, so you can get maximum sensitivity from the car. Why that has stuck with me, as opposed to the lessons of Newton’s laws of motion? Well, that was Mr. J.C. Roth.

And here he is wit’ you pee-puw.

Look at me. I look a bit hapless, which is how I felt at the time. This is more-or-less a retracing of a previous self-portrait, but with a longer haircut, and is that a soul patch? Goodness me.

And I was going by “Art,” hacking on my identity and using my middle name instead of my first.

Not a bad likeness, though the physiology does not quite work.

An interesting self-portrait.

Over on my flickr account, I just posted a very old image from when I was 13 years old. I’m calling it an “Autobiographical Mise en Scene,” though I don’t think that at age 13 I would use a term like “mise en scene” — but if I knew it I bet I’d try.

At the regular resolution I annotated (go to the page and mouseover the image, and see the little rectangles to see what I mean) what all the parts of the image mean and what they meant, and what I think they meant to me. It’s very interesting to peer inside my head at 13. I note that I signify both the T-Ball teams I had been on: The A’s in Alhambra, and the International Harvester Hitters in The Philippines. I was not athletic, and I wonder why I would note that then, about 4 years from having been on any kind of team sport. I suppose it meant something to me. I love the little drawing of the TI-99/4a home computer, along with little snippets of TI-Basic. That’s nifty. You can see a closeup view of the image here.

It looks like it was done entirely with calligraphy pens. I had a set of red, green, black, yellow, and blue pens. When dealing with my stepkids, it always behooves me to think about their inner lives, which are no doubt rich. When I look at this, I see how deep I was pondering what it meant to be me, trying to sum up my life, what does it mean? Who am I?

I suppose I do that too, with this site, and with these posts. It’s a good process.

I said before I’d post the Andy Warhol images I had. As far as I know this one and the last one are the only ones I have.

Andy was a hero, and I remember crying when he died. It’s strange. I have not cried for many deaths of famous people. I cried when Stanley Kubrik died, but beyond him and Andy I never really did. David Bowie plays Warhol in the film Basquiat and I find myself really affectionate for Andy. Such an odd, peculiar man he was. I don’t know that I did very good justice to Andy, but I remember my affection like crazy. And strangely enough, it’s still there, for this person I never met. Leah might call that a kind of fandom. I think it’s something about heroes, and Andy was definitely one of my heroes.

I always seemed to be drawing this guy. Longish hair with a curl at the end, mustache, and a beret. The iconic artist. If I posted one artist drawing a day from my files I could probably go 3 months with just pictures of this guy in particular. I was always doodling him.

Huh, that description sounds like how my Mom described her Dad, my grandfather, and how he would draw this dog.

Interesting.

In pencil. Quasi Mayan or Aztec, but I suppose it could be North American Indian / Native American.

What inspired me to make it I have no idea, probably the idea was to make something in the style of totem poles. The result is interesting to me now for how out of place it seems among my other drawings and doodles. It’s also in pencil, a rarity because I always think of pencil as imprecise and weak. Silly really, it’s all just tools.

I was about 20 years when I made this, I think. Though I may be off by + or – a year or two. My best estimate is 1990.

Sometimes what I come across in my pile of drawings is a fragment, like this. I like the boldness of the line, the feel of the line (gotten from a heavy inked brush on a nicely textured watercolor paper). I dig it and it reminds me of a retro-1950’s style as seen in things like _PowerPuff Girls_, but the fact is, it’s lacking. It’s missing a whole chunk out of it? Why? I have no idea.

The magic comes after scanning. Some copying and pasting of other elements, some stretching and bending of 18 year old strokes, and it can actually become what it was destined to be. Some colorization and tricky Photoshoppery and this fragment can actually become a complete illustration. I added a sort of veronica lake line over her face, that was a fragment from the left side of the hair stretched and doubled. I added an ear from a whisp of hair from the right side. The sweater lines are likewise from the hair. It almost looks intentional.

It’s fun working with myself.

I added some tinting to alter the colors a bit. The original is very faint and I think the paper was not acid-free and has darkened a bit. Plus it’s in pencil. For all I talk about not doing much pencil, I sure seem to be posting a lot of pencil stuff. Once again the physiology is all wrong, but it’s interesting nonetheless. I like it.

Ending the week on a sweet note. I have one sister, Kelly. I was 7 when she was born. She rocks. And my Mom rocks too. This drawing just plain made me smile for various reasons, not the least of which I’m gonna get to see my parents and sister this month, and I’m looking forward to it.

At some point I want to let the story be told about how I, Mr. Mild Mannered, apparently started acting out when I had a baby sister. I was no longer the center of attention, and everything changed.

Leahpeah: Who’s that?
Me: John Crivello.
LP: Who’s John Crivello?
Me: A guy I sat next to in a drawing class.
LP: He’s got crazy hair.
Me: Yeah.
LP: Was this the exercise where you don’t take your pencil off the paper?
Me: And not look at the paper.
LP: How old were you?
Me: Thirteen.
LP: Pretty good.
Me: Thanks.

This was my freshman year in high school. The instructor told me I was holding my pencil wrong. How dare this woman tell me how to hold my pencil when I’ve been drawing my WHOLE DAMN LIFE? I never listened to her again in that class.

As a result, I didn’t get as much out of that drawing class as I could have.

So much hubris and ego. It took me years to work more of that ego out of my system. It’s still there, but I understand it much better. It drives me to excel, but it also can get in the way.

Know thyself.

Onward.

This, one of my first ever studies in perspective, was for the same high school drawing class as this. It shows my room, or at least a simplified version of my room.

At the time my parents, sister and I were living with my grandparents and I lived out on the patio. This included my kickass TI-99/4a computer, which I so dearly loved. You can see the tetherball in the back yard, the puppy Kristi aka Crystal, who chewed on some photos taken with a 110 camera. I still have the chewed photos.

The thing about the drawing is the loving detail on the computer (which had 48k of memory). The TI-99/4a has PRIMARY importance in the composition. Computers came FIRST, I can only presume, based on this.

From the same era, this image likewise includes the computer, but in context.

In this pencil drawing, a bit too large for the scanner so I had to composite it, I’m learning about perspective and not doing too bad a job. I like the inclusion of the tape/radio cassette I used to store my programs.

So I’ve posted The Flash, and also Batman & Robin.

So here’s Superman now. You know, there’s a new Superman movie that’ll be out next year. Check Blue Tights dot net for more info. It may even be good. And I’m sure you know about Smallville, a show that were I younger I think I would be watching very closely. The kids really seem to like this show. It’s got action and romance and teens. What more could you want?

Oh, and I’m sure you also know that people conflate Superman with Ubermensch, right? I love that Wikipedia:

Last year I picked up the book Superman on the Couch, a pretty good exploration of the psychology of superheroes from a cultural and social perspective. Very thoughtful reading of superheroes comics and why they are such potent metaphors.

It occurs to me that I have not drawn much in the way of Marvel characters at all. These are all DC comics so far. Interesting. I have about an even number of Marvel and DC comics in my collection (still for sale!), but I have many more drawings of DC characters. Maybe I’ll see if I have _any_ Marvel characters at all. I can’t think of any at the moment.

Omega the Dog, ink on paper, 1987. This was from the summer after high school and before moving to Virginia.

Omega was a good dog, loving, goofy, and she made a great pillow.

I have another drawing of Omega that’s pretty good, when I post that I’ll talk about all my memories of Omega.

Today: tired from driving 320 miles yesterday. But I’m taking care of business, baby.

Related: Dog and Desk @ 2:30pm, 1987.

Omega was the friendliest dog in the world.

She did not really understand that we owned her. I guess it’s all a matter of perception.

Many times we’d get phone calls from people saying “we have your dog, the kids love her” — we would go to the place and she would be surrounded by kids, giving her cuddles. She was happy to see us, but she’d have been just as happy either way I think. I guess it’s hubris to say that my family “owned” that dog.

I think it would be quite something to apply a similar philosophy to life. As Strong Bad said in SB Email #94, “‘CAUSE YOU CAN’T CONTROL ME!!”

I think the “you can’t control me” philosophy was very Omega. Although I think Omega was on a whole other philosophical level, she didn’t even understand the concept of control or being controlled. Wild.

It’s Friday man. Welcome to the weekend, baby.

It’s hard to imagine a more aggressive picture than this one.

The 18 year old self of mine could be pretty aggressive in his head, but he was passive on the exterior. Too many years bullied. Led to tendencies toward passive aggression.

Not my best quality.

Working on it still.

Nine designs for pumpkins. I believe I did these in anticipation of Halloween, 1987. On paper, and with Micron Pigma type pens. I like ’em.

My favorite thing about these is that I can tell I showed them to my grandma, who declared that Pumpkin Idea 5 looked like he “doesn’t have good sense.”

I always enjoyed Halloween particularly making decorations such as banners and posters. I also like giving out candy. My usual thing is to _demand_ that kids say “Trick or Treat” — that’s the ritual. My pet peeve is that kids come to the door while one batch of kids is getting served and just want candy. Sorry, the transaction is this: you have to be in costume (or do your best to be in costume); you have to say “Trick or Treat;” the candygiver has to dole out some candy and say something about your costume (or hassle you about your advanced age and sucky costume); and you have to say “Thank You” (well, you don’t have to, but it’s good Halloween manners.

Little more than a scribble. The mustache is an afterthought. Not a great likeness.

I can tell the year because of the mustache, and the lab coat.

Maybe it’s not obvious to you it’s a lab coat, but it’s sure obvious to me.

Well, that last one was a terrible resemblance, as pointed out by Tom Bickle.

This one is rather better, I think. This actually looks like my professor. I even have some proof of that.

I used to draw a lot in his class, psychology is a great subject for drawings. Drawings to illustrate my notes, or just to doodle. After all, I think my major at the time was Fine Art, well, that was my declared major, inasmuch as a Community College student can have a major.

I enjoyed that class. I liked to make arguments in that class. The Prof argued that we overused the word “love” so much as to negate its meaning. We “love” the symphony, we “love” our car, etc. I argued that love still had meaning as a word, because from context we can tell what people mean by what they say when they say they love something.

Well, I love being able to share my meandering and rambling thoughts on this blog.

Can you tell that that’s different from when I say that I love Leah?

Oh, I’m getting pretty deep now.

It’s striking to me that a class I took for a few months 17 years ago has left such vivid memories.

And here I am disgorging them in a medium that did not exist when I had the memories originally.