JeremyBear.com Blog: August 2005

AFRICAN FELLOW AT THE GROCERY STORE: Hey. HEY.

ME: Uh?

AFRICAN FELLOW AT THE GROCERY STORE: Yeah, you. I like your hair.

ME: ...You do?

AFRICAN FELLOW AT THE GROCERY STORE: Yeah, man, look at that! If I had hair like that... pfft! I'd be a bad dawg.
...

Hear that, gents?

Step 1: Cut and bleach your hair.
Step 2: Neglect it for ten months.
Step 3: Bad dawg!

Okay, I'm just going to get this out of the way: my comic submission failed to make the 2005 SPX Anthology, which, I'll be honest, hurt. Unfortunately, this edition wound up being low on page count and high on Established Name Comic Pros, so the odds for folks like me was next to nil.

Hell with it, maybe I'll take Rich's advice and get it published elsewhere. In the meantime, I'm just going to post it here:

Click to read Mount Paran Christian School.

(It's an autobio short that really, truly happened when I was a tender lad of 11 at a private Christian school in Georgia, told without comment or exaggeration.)

And since I'm in a dedicating mood, this story is for Allison Dabbs, who knew me when.

While I'm on the subject of comrades of yore, I received a startling email from Erin Robbins, a Mount Paran friend, concerning Danny Diaz, our former classmate:

Danny Diaz was in a really bad motorcycle accident. He is in a coma and not doing good. His brain is swelling. He is married to Allison McLuhan and she is eight months pregnant. Please pray for him and his family. It's got to be really hard on Allison. My brother and I are trying to let anyone who knew him know about this, so he will have a lot of prayer. The doctor told Allison today that he might not make it. I will let you know when I find out more news. Thanks in advance for your prayers.

Danny's dad set up a voicemail that you can call for the daily update. He updates it every evening. Yesterday the update was: he had the best day yet. he is still in a coma. his mri showed nothing more and same with the eeg. A specialist from the Shepherd Center came to interview Allison about moving Danny to their hospital. They have a whole dept. that specializes in coma patients . The number is: 404/923-8776. for now, he is still at Kennestone.

I barely knew Danny back when, but my heart certainly goes out to him and his family. Any prayers are certainly appreciated.

Katrina.

Not that the world is waiting for me to weigh in, but this truly is a horrific situation. I'd link to the news stories, video segments, blog accounts and relief funds for and about the disaster, but I'm sure you've already been inundated with plenty.

Nothing to say but prayers for the victims. If you can help with your wallet, do.

In the midst of death, however, we are in life. Congratulations, Danny and Charity.

Speaking of babies (creepy ones at least), I've been meaning to link to this for awhile. Look if you dare, but know that Chris Cunningham is a genius.

There. I think this post has sufficiently wandered everywhere.

Labels: dialogue

Word of warning: be careful what you blog. Most posts are largely ignored, others become viral. And some, as I recently discovered, wind up on the front page of the Beacon Journal.

But forget that. More importantly (since the Beacon beat me to the punch anyhow), I'm excited to report that I'm an uncle X2! Lauren announced that, hopah, she's got a bun of her own in the oven. Boy? Girl? Mutant? Model? Savior of the Midwest? Who knows! It's a baby, baby!

And this ain't just blowin' smoke: Lauren and Steve will be terrific parents. They were born to do this stuff.

Due date's in April.

Good luck, Lauren. Let the puking begin.

More baby news? All right, if you're going to get snotty about it... it looks as if Erin's having a boy. Not only that, but apparently this kid is, er, really a boy. An inevitable hit with the ladies. As I understand it, they haven't made the final naming decision yet... but if these reports are accurate, "John Holmes Burtoft" has a certain panache.

And friends with soon-to-be babies are in abundance as well. Hooray Underwoods, way to go Honuses, and a sincere "you folks are tops" to Team Gitgan for taking the high road and pursuing adoption. The world needs more Joshes and Kirstens, I think we can all agree.

Listen, a Homeowner's Association is a great thing, but ours is peopled by friggin' Nazis.

Granted, it's only a few Gestapo that ruin it for the rest of us. Whats-her-head down the hall got it into her noggin that we all need to paint our doors uniform colors with new brass numbers and doorknobs and boom! we're told that we're in for a fine if we don't comply by August 15th. Never mind the fact that the colors they picked are putrid and Carey and I hate brass and our entrances are all inside the building, so NO ONE other than us will ever have the opportunity to see all that gorgeous uniformity.

"Saturday's the official Elm Plaza Door-Painting Party!" read an obnoxious sign in the elevator for the past several days. "Everyone get out your paints, new brass numbers and doorknobs, and your smiles! Meet your neighbors!" Yuck. Is it just me, or is there something slightly chilling about the fact that we're being invited to celebrate a completely moronic mandate? (Isn't this fun? You have no choice! Whee!) It's like a book burning.

Nevertheless, Carey and I are nothing if not round pegs ("All a part of living in a community," our neighbor, Phil, reminded us), so we trudged over to Home Depot to take back the cool, trendy silver doorknob we'd bought several months ago in exchange for a gaudy brass one. So, we spent most of the day doing front door work.

But it's also the end of a minor legacy in the Bear household. The day we moved in, the place was empty, with two exceptions: a disgusting hunk of preserved beef in the freezer and a sign taped to the inside of the door reading "PlEAse Lock Dead BolT only, Thank you". For some ridiculous reason, we never did get around to removing the ugly little sign, until today. A new, ugly doorknob meant Matthew Schwerdt's ominous warning was no longer needed. Bubye sign.

(By the way, the hunk of beef was thrown out immediately, despite my protests.)

Hot creepers, has it really been that long since I've last posted? Sorry. I think I might've forgotten to mention that we went to Ohio a couple of weeks ago to surprise Mom on her (am I allowed to say this? Screw it, she's a public figure now, her life's details are no longer her own) 50th birthday. The trip was, frankly, too short and a mite too stressful, but it was great to reconnect with the people I love most in the wide world.

Oh, and I never did get to see Beck play in LA. Sadly, that tidbit from my previous post was a red herring for the sake of Mom's surprise. Blog subversion! Boo-yah!

What do you mean, "what have you been listening to lately?" Ttt!

Fan_3, bitches, what else?!

Spent the majority of the past few weeks working on a short animation for a company called Medsphere. I'm more or less finished with it and it should be going live sometime next week.

So far, people seem to like it. Go look.

So friggin' much going on lately and so much to talk about, but for now I'll leave it there. After all, I owe lots of folks an email right now and they ain't gonna write themselves.

In the meantime, I'll leave you with several examples from the worst Christian gag comic ever created, After Eden. Josh Smith recently pointed out on his blog that church marketing sucks. Apparently, so do the comics.