And so I ask you, the eleven people who, on a good day, read this blog, what would you like to see more of from me/the blog/Big Loose Comics in general? Longer work? More single panel strips? More gag strips? More thoughtful ones? Ads? How’s the layout? I’m thinking of printing a Big Loose #1.5 that would be a print compendium of selections from the first year. Do you even want that? Would you buy that or is it a waste of my energy? Seriously, folks, you’re the ones what gotta look at this, what would you like to see?

And now, the “content.”

2011 somehow turned out to be a pretty productive year for me musically, despite my frequent attempts to quit that filthy habit.  I’ve made plenty of allusions to the various projects I was involved with during that time on this blawg, but the obsessive completist part of my brain wants to see it all together in one place.  So here’s a comprehensive list of everything I played on that was either recorded or released in 2011 (listed in the order in which they were recorded).  If you haven’t done so already, buy or otherwise acquire everything here; I’m proud of it all for different, complicated reasons.

Glitter Wizard – Solar Hits

I played bass in this group November 2007 through January 2010.  We released a 7″ in October of ’09 and then recorded our full-length just after I left the band that January.  Solar Hits was ultimately released on Ms.Wendy Stonehenge’s Archer’s Guild label in July ’11. I am on the cover as a serf. It’s available on LP through Midheaven.com or you can download it from their Bandcamp page.

The 21st Century – The City

I joined the 21st Century on bass after I quit Glitter Wizard ’cause I didn’t wanna be in bands anymore.  Oops.  Anyways, we recorded this in Texas in November 2010 and I ultimately got fired a few months later.  But I did get the majority of my basslines down on this recording that was finally released earlier this month.  I think Amazon‘s where to buy it.

Arthur Tea and the OMGs – Song

Arthur Tea is my musical monicker, left over from Glitter Wizard.  This is my solo EP that I recorded myself and play everything on except drums, female vocals and a couple guitar solos.  I did all the tracking in May 2011 as hastily as possible and almost entirely in my apartment in Oakland and put it online in June.  Thoroughly depressing little number about heartbreak.  Awwww.  Available through my Bandcamp.

Family Matters – Family Album

Me, Micah and Dusty formed Family Matters sometime in spring 2010 around my needing to blow of 21st Century steam with some loudass guitar skronk and my vision of forming a band that sounded like Monoshock and did a cover of Nikki Sudden’s “New York.” Mission accomplished? In any case, our friend Timmer recorded us in his practice pad in San Francisco in May 2011, and we hastily got it out in September 2011, warts ‘n’ all (which actually makes it better, I think),  when I decided to move to Brooklyn. (I’m moving back to Oakland) Available as a free download from our Bandcamp.

Normally I’m opposed to people posting pictures of their food on the Internet, but since it’s my blog and I can do whatever I please, here’s a picture of what my Christmas looked like.  I am now officially Jewish.

Here’s a fresh batch of “Punks Win” strips for an upcoming issue of the Hipster Blood zine from New Zineland!

And, of course, my favorite Christmas songs:

“And it has a wire with a thing on one end that you can stick in your ear, and a thing on the other end that you can’t stick anywhere because it’s bent.”

Claudette – Queen of the World / Able Tasmans – Little Hearts / Crass – Major General Despair / Comets on Fire – Pussy Foot the Duke / Buckshot & DJ Zirk – About That Hogg / The Monochrome Set – Silicon Carne / The Bongos – Clay Midgets / Sibylle Baier – I Lost Something in the Hills / Suzy Bogguss – Someday Soon / Andy Stott – New Ground / Earl Sweatshirt – Earl / Lost Cherrees – Pleasant Valley Sunday / Chelsea Wolfe – Tracks (Tall Bodies) / Television Personalities – A Day in Heaven / Emeralds – Now You See Me / The Red Krayola – Victory Garden / Crystalized Movements – Life / Nikki Sudden – Glass Eye / Peter Hammill – Been Alone So Long / Bob Dylan – Black Diamond Bay

And so…

Frank Zappa beer bottlesFrank Zappa beer bottlesFrank Zappa beer bottlesFrank Zappa beer bottlesFrank Zappa beer bottlesFrank Zappa beer bottlesFrank Zappa beer bottlesFrank Zappa beer bottlesFrank Zappa beer bottlesFrank Zappa beer bottlesFrank Zappa beer bottlesFrank Zappa beer bottlesFrank Zappa beer bottlesFrank Zappa beer bottlesFrank Zappa beer bottlesFrank Zappa beer bottlesFrank Zappa beer bottlesFrank Zappa beer bottlesFrank Zappa beer bottlesFrank Zappa beer bottlesFrank Zappa beer bottlesFrank Zappa beer bottlesFrank Zappa beer bottlesFrank Zappa beer bottlesFrank Zappa beer bottlesFrank Zappa beer bottlesFrank Zappa beer bottlesFrank Zappa beer bottlesFrank Zappa beer bottlesFrank Zappa beer bottles

In any case, it was my first time attending an event such as this (outside of an abortive trip to SF Zinefest three years ago due to circumstances I’m about to outline), and while I did get some cool stuff and did enjoy seeing so much of the type of art I love all under one roof, it was a generally unpleasant experience and I thought I was gonna have a panic attack. Any genuine interest I had in what was featured at the tables was conflicted by a.) my near-total lack of social skills/ability to relax in large crowds b.) my inability to communicate with strangers/make smalltalk/my hyper-etiquette that kicks in in these situations c.) the overwhelming pressure involved in any passing curiosity I could have in somebody’s work: I see something interesting, tentatively pick it up ["look with your eyes, not with your hands" voice in my head goes off], the author/artist/salesperson gives me hopeful puppy-dog eyes, meaning I therefore engage in painful conversation or awkwardly ignore him/her, and I ultimately put down the item I was perusing and walk away ridden with guilt at disappointing this stranger and having gotten nothing out of the pages I scanned.

It sounds asshole-ish, but I don’t know that I could do this kind of thing again without being on the other side of the table. I need a concrete purpose to validate my presence at social events. It’s why being in a band is so easy.  You load-in, talk to a booker or sound guy or something, press flesh with the other bands, your friends are there purely to see your stupid fucking performance (and it is a performance), anyone who’s not your friend is at the show because it’s a show and you’re the one playing it, you get onstage which gives you instant power and agency over anyone who’s not (even if you stink, it’s just a weird psycho-socio fact), and later people will say your band ruled or your band sucked and there’s built-in responses for those statements.

Or maybe if I was a cartoonist worth his salt, I’d just draw a fucking strip rather than kvetch about it.

On that note, here are three more stand-alone pages from the erstwhile No-Thingness story which, while never to be released as a whole in their intended form – humorous asides in a longer, more “serious” story that has since been abandoned chronicling my several month-long MDE, has sure provided some decent filler while I get going on the next phase of Big Loosifer.