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I managed to stop over at my apartment to do some work, but I forgot to tell everyone I’m over at my parents to babysit their pets.  I’ll be back around the weekend, although I’ll be trying to get in touch with people through a dail up connection.  Of course, dial up doesn’t give me much options.

That’s the words Dr. Ombacain, the surgeon who attached the cyborg arm to Eric Krockett at the opening chapters of Blood and Metal, said about the Presidency of Barack Ombama (who even gets a bit role).  It’s something I was thinking, or at least hoping, is more of a general opinion than what I think it would be.
Barack (I’ll try not to make any Dwayne Johnson jokes, emphasis on ‘try’) winning the election could be the most surprising event in recent history, since the time of the Equal Rights Movement where the Reverend King and Malcom X fought for a time where people can get behind racism.  Even up to this past November, America has gone a long way since the times of Slavery, Segeration, and Jim Crow; and what happened last week, where Barack and his millions (See?  I knew I’d fail) met on the Washington DC mall to see him get sworn in, (Yeah, yeah, I know the judge fsked it up and had to do it over) it became very clear that the America of 2009 is not the America of 1959, or even the America of 1859 for that matter.
But are we at the fabled ‘Promised Land’ that the Reverend King preached about?
Some might say that we are.  We have people holding up a picture of the new President and cry out “How in the Blue Hell can we be a Racist Nation?!  Look at who got elected, for Christ’s Sake!  Can we now get over the shame of the past and move on with our fsking existence?!”  And there are others who at the very least would claim that the nation is ‘less racist’ at most, and still hasn’t moved far from the Jim Crow years at most.
I have a middle road in this: I grant you, there’s still going to be assholes out and about.  The Klan still exists, the WASP’s version of a inner city getto gang, if you ask me.  And they are always people who I talk about from time to time who considers anyone capable of sunburn to be just as bigoted as they were when their fathers were kids.  As if they will not clam that they have true equality between the races until they throw Whitey to the back of the bus, or even when they get to own white slaves, according to my own ‘worst case scenarios.’  Just like there’s still white guys that use slurs, there’s always going to be guys who want to find the nearest white guy they find and rip off a pound of flesh from his hide.
Much like what happened to pre-story Eric Krockett.
However, it should be crystal clear by now, in a generalized sense, we are no longer a Racist nation.  How can we be?  You smell what Barack is cooking?  (Sorry about that, can’t resist.)  The America of 2009 is far and above beyond the shame of the past.  But now we need to ensure that we keep the general racial equality and strengthened it further for the future.

What I had in my mental image is that, we have a track of land, but there’s nothing built on it.  There’s trees and wild shrubs that need to be cleared away, and then we have to build a place to stay on it.  There’s a foundation to dig into the bedrock, a framework and structure to build up, wiring to string through, walls to put up brick by brick, doors to hammer in place, a roof to tile in, I can go on.  We’ve made it to the location, now we have the work of building a place on it what will last.  In my mind, that’s what I was thinking about where we are as a country, race wise.  We’ve arrived to the point where it is possible to have a post-racial America.  Now we have to make sure that this post-racial America is viable, not just for our generation, but all of the future ones.
So that we can finally be able to put the shame of the past where it belongs.  In the past.  We’re not the America we were.  Now we concern about the America we can become.

It’s been a pretty eventful couple months.  Not only did I managed to snag some commissions–while reality barged in and stretched me too many places at once–but there was also my first National Novel Writing Month attempt, for which I’m glad to say that I’ve shattered the goal of 50K words in 30 Days.  Blood and Metal Book 1 is past it’s first draft and–knock it off you EDiots–is in the group of books which I’ll be editing within the next months.

As for “Red Cat International,” which I’ve been off and on of for several months now with a friend, I’ve heard that Hunan Great Dreams has already started with it’s next Red Cat series, and doesn’t have the time for any new ideas at this time.  So instead of a “Fail,” which I’m used to, this is considered to be an “On hold.”  I’ll let the project age gracefully until the opportunity comes up.  (Nevertheless, I’m not completely leaving Johnny Briz flapping in the wind.  He’s the subject of the coming Script Frenzy project in April!)

So focusing on one single task at a time seems to be working.  Scarlet PI Comic #1 is coming next, and with luck, someone might even come up with another commission for me.  I could use the money.  And in other news, I’m going over my collection of old comic books, dating from the 80s and 90s, and I’m considering ways to sell them on E-Bay.  Grab Bags perhaps, or would anyone be willing to buy a whole slue of issues from any choice publisher or genre.  They’re pretty much in Good condition, sometimes more, and I’m willing to sell in bulk.  Anything to get rid of them all; not only to get some more space in my apartment but also to get some money for a new laptop.

I’ve been keeping myself busy over the past month, although most of the work consisted of compiling notes in my ’skines (Moleskine Notebooks; keeping them offline for safe keeping.  I’ve also got a couple paying commissions.  Special thanks go for ZeroZero and Mdowns for buying them.  Zerozero’s commission is already in the DA page, and expect to see “Ballet Mice” this month.

And in November, I’m finally going to get into the National Novel Writing Month.  You seen me use NaNoWriMo as a term I use for hunkering down and hammering a draft of a book within a given timeline, but I haven’t actually mustered the courage to get into the official program until this year.  The reason is the lack of a plan; I can’t do that “No Plot No Problem” approach.  I need a chart of my course before I do the keyboard Cannonball Run, and for November I’ve constructed a 58 card Plot Deck that will be used for writing the first draft of the first Blood and Metal book.

I’ll kindly ignore the facepalming I’m hearing from some people, and now that I got ED’s server to dump their page on me I can get on with my fricking life thank you so much.  I’ve done a lot of research on the world building and the plotline, and I can proudly say that this series will be very different from what I wrote back in the day.  All I need is enough people to withhold their judgement until the book is actually released, and I’m sure that the majority of you all will do so.  You’ll be quite surprised in what I’m tenatively titled “Messenger.”

Today’s paycheck left much to be desired, and I’ll be needing some help to stay afloat.  So I’m offering commissions:

$10 for Black and White
$25 for Color

Can be anything within guidelines (No XXX rated porn) and I need the payment up front.  I can accept paypal or mailed checks.

Please E-Mail or Message me so we can discuss any details.

Thanks in advance.

I’d like to thank Nettuts.com for the inspiration and the tools needed to give my web site the much needed makeover.  Not only did it make for a (hopefully) easier to navigate web site, but the combination of Twitter and CushyCMS makes for an easier to edit site as well.  Now I don’t have to load and save the whole HTML file anymore; I can just ‘hot-edit’ the particular part I need changing.

You’ll also notice that I’ve given the blog the old “Control Alt Delete” to get rid of the mass of crap from the Lul Monkeys.  I might not have an ounce of control over the Encyclopedia Dramatica, including their god damned page ranking on Goggle, but I can sure as hell keep the fucktards off my own web site.  So I resetted the blog with the comments disabled.  Anonymous is not welcomed here.