FIFTEEN MINUTE BREAK March 28, 2003

Reflecting on my trip to Vegas last weekend- I find it pretty radical to have a father who's hip to what's happening in the world in a unilateral cultural sense. Last Satuday after my brother and his family left to go home to buttfuck Nebraska- my dad generally hung out and showed me some of the places of where he works in Henderson, Nevada. But on the way out there, we first stopped over at comic book shop called Alternative Reality on 4800 Maryland Pkwy. I was recommended to the place by the shop owner's wife, Kady Mae ( as far as I know that is her handle name on the Delphimessage boards), I don't really know her real name- but anyway- I was flabbergasted to find that my dad was actually thumbing through the books and asking me questions as to what they were about.

What really took him by surprise was that he didn't know the source material for the movies From Hell and Road to Perdition, came from a comic book. Both movies he enjoyed in the theater. Yeah, it pretty radical all right- it's just a shame I didn't know the guy while I was growing up and I always wonder what influence he would have had on me in some twisted Marvel What If scenerio if he had raised me instead of the egomaniacal swill drunk fuck I got stuck with. My dad also flipped over my DVD copy of Dune, as it something he fondly remembered reading while he was stuck in 'Nam.

By the Way My dad bought the Wonder Woman book that Paul Dini and Alex Ross did a few years back. He loves the art.

Well, King Crimson Saturday night- and the Core on Sunday-

Until next time-

My fifteen minutes are up.

Cary Coatney

FIFTEEN MINUTE BREAK March 27, 2003

My local newspaper had Genesis keyboradist, Tony Banks listed on their birthday list. Without even realizing it, I brought along Tony's first solo album, A Curious Feeling, made during between his break recording Genesis' And Then There Were Three and Duke. I remember guitar and bass player Mike Rutherford released a excellent solo album during this period entitled Smallcreep's Day- but unlike Tony, Mike got airplay on New York's WNEW FM Friday afternoon's British Things hosted by Scott Muni back in the fall of 1979. I remember the first song, Water Into Wine was a staple track to blast my boombox speakers to the highest decibel level during those afternoon paper routes I had.

Usually my listening habits of work consist of listening to a lot of progressive rock CD and some odds and ends- like ELO's last 2000 disaster ZOOM. What a fucking joke that record was. Then I listen to some broadband internet radio WGNU out of St. Louis.
It's a eclectic blend of conservative and liberal talk show hosts. There's a Dr. Laura wannabee named Dr Pat on Tuesadys, Chief Police Officer Wigger on Wednesdays, and jazz musican Calvin's Corner on Thursdays. Then I switch to some old time radios on Media Bay dot com. Then back to some more prog CDs and finally, a progressive rock station, www.deliciousagony.com with live dj.

Out of time,

Cary Coatney

WELCOME TO ANOTHER EDITION OF HALF-ASS

dDigging into my Yahoo! archives, I found this delightful, but yet unpublished item of mine to the Oh So? column of the Comics Buyer's Guide detailing a Art Spiegelman lecture at the Skirball Cultural Center in Bel Air, Ca. I never bother to ask Maggie Thompson or John Miller why they didn't go for it- maybe it was just too political or maybe there was a little touch of anti-semitism that they didn't go for (unintentional on my part, after all I was observing and recording everything that Art said). The lecture was sponsored in part by the Comics Journal, if I recall. What I recall most was me taking the bus up there and making the brash decision of walking back to my house in Sherman Oaks thinking that it would only take twenty minutes. Ow, my aching feet.

Cary Coatney
6358 Bellingham Ave
North Hollywood, Ca 91606
( 818 ) ***-****

Dear Maggie & Crew,

Imagine yourself on a oasis of on the freeway with nothing between you for miles but surrounding mountains, coyotes, Hollywood mansions and maybe Harlan Ellison's Wonderland. I found myself last Sunday ( the 15th of November ) anxious to attend a lecture given at a tranquil jewish foundation and museum that I've always passed by on the 405 but was never inclined to stop by and visit; ( and further down on the same freeway and nestled on even a higher mountain is the newly opened Getty Center that is only accessible by a tramcar ).

If you're looking for a little isolation in your comic art indulgence in a place where nobody knows or wants to know your name ( with the exception of those doing the lecturing ),then may I recommend to you the Cartoon Art Cultural Expression and Social Commentary series happening at the Skirball Cultural Center in a very remote area of Los Angeles during this month and the next few months co-sponsored by Comic Con International and the Comics Journal ? I admit I came on the series a little late in the game having missed the Jules Feiffer tribute a few weeks prior, but Art Spiegalman and his travelling lecture slide show Comics 101 made up for lost time.

A warning sign to patrons to beware of the fact that " cigarette smoke will be used as part of tonight's performance " did not deter from packing in the auditorium. But I didn't see any reason necessary for the disclaimer; after all the Republicians did lose five seats
in the house- so I don't think our so-called conservative state of California were going to turn on him like a pack of rabid dogs if he decided to spark one up after a few of us paid $ 12.00 a piece to hear him speak ( $ 6.00 if you happened to be a member ). And that's a small price to pay to breathe in second hand smoke.

What the general public was treated to was a very informative insight in the history of a taken for granted art-form, and what I mean by the term " general public " is by my own personal observation; these people in attendance weren't your regular run of the mill gathering of fanboys. None at all. Some I've noticed seem to be a higher or middle income bracket, clean cut high school and college students ( a few overheard in my row were in attendance for class credit ),and just practitioners or admirers of fine art in general. And of course, there were Art's fans with their copies of Maus and Maus II in tow for autographs.

And who better to tutor the genesis of the comic strip form than Art Speigelman ? During the coarse of the two hour lecture, he gave us a breif overview of his own exquisite career in the days of the underground, Garbage Pail Kids, to the debut of Raw and Maus; with a hint of future projects on the horizon such as a junior version of Raw and the revelation that he is writing a opera on the history of comics.

Much degree of different of historic importance were explored in Art's slideshow in addition to profound quips and commentary uttered between puffs of tar and nicotine. One such observation according to Mr. Speigelman was that people who do comics serve the purpose of producing tranformative work as real artists do and the comics themselves are internally intwined with the his-
tory of paintings themselves using such illustrations such as William Brown's Stages of Cruelty and Rudolph Topfier as examples. Mr Spiegelman also offered a easy analogy as how comics serve our political ideology through Krazy Kat. Krazy Kat represents democracy because she is always forgiving, Ignatz represents anarchy because he is always clobbering Krazy Kat over the
head with a brick, and Officer Pup would stand for facism because he captures Ignatz everytime he smacks Krazy Kat over the head with a brick and therefore is thrown into a cell constructed of brick.Simply the comparsions to be very in tune with the way our world
revolves.

Mr. Speigelman shared with us the cogs of how the comic strip industry operates from what advantage point an individual would be positioned in the food chain as to if he or she would be better off trying to break in the comic strip syndicates rather than the comic book industry itself- simply because the syndicates are known to pay better. Mr. Speigelman was also kind enough to let us in on a little trade secret about the comic book industry is a major Jewish American industry, created to be more popular than the garment in
dustry and that EC Horror comics were probably the American Jewish response to the Holocaust.

And what partial wisdom did Mr.Speigelman reveal on the current state of the indusrty besides the comic book stores being nothing but a gathering of Rosicrucians on a Wednesday afternoon ?

Glad you asked.

Mr. Speigelman articulately pointed out that there is a future for a graphic novel section in bookstores, but what the general public doesn't understand that it takes a artist years to accumulate a piece of work to be collected in graphic novel format. A star is not in-
deed born overnight. Mr. Speigelman concluded his lecture by saying comic books need protection from libraries and museums in order to perserve into the next century.

Cary Coatney - November 19, 2000

FIFTEEN MINUTE BREAKMarch 26, 2003

A running joke made by my co-workers is starting to get under my skin. I'm usually undisciplined and rebellious by nature. And I usually like to tackle one project at a time and not to multi-task with another. So when someone orders for me to stop what I'm in the middle of doing and do something else instead, I'm known to get very combative. Now my direct supervisors are in their mid-fifties, they're overweight ladies, and don't really have lives outside of the workplace- but yet, I seem to work well with them- but my department supervisor is in her early thirties, is married, has triplets, and looks like one of those Ivory Soap commercials girls from what I remember as a kid with nice blond hair. She's also very soft spoken, but she does an incredible bang up job being my boss and signing my paychecks. Very easy going most of the time. I've had some disciplinary problems concerning some sexual harrassment with another 'blond bitch' contractor from hell when I was a contractor, but nothing that a verbal warning didn't cure and the accusations were uncircumstantial anyway. According to my direct supervisors, when they give me an order they claim that I snap back at them or raise my voice and they say the reason why I do that to them is because they don't have blond hair. In fact, they would like to test this theory that if they came into work with blond wigs that I'd probably be more cooperative with them. They think that I have a 'thing' for my department supervisor. They don't realize how wrong they really are. Number one: she's married. Number two: she has three kids, and number three: she needs to work out. Those three things tend to put a single guy off. The real reason they get the impression that I'm all lovey dovey is simply because she's in a higher position or chain of command than I and I'd like to be where she is now somewhere along the road. I know, for a fact that I'm attracted to all women of different hair color and race. This hot model german girl I recently spent a weekend with was a dark haired siren and I've had relations with black women and oriental women in the past of whom I've been more than crazy about. I've only had a blond girlfriend when I was in high school.

I swear when the workload rains, it really pours. I couldn't even take a afternoon break to write this because I was so busy with Home Video inventory..

Well, that's my shitstorm rant of the day....

because my fifteen minutes are up.

Cary Coatney

FIFTEEN MINUTE BREAK March 25, 2003

Overloaded at work today, which is the main reason why this is so late.

Getting cleaned up at work and on my way to a employee screening of Dreamcatcher at the Steven Ross Theater on the lot- and I'll will probably want to see Willard at the multiplex near my house later this evening.

I picked up a ticket to go see King Crimson for Saturday night at the Wiltern Theater. Pretty good seat in the Orchestra section like 11th row or so and the price was right: $ 55.00. Approximately what I paid to see them last time in 2000.

Co-workers taped me Children of Dune and Riverworld while I was gone. Now all I need is time to myself to watch it.

Sent out a package to Larry today. Global Priority: $9.00. Not too shabby.

One thing I need to scratch off my list is to phone Erica Grant- propietor of Mother Grimm dot com. and talk about sharing a booth at this summer's San Diego Comic Con International. Thinking about our current political situation reminds me of my stint working for those backstabbing fucks- but I guess that's a story for another time.

Got to cut it short.

Cary Coatney

FIFTEEN MINUTE BREAK, March 24,2003

Got back home from Vegas yesterday late afternoon- and missed at least half of the Oscars being handed out. I walked in when Michael Moore gave his memorable all time historic anti-Bush rant. I cheered of course- that guy told it like it is. And it was a moment to cut loose- after sitting around all week with my father trying to drum it into my head why America is in this little skirmish. I can see where he is coming from after seeing combat in Vietnam- but I tend to see Moore's fictitious side of things as more believable.

Before I left for vegas, I had some phone conversations with some people working with me. I had to call Larry and tell that a package of work would be delayed until Tuesday, due to screwing up a video tape for reference material. I talked to my new book designer Oliver Simonson about debuting the new books in November and is in the process of designing some advertisements or flyers and I'll probably get a ashcan done in time for San Diego Comic Con with material from all three upcoming books and essays and other assorted shit.

Highlight of my trip was visiting Kady Mae's store in Vegas with my Dad. My dad wanted to buy a lot of shit- he's impressed of how sharp comic books look nowadays. More tomorrow.

Because my fifteen minutes are up..

Cary Coatney

Now what the fuck happened to my Thursday's entry?