The White Hush

The view from outside my window.

The Weathermen have gathered in circles, alerts hit my phone in a regular stream. The city has declared a parking ban and has opened the public parking garages for free to get cars off the streets. The latest forecast is for a fast moving storm dumping upwards of 10 inches of snow on us in a matter of hours. Worse, its pretty warm as I type this on Sunday morning— hovering around 38 degrees, so there is a chance this starts as rain and then there’s a deep freeze following the storm’s end Monday morning which might make cleanup difficult.

I’ve got the electric snowblower powered up— I’ve not used it for a couple of years— sometimes it seems easier to just shovel. We’ve already winterized everything because, well, it’s mid to late January, and I’ll even spray some liquid silicone on the shovels to keep snow from sticking.

But right now— looking out the window at blue skys, people in light jackets walking their dogs and almost zero snow on the ground the idea of a major snowstorm seems unlikely, but all the weather maps show things look pretty certain.

We’ll see.

Comic Artist Loses House in Fire- Please Help

Andrew Robinson lost his home and all of his possessions in the LA Fires— he’s setup a GOFUNDME— if you can help please do.

GO FUND ME

The BLOG is ALIVE!

Sorry for the delay in posts, we were supposed to be heading to the Inauguration but life got in the way. Instead I’m wrapping up a huge project and hunting down my next one— the blog will refocus on that journey as I look for that next assignment and in the meanwhile I’ll be posting some art here for sale which a lot of you have been asking for.

Tune in tomorrow!

Andy's Week - Japan HALLOWEEN Edition

Last year this time we were in Japan-- one of my absolute FAVORITE places on Earth.  Here's a post I wrote at the time but never published:

We got in one minute late to Haneda Airport-- arriving at 3:35pm Tokyo time-- we started out the day before at 7am in Boston, there is a 13 hour time difference so if you do the math we traveled for almost 17 hours to get 11,000 miles.

The flight itself was packed and pretty hellish-- I posted previously the video from STIR CRAZY which pretty much sums up how it felt.

Walking out of the airport I was hit in the face with a blast of heat and humidity I’ve not felt in a long time. It was mid-late October and it was 88 degrees with 100% humidity. Japanese people dress to the season apparently because people were wearing scarves and jackets. I stripped down to my polo shirt and pushed on.

We grabbed a luxury bus from the airport which dropped us off at the Tokyo Hotel which is a mere two blocks from the Granbell in the Shibuya District of Tokyo where we would be staying.

Granbell was decorated for Halloween as was much of downtown-

The Granbell Lobby

The Granbell itself is the perfect hotel for Halloween season-- it's located down a side street in the Shibuya District of Tokyo and if you didn't know where it was you'd be hard pressed to find it.

Even the hotel sign is hidden in a thicket of greenery.

The entrance to the hotel is barely marked, and the door has no handle.  I'm pretty sure when James Bond stays in Tokyo he stays here. SPECTRE isn’t finding him in here.

Main entrance to the Granbell

I want to emphasize that the entrance here is not made up for Halloween, this is what it ALWAYS looks like!  Is it any wonder this is my favorite Hotel in the world??

Train station in downtown Tokyo

It's easy to lose track of the time when traveling such a distance, but our bus left Haneda at about 4:15pm Tokyo Time and we got to the hotel a little after 6pm even though it didn't seem that long of a ride.

Veronica was wiped out so she took a shower and decided to head to bed, I ran over to the 7-Eleven Bank to withdraw some Yen, took in a couple of blocks around the hotel perusing the fresh fruits on display and at one point took a break leaning up against a guardrail. From out of one of the shops came a tiny little Goblin— I’d put him at about 2 foot tall- he was shiney with big pointed ears, without missing a beat he leapt up onto the guardrail next to me and tapped me on the shoulder.

“You look all in.” He said with an Irish accent.

Having a hard time realizing that I was so tired I was starting to hallucinate I decided to head back.  I showered and ended up sleeping until about 330am sitting up wide awake.

One of the things I like best about the Granbell is the beds are very comfortable. Unlike at the Villa in Ueno where the beds are hard as a rock. 

The shower and bathroom (this is a closeup) is literally half the size of the room.

I got up, showered again and decided to go for a run in search of coffee.  The hotel room is good sized for Tokyo and half of the room is the shower and bath area which is a full sized room of it's own.

This crow followed me on my run-- he was HUGE!

At 4am I was surprised to find the streets pretty busy-- mostly school kids in their uniforms.  The Starbucks near the 109 shopping complex about six blocks from the hotel had employees in it hussling around (a very striking aspect here is the way workers give 100% in any job they have), but looked like it wouldn't be open for a while.

A nearby McDonald's was open, I never go to the ones in America and the last time I had a cup of their coffee it tasted like the free stuff at Jiffy Lube (don’t go there anymore either) but I thought I might risk a cup of coffee and sit and sketch for a while.  The seating area wasn't open yet and apparently my Japanese ordering ability was off because trying to get a hot coffee was harder than it should have been.

Co-hee, HOT-o is how you order a hot coffee.  Good luck with cream.  After some pantomiming I was able to get both a tiny cup of coffee and an even tinier cream.  I walked back to the hotel and sat in the lobby and worked in my sketchbook for a while to let V sleep in.

The street leading to the Granbell

Around 6 she sent me a text asking if I was getting hungry-- the hotel restaurants both opened at 7 and we were going to eat there (complimentary for guests).  I changed out of my gym clothes, showered again and we went to grab food.

Breakfast was a pleasant surprise-- fresh rolls, corn flakes, a nice fluffy egg (albeit with a spritz of ketchup on the side-- yuck) and of course salad, which I'm told over and over again Westerner's eat for breakfast. Later that day we grabbed a pizza with a friend which featured an amazing soft boiled egg on it— you can order one of these now at the UxLocale as long as Elaine is working— she loved the concept of it but its no longer on the menu— American’s are picky about runny eggs. But I’m jumping ahead here.

Pizza with a soft boiled egg on it-- AMAZING!

The term Westerner is applied to anyone not from Asia, and it doesn't bother me.

Foreigner is also used which sounds a bit harsher, but again in a nation that was closed to the rest of the world for centuries I can understand their lack of melting pot embrace.

Deep Face is another racial dig-- we westerner's have deep faces as opposed to the more appealing "flat face", this was all new to me. I was told this as if I would clutch my pearls and storm off in a huff— anyone who knows me understands my pearls are clutch free.

Artists depiction of the seats on the plane.

Jet lag is a tough thing, you think you're over it and then it smashes into you with little mercy.  This time around I think Veronica had it worse than I did, she had a less pleasant flight.  To be polite she didn't put her seat back, but the person in front of her did and it made for cramped quarters.  I put mine back a bit and was able to catnap on the plane, but Jet Lag would still tap me on the shoulder at various points of the day.

Typically these first few days we'd be in by 8 and up by 4.  I don't like to lay in bed when I'm awake so I took the opportunity for the slightly less oppressive humidity to do some running through the streets of Tokyo as a counter to it.

Which of course, leads to 3-4 showers a day, which leads to going through your clothes pretty quickly.  There's a coin laundry only about 10 mins from the hotel so we went and got all our wash caught up on Saturday morning, then checked out of the Granbell and walked the few miles to the Villa hotel in Ueno where we would leave most ofour luggage for a day and go spend some time with friends up North.

We had a great time meeting new friends at a Japanese Cookout which had a wide variety of foods, mostly fish based which is a staple of Japanese diet.  I politely nibbled but I’m not a big seafood guy— especially raw seafood, and I would laugh when our host made things like eggs and then said she didn't think we'd eat these kinds of thing.  I think the perception among some Japanese is that American's do nothing but drink milk and eat steak (which is actually kind of true).

My brother and his wife

After a few more days in Tokyo we headed to Nagoya to spend the rest of the trip with my little brother and his lovely wife.  They are great people and I look forward to seeing them every time we visit.

I love Tokyo- I love Japan. I love the order and the politeness. In my experience I’ve learned if someone asks where you’re from and you say “the United States” you’re looked at with a blank expression, but if you say “America” they are with you. The Japanese have no idea how big America is— they are convinced there are three kinds of Americans- tan blondes from California, cowboys from Texas and smart people from Boston. One of the people at the Japanese cookout had told me he and his wife wanted to visit the US for their next holiday— and that they hoped to rent a car and see both coasts. They were a little taken aback when I told them how much time it would take to drive across the country.

Japanese people I encountered are very interested in practising their English which they studied in school. They are very respectful of America and thankful for its help in rebuilding their own country after the war. They are convinced we don’t have seasons, we eat cold spaghetti and salad for breakfast and that we’ve never tried pizza.

I find a real charm in everyone there and I can’t wait to go back.

Ryan Winn Batman and the Saga of the Bread

I have a pretty large collection of art— I picked up this recently— I like the energy and the expression of the piece— Batman is all for doing this, but his face tells me he’s like me making bread— I can do it but I’m having some struggles with it.

I am a pretty decent cook; I make some great scrambled eggs—Jacques Pepin would be proud that I know how to get air into them and there is never any brown. I can even time bacon and toast to go with it.

I also have a few dishes I’m known for— people ask me all the time to make them my world famous Chili— which is served (hold onto your hats cowboys) over white rice. You need that to absorb some of the heat.

I make a dish I call Chicken Goop Malange — it’s got a creamy base with mushrooms and loads of those amazing French’s Onion Crisps.

I also have a cream cheese chicken dish I make that is often requested by friends and family, and I have really learned how to grille a steak to a perfect medium rare (any higher and you’ve killed the cow twice).

Cooking- always liked it— you can taste and tweak as you go. Baking?
Much harder.

Baking involves science. Baking involves making sure not only are the ingredients perfectly measured but they are at proper temperatures. A slight mistep and the whole thing is ruined. And I’m not talking about making a cake out of a box— I can throw eggs and oil into a mix and bake it— I’m talking real baking.

During the pandemic I decided (since I had no work) to try and duplicate my great aunt and grandmother’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe— hard to explain— every year when they lived in Portland Oregon I would anxiously wait for that box at Christmas time that would be loaded with these cookie gems. They were slightly soft and slightly poofy but they still had a crunch. They were sweetly chocolate but they had a strong hint of salt in them. I can’t explain it— I can explain as I grew to a young man in my early twenties I would share these cookies with friends and to a person they would declare they were the best chocloate chip cookie they ever had.

I spent two solid weeks making batch after batch and I’m not kidding when I say I had notebooks with Dr Frankenstein level notes and diagrams of each batch— then I would taste them and find a flaw. I think I went though 30 batches and then I hit it. I hit it right on the money. I wrote the recipe down added it to our family card file and now Veronica makes them each year and somehow they’re even better than my family’s (sorry grandma and auntie).

Then I decided to try bread. I love fresh bread. Love it. It might be my favorite thing.

I did 4-5 batches and each one was worse than the last— I wasn’t making bread I was making bricks. I would use them to try and knock the squirrels off the bird feeder. I took a couple to the gun range and used them for target practice.

That was then— this is now.

For my birthday this year, or I guess technically last year (Dec 27), Veronica got me a Cuisinart Bread Machine— along with bread flour and yeast— and I whipped up a loaf that was pretty damn close to being good— although I still felt it was a little dense.

I made a second loaf a few days later— Veronica liked it— I thought while it was indeed fluffier it was a little bland— despite upping the Kosher salt in the recipe. I spent a few hours onlline looking for recipes that I thought might work and I found one— as soon as we finish off this loaf I have on the counter I’ll jump into the next one.

It’s getting there, but the getting there is half the fun.

John Carpenter Might Be The Worst Director of All Time...

I get tired of hearing that Ed Wood is the worst director of All Time— I’ll sit through PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE Five Times vs one Viewing of PRINCE OF DARKNESS (1987) and that’s saying something. Wood wasn’t loaded with misplaced ego— he loved movies and he just wanted to tell stories, even if he didn’t have a major studio backing him or any funds to make something even remotely competent. Not competent but still entertaining— BRIDE OF THE MONSTER is equally goofy fun.

But let’s get back to CARPENTER. This guy, who had the arrogance to say Robert Altman is over-rated loves his own work so much he insists on doing the film soundtrack even though he shares the same musical abililty I have (which is none). You can press five different keys on a Casio but that doesn’t make you a soundtrack composer.

HALLOWEEN (1978) is probably his most famous film— and I’ll give you that I like the movie. It’s got plenty of flaws in it— some bad acting, and plot holes you could drive a truck through— but working with what they had it ended up being a pretty good film.

THE FOG had its moments, it falls apart at the end and either he ripped off Stephen King’s THE MIST or its the other way around.

MEMOIRS OF AN INVISIBLE MAN was a pretty good movie, it gets confused as to whether its a modern film noir drama or a comedy but I fault Chevy Chase for the misdirection, Carpenter himself hates this movie. Figures, they didn’t let him do the music.

THE THING (1981) is probably his best film- but I’ve heard for years that the cantankerous director didn’t actually direct much of it— and that' checks.

PRINCE OF DARKNESS was recommended to me by a good friend who happens to be a very well know cartoonist whose opinion I respect— so much that I plunked down $15 for it in Vudu— after I sat through it I called him and asked him for $15.

The movie is about a bunch of graduate students, all of whom look like they’re in their 40s, with a lead student who has one of those Marlboro Man moustaches everyone was making fun of behind their backs in the 1970s— I think Carpenter has one so I’m guessing he’s not in on the joke. As with most graduate students taking a science class at what looks like a Community College suddenly the Advent Associate Professor announces a weekend long field trip so they all pack their bags and head off to an old church to explore the basement. They discover an artifact that is somehow connected to both quantum physics and the evil that exists in another realm and unleashes it all onto humanity.

Boy that actually sounds like an interesting movie— too bad it’s not.

Carpenter’s cinematographer does such a poor job with scenes that should be shadowy (pet peeve of mine is when a character pulls out a flashlight in a room that is light so well you could do last week’s NY TIMES Crossword Puzzle without your reading glasses) are filmed like community theater where we can see every nook and cranny.

The actors, including the normally very competent Donald Pleasance, are stiff and wooden and I would be shocked if any of them every went on to anything more than a guest appearance on Supermarket Sweep. The movie plods along, Carpenter’s inept score attempting to build suspense, until we’ve run out of film or budget or both and it all ends with a big explosion.

For the record, I never got my $15 back— if someone wants to paypal me in the name of my friend feel free.

Why Is My Work Saving as a JPF or JPEG 2000 and How Do I Fix It??

Okay you’re working on your epic illustration and you need to save it as a JPEG so you can email it to your best buddy— only you’re not given that option;

You have JPEG 2000 but guess what— that’s friggin’ useless. It’s going to actually save as a JPF which is virtually useless everywhere. I’m guessing someone on a DELL ™ computer came up with this file format.

So how do you get a good old fashioned JPEG out of your image— it’s easy.

Flatten your Image and then go to WINDOWS>CHANNEL and check to see if you have a layer called ALPHA- looks like this….

Delete it.
Hit the trash can and send it into the void of the universe. Now you’ll be able to go to FILE SAVE AS and viola— good old fashioned JPEG will be available!

Why is JPF even a thing and why do we have ALPHA Layers? That’s another story for another time.