A Child Of Atom

It's the 12th! That means it's time for another 12 of 12! This is based on an idea created by Chad Darnell, 12 photos to document the 12th of each month. I up the ante a bit by creating a theme for myself. This month: These Are The People In My Neighborhood!

About 10:30 I leave Kid Flash's apartment. (That's his elbow.)

This is my Super, Maggie, in the lobby of my building. She's always friendly. She's lived in this neighborhood for so long that there's a park named after her down the block.

First task for the day: laundry. I usually try not to do this on the weekends because it's super busy at the laundromat, but it wasn't bad today.

After that I head downtown for some fun. I liked the green shirts of these ladies against the green trees. It was a beautiful day, a tiny bit chilly.

In the subway station, waiting for my train. Since there are two levels at my station a lot of people wait on the stairs in-between so that they can catch whichever train arrives first.

The movie theatre. I saw Waitress. It's a cute movie. It was interesting because all of the characters are such broad caricatures yet they somehow become real over the course of the movie.

A hot dog vendor outside the theatre.

Starbucks. I left the house in a tee shirt but the temp dropped pretty fast so I swung through for something warm to drink.

I also stopped by K-Mart. I need a pair of swim trunks for the summer, something that I haven't owned in years.

The booth attendant at the subway station.

On the way home.
Back in my own neighborhood I snagged a slice of pizza from a place around the corner, and that's it. End of the day. Next month I'll probably be late posting for this, but it should be a fun one since it will be another travel day and I'll be on the way to Prague!

May
May 19-21 Lake Taghanik campgrounds with Kid Flash

June
June 12-19 Prague with my Mom.
June 22-24 North South Lake campgrounds with Kid Flash and friends.

July
July 4-8 Wildwood, NJ with Kid Flash and friends.
July ?? (Date TBD) Working trip to Orlando Opera (well... and some fun too).
July ?? (Date TBD) Watch Hill Beach camping with Kid Flash and friends.

August
August ?? (Date TBD) Watch Hill Beach camping with Kid Flash and friends.

I'm tired already, but BOY does it seem like I have a fun summer ahead of me!!

Since I moved to New York City I have been resisting the standard path that most people in theatrical design take, which is doing a few shows here and then, and attaching yourself to an established designer as an assistant to learn the biz. Everyone always warns you, "Don't assist for too long." The danger is that you miss the window of becoming your own person and just end up as an assistant for the rest of your career. I had been getting good work and making a living without ever having gone the assistant route. The past year or two though I have felt as if I had hit the ceiling of what I can do on my own, so when the opportunity came to assist on this tour I jumped on it. First off let me just say what a joy it is to work on a show without terrible budget constraints again. After 3 years of doing shows with $250 budgets it's nice to be able to design unfettered without having to worry where I am going to get something. I already know that this was the right decision, in the past two weeks I have done things that I never had to do in my freelance life before. Sending proposals for bid out to a scene shop, creating breakdowns on a design to be sure that it will all fit in a transfer truck, etc. etc. Basically all of the things that they talk about in grad school but never really give you practical experience on. I'm supposed to be in this shop for 6 weeks. Everyone here tells me that they were given the 6 weeks line when they were hired as well, and some of them have been here for years. Would I stay that long? I dunno. It's tempting. Steady pay, benefits. But it is still doing other people's work, and not so much my own, so we'll see how long it takes for me to get restless. For now though... I'm happy as the Assistant Designer.

Well, I have just turned into a piss poor blogger haven't I? Sorry, I do apologize. After 10 days in Savannah where net connections were often iffy, and the starting this 9 to 5 lifestyle (usually more like 9:30 to 6:15 frankly) I've just been off my game. I'm trying to settle my life back into a routine but it's weird. Plus... my transit times are off, so there are MANY more people on the train than when I used to ride it, so I have trouble sketching. I have steady work that is enjoyable. I have a boyfriend that I love and adore. What the hell am I supposed to blog about? All the usually bitchy whiny-ness of my life seems to have settle ditself out. I'll try to do better in the coming days, I promise. I have three sketches that have been languishing in my sketch book, (two of which were done before I left for Savannah), but I've been too lazy a fuckwit to scan them. I'll get there, I'll get there.

And by Dolly Style I mean 9 to 5. Yes, it's true, for the next 6 weeks or so I will be working a standard 9 to 5 shift. It's still theatre related, I am assisting on a tour production of "Gypsy" but since the designer I'm assisting has a studio and employees, standard office hours apply. I've done the 9 to 5 thing a few times in the past, temping or doing corporate work, but it is still an adjustment to the system. Left to my own means I usually get to bed about 3 or 4, (that's a.m. mind you) and get up around 10 or 11. Being in an office downtown means I have to be on a train by 8:15, which mean out of bed by 7:30 or so. Not exactly my kind of hours. The good news is that this puts me much closer to the hours that Kid Flash keeps so going to bed at 10:30 when he normally does doesn't seem so strange. Still it's going to take some getting used to. New York city is a whole different place early in the mornings. The trains are more crowded, with commuters, but the streets are emptier. I also find it a bit mystifying that anyone would buy and egg and cheese on a roll from a street vendor, even if it is only $1.50. Hot dogs are one thing, they aren't even real meat, but dairy? Uhm... no thanks. Two days in and I also already have the office rhythm down. In at 9, coffee and email for a half hour, look around at the other projects and what everyone else did yesterday, settle in at your own desk for a while, shuffle some papers... nothing really seems to get rolling until after 10. Is that normal? Anyway... I'll be at this for a long while... so I'm sure I'll figure it all out.

Mmmmm.... seems I'm only a C-Lister, still... not bad!

I'm in Savannah this week visiting my alma mater and doing some work for them. It's the 70th anniversary of the department and they have invited several of us, including Michelle and I, to come to the school to speak, or work on productions. The production that I am designing is a remount of the first production that the school ever did, back in 1937. The school's drama department actually has a long and storied history that is only just now being rediscovered in preparation for this anniversary. For instance they performed the first integrated production of Othello south of the Mason-Dixon. Isn't that cool? No one was aware of that until just recently.

Anyway, it's been an odd trip for me. In some ways it is a homecoming, to return to the school were I worked for three years, not only to get a degree, but to design and build the sets for the shows. In other ways it is a weirdo trip to my past. Finding my handwriting still on labels in the shop, props that I built or bought still in existence, my old paint box sitting untouched and full of oil paint and brushes in the paint room as if I had just placed it there yesterday. It's been an odd few days feeling simultaneously as if I never left and that I'll never fit here again.

In the meantime I have had fun exploring Savannah again and rediscovering my life here. I've been to stores that I used to frequent, restaurants that I loved, and of course I have been running around town digging up geocaches. Sunday my mom and my sister and her husband dropped by to see me and we visited the Wormsloe Historic Site, (that's it in the picture up there). The park wasn't yet open when we arrived but I thought it would be a perfect place for a cache so we drove around the neighboring area trying to find an open wi-fi network so that I could check. We started our search in the parking lot of a Piggly Wiggly, where we found several networks, but none open. Eventually I found a hotel where I could get access. The first thing I discovered? That there is a cache in the parking lot of the Piggly Wiggly. I do love my coincidences. Turns out that Wormsloe didn't have any but there was one on the Isle of Hope nearby so we visited that before hitting the state park. (Wormsloe is lovely by the way, and I recommend a visit if you are in the area.) I've also found a few other caches around town, about one a day since I've been here. It's a fun way to keep myself occupied.

I'm here for 5 more days before returning to NYC and back to my life. I miss home already, but I'm happy to be here too.

This month my 12 of 12 happens to fall on a travel day when I was headed out to my hometown of Savannah, GA to work on a show that I had designed. My alma mater, (one of them anyway) is there and the theatre department is celebrating their 70th Anniversary so they asked back a bunch of alumni to design and direct and what-not. I started the day with one set of photos, taken on the plane, but the battery died in my camera and they were corrupted in the battery change... something to know for the future, download before changing batteries... So in actually this should be 16 on 12, but I started over when I got to Savannah. My theme for myself this months started on the plane when everything was blue. Blue seats, blue destination boards, blue everything. So I started out with blue as theme. then I got to Georgia and suddenly everything was red, so I just went with primary colors as the theme.

Welcome to Georgia! This was where I suddenly realized that 12 blue shots might be a problem, this is a shop in the airport.

My rental car is red too, so primary colors it is. This rental car is costing me for a week what one costs for a day in NYC.


The first (for this set anyway) blue shot. In NYC it was 35 degrees and sleeting. In Savannah it was 85 degrees and simply gorgeous.

Lunch! I don't know which excited me more, that I could order sweet tea without a hassle, or that it was from Chi-fil-a.

My first yellow shot a vending machine in the mall outside th Chic-fil-a.

Savannah has flowers too, everything is in bloom and already green, definitely another difference from the city.


In the theatre at the school, the big blue monster. I have no idea why the theatre is this color but it always has been, and they never let me change it.


In the shop at the theatre. Its funny how little has changed in the 6 years since I ran the place. My handwriting is still all over the place and tools I bought are still around. It's very nostalgic.


One of my first duties was to go and buy paint for the set. (Nothing onset is actually any of these colors but I needed another blue shot.)

Back at the theatre it's time to change into the paint clothes.

Backstage in the costume storage area I found my final red shot.


On the way to my prof's house, (where I'm staying) we stop off for provisions and I find my last yellow shot. Grocery stores are so freaking huge here! I had forgotten how wide the aisles are and how well stocked they are compared to Manhattan.

This project is based on an idea created by Chad Darnell, you can view other people's 12 of 12 shots here.

Long long ago, and far far away I gave up caffeine. This was during art school when I was working the over night shift at a hotel and then going to classes all day. I realized eventually that I was drinking an ENORMOUS amount of coffee, like 8 of the larger take out cops a day. (Vente in today's Starbucks parlance.) So I gave it up. Cold turkey I went off caffeine, no coffee, no tea, no soda. That actually lasted for several years until I slowly allowed it back into my life. Even now I am sort of careful about coffee and only really drink it when I "need" it. Soda on the other hand has always been a weakness for me. I try to limit myself to one 20 oz. soda a day, but that is often not the case. I know that it's bad for me. I know that it contains too much sugar. I know that it is part of the reason that I am... well... let's say "a bit plump" and leave it at that. So yesterday I decided: NO MORE SODA. I had one Pepsi in the fridge which I polished off with my dinner last night and today... no Pepsi. I passed the first test when I stopped by a store while shopping today to grab something to drink and chose water. It was a struggle for a moment, I reached for the Pepsi out of habit, but stopped myself and went for the water instead. Granted it was some fruit flavored water from Tropicana, but still... 40 calories as opposed to the nearly 250 in a 20oz Pepsi... and 4 grams of sugar instead of 69. I'll take it.

This sketch mark the (roughly) third anniversary of my subway sketching. The first was posted on April 21, 2005. (Geez, looking back at that to get the link makes me realize how much better at this I've gotten!) Since my file titles only have the month and day I had to start a new folder for them today. Here's to a new year!

Last week was my birthday. Frankly it's been a rotten week, I was working a job that was kicking my ass, including two 24 hour days and a weekend full of hour and a half train rides to Coney Island to the worksite. It was a mess.

Saturday Kid Flash had a little party for me, inviting a mixture of his friends and mine. He made homemade pizza, (delicious as always), and he even had sausage for one of the pizzas, even though he is a strict vegetarian. He also made a homemade lemon cake that was phenomenal. It was full of lemon curd, in the batter, in the frosting, and spread between the four layers. Tasty, tasy, tasty. Those are also daffodils on the table, my favorite flower. (Ain't he sweet?)

Even though I had been awake for 36 hours prior to the party I managed to keep my head out of my plate (I took a small nap before the party, I admit) and I had a great time. I got some fun gifts including some hand made stationary from KF's brother, and a new digital camera, probably to make up for the fact that I keep borrowing his for my 12 of 12 every month. It was an awesome birthday, and I had a great time. It really made up for the crappy week I had coming into things.

(Speaking of my crappy week, check my post at Metblogs about one of the worst subway rides I've ever been on.)

For those of you who have landed here searching for the recipe for Red Lobster Cheddar Biscuits, (which I mentioned once forcrissakes but get a bunch of hits from) I can finally point you in the right direction. Check this out! Now go, run along.

My mom and I have decided to go to Prague this summer, hopefully to take in the Prague Quadrennial (a festival of international theatrical design that takes place every four years) and to give us both a little European adventure. I went to the PQ 4 years ago and loved it, besides falling in love with the city itself. My mom has never been outside North America, and I think Prague is a great "starter country." Lots of people speak English, the food isn't terribly scary, it's an easy city to navigate, and it has a great sampling of art and museums, and culture.

So, since deciding that this was actually financially feasible, (thanks commercial work!) I've been on the prowl for an inexpensive way to get there. Basic airfare is running about $900, which is... well... scary. After some digging around online I discovered easyjet, which seems to be a miracle on the face of things. Flights from London to Prague for 10 pounds. 10 POUNDS?! How can that be? Flights from JFK to London run about $600, plus a mere 20 pounds round trip to Prague? Count me in!

Or... maybe not. I had heard how crappy the dollar was doing in the international market, but it hadn't really impacted me, so I wasn't paying it a lot of attention. So, get this... after taxes, and the exchange rate that 20 pound flight? $110. Now, granted, taxes is a lot of that, the airfare after tax is 55 pounds, but the exchange rate certainly doesn't help matters. Still, I guess it's better than $900.

When I went to Prague 4 years ago my pension cost me $15 per night (after exchange). The cheapest I can find now is $35. I looked back at my notes from the trip but I don't see anywhere that I wrote down how much I was paying in Czech crowns for comparison unfortunately. A lot has changed in those 4 years of course. Prague joined the EU, (while I was there actually) and America went to war of course. Not to mention that the whole world pretty much hates us. So between those two things this trip is going to be a bit more expensive than my last one probably. (Thank President Bush!)

Still... I can't wait to go, I'm very excited about the whole prospect and am very anxious to show my mom the St. Charles Bridge, and The Infant of Prague, and the Old Jewish Cemetary, and, well... everything!

Dear lord did I watch a lot of roller derby this weekend. Kid Flash and I, along with a few of his friends spent the weekend just outside Philadelphia watching teams from 30 different leagues in competition. (I wrote up a lot of the technical stuff over on Metblogs if you are interested.) It was a frustrating drive down in the sleet and snow and it took a few hours longer than it should have but we spent the weekend in a posh hotel just outside Philly doing nothing much but relaxing, and of course watching derby. After a nice turn in the hot tub, and a good night's sleep we spent the next day watching more derby than I had ever seen at all up to this point. I watched 4 different bouts of Saturday, including one with the New York team against the team from Raleigh, NC. The next day it was Chicago vs NYC that kept most of our attention. It was an awesome weekend that kept us all thoroughly entertained, but in the end it was just about more derby than I could take. I did have fun though.

Just a quick note to Bailey. You emailed me yesterday or the day before and I just accidentally deleted it without having read anything beyond the first line. I apologize, but I'd love it if you'd send me the mail again.

Seriously!! Marvel's toy division wants every penny of money that I have. How cute is SHE!?!

More photos from the movie that I am building for. (Older shots here.) This is The Music Room, a couple doors down the street from the Tailor Shop, and a place for kids to take music lessons. Not quite as many details as the Tailor Shop, but still a fun build. Especially that piano, which I built from scratch! (And yes it has 88 keys.)

Again these things are 1 1/2" = 1' scale, meaning that a 6' tall person would be 7 1/2" tall in this room.

I've been invited to be one of the bloggers over at Metblogs NYC. They ask that I not cross post my entries there to another blog, but I'll let you know when I post something exciting. All of the posts there will be themed around NYC, of course. Today was my first real post, after my basic introductory one, about the Gotham Girls Roller Derby and the East Coast Derby Extravaganza in Philly this weekend.

Have I mentioned that I love derby? Have I mentioned that I plan to watch a quite a bit of it this weekend? Kid Flash and I are headed down tomorrow afternoon with a couple of his friends for two days worth of derby excitement. I can't wait!!

Well, The Tonight Show decided not to air the piece that I worked on, but it is now available on their website for your viewing pleasure. Ladies and Gentlemen... The B-Team.

I painted all the backgrounds for this made a few of the props and at the beginning when they all run to hop in the van I am puppeteering the Olsen Twins. My favorite bit is the revolving background that I created for K-Fed's scene on the scooter (it all makes sense when you watch it I promise). Enjoy!

Look! She's smiling! (Sorta...)

The NY Press article hit the streets today, and I have to say that it is my favorite piece of press so far. The interviewer asked some really tough questions when we talked and it turned into an awesome write-up. The online version (here) only uses one image (which was an interesting choice of image considering what the article itself says) but the print version is a full page and reprints 10 of my images.

The downside? No mention of the book. A mention of the blog, but no address URL... so if you made it here from the New York Press article, welcome! Thanks for googling me!

Another month, another 12 of 12. This is based on a project originally started by Chad Darnell over at his blog. I added my own wrinkle to it by theming my twelve photos every month.

Well.. it's been quite a week. Front page on both del.icio.us and Reddit, which translated into a serious bump in my hit stats. (If you don't know both of those sites are social networking sites, meaning the more people who bookmark a page, or link to a page from the site the higher the page climbs on a list.) Both sites linked my flickr portfolio rather than here, but hits are hits! My hit count at flickr earlier this week was about 10,000... now...


Of course with all that comes some criticism, lots of people talking about me with no fear that I'll ever see the comments. From metachat: "Good drawings of sad people, for the most part." I don't know that they are so much sad as... neutral. Or maybe I'm drawn to drawing sad people.. I dunno.

But over on reddit the comments about my site registered some real gems. "These are good sketches, but they are a bit comic-book-y." Well... duh. I have read comics for more years of my life than I haven't. Over 20 years I have looked at comic book art. Of COURSE it's influenced me. Moreover is comic-book-y supposed to be an insult or a negative? Look at Charles Vess, Dave McKean, Bill Sinkiewicz, Craig Thompson, Mike Mignola... any of a hundred comic book artists. I defy you to tell me that their work is somehow invalid because it appeared in comic books. (Mind you I'm not comparing myself to any of these men, but I admire them all immensely.)

"The foreheads are all too short, a common mistake people make when drawing human faces. It makes the people look too simian. But more important is the feeling the sketches evoke. Funny how that kind of thing comes through even when the technical side isn't so good." Nice backhanded compliment there. I'll be the first to admit that my art has problems. I tend to put the ears in the wrong place, usually to far forward on the head, and I have some problems with hands, especially the last joint on fingers, I can never place it quite right. This has never been a criticism leveled at me before though. What do you guys think? Is it true? Are my foreheads too short? (Thanks for acknowledging that I manage to evoke a feeling though. Do you find it a feeling of sadness?)

All that said... I enjoy criticism really. It means people are looking at me critically and are willing to say something about it. I learned to handle criticism long ago in my figure drawing classes, yet another good thing I can lay at mt professor's feet.

Next week I can look forward to an article in the New York Press. Those of you who live in the city can pick it up free from the green boxes on Wednesday morning if you are interested. (Everyone else can check it out online. Don't worry, I'll remind you...) The interviewer from the NYPress asked some difficult questions that I had to do some quick mental gymnastics to answer! It was a fun interview.

With all the interest in the last few days I have been getting a lot of questions, so I figured I'd finally write this out. I've been meaning to for a while.

1. How long does a sketch take?
Usually between 20 and 25 minutes, depending on my destination, and theirs. I am guaranteed to keep a model between 125th and 59th as long as I'm on the A or D which is what I ride most often.

2. What do you sketch with?
I sketch in a Moleskine sketchbook, with a ballpoint pen, specifically I prefer the Write Bros. model stick pen from Papermate, (if you are curious about the minutia).

3. Do you ask the model's permission?
Nope. I have never once spoken to one of the people I've sketched.

4. Do they know you are sketching them?
I can say... no... for the most part. There have been one or two that I am pretty sure figured out what I was doing, ( I think this guy for instance knew, but he never told his GF), but the vast majority of people ignore me and just concentrate on their books, or ipods, or their own inner worlds. Only twice has anyone ever noticably reacted to me, once a girl simply turned her head and put her hand up, and another time a lady moved seats, but I hadn't been sketching her anyway! I was sketching the woman beside her.

5. Do you work on the sketches after you leave the train?
I sometimes make "sketch notes" about hair and clothes that so that I can finish that part later, but I try to keep the faces (or whatever body part) limited to my time on the train. Looking at the sketches, the more background you see, or detail on the clothing, the more time I had with the "model."

6. Why do you do it?
I started as a way to practice. All through school I heard "carry a sketchbook" but I never was able to keep up with that habit. When I moved to NYC and started working in theatre my own personal artwork slid into a state of disrepair and I wanted to start doing figure drawing again as a way to shore up those rusty skills. After some failed and aborted attampts at going to figure drawing groups I started doing this. Two years later I've done over 200 of these sketches and I couldn't be happier with the way my artistic life feels these days.

7. 200? Why don't I see that many here?
Well... not all them are worth posting. Sometimes I do get jostled, a bit, or screw up the likeness.

8. Do you have training?
Yes, I have a degree in illustration from the School of Visual Arts. (I also have a degree in tech theatre from Armstrong Atlantic State University in GA, and a Masters in scenic design from the University of Connecticut.)

9. Can I buy one?
Anything dated before Dec 1, 2006 is for sale. Some have already been sold in the gallery show that I did earlier this year, but most are still available. You can inquire about prices. Of course my personal favorites are available in the book.

10. Will you sketch me?
Well... maybe. I am not sure where I stand on commissioned portraits yet but with the right persuasion I may consider it.

Whew! Following the Sun interview, and the mention on Gothamist, I received a new mention on Moleskinerie, and it's been a race since then! I've been approached by a new gallery, two more newspapers, several individuals inquiring about buying pieces, and a video podcast show that would like to interview me. This is turning into quite the debut for the book, and the funny part is that it's all happening at the same time through nothing more than serendipity. I'm glad I finished up the book in time.

(By the way... I apologize for the exceptional number of exclamation points in my posts in the past few days, it's just been exciting! Ooops. I mean... "exciting.")

One of my absolute favorite city resources Gothamist linked me today!

I guess, based on their article, that I won't be riding the PATH train any time soon...

So... to all the Gothamist readers: Welcome! You can see all the subway sketches here, and if you are so inclined, order the book here!

Hope you all come back by to visit, I post a new sketch every couple days, but I'm usually here kvetching about something every day.

These are shots of the set I've been building for the stop motion movie. The location for this shot is a run-down tailor shop. I built about 95% of what's in the photo, except for a few minor detail pieces like the irons, the bucket, the whisk broom, stuff like that. This is all at 1 1/2" = 1' scale, meaning that a 6' tall person would be 7 1/2" tall in this room. It's really a great deal of fun, I love doing work like this. Today I built an upright piano for next set, a music store down the street from this location.

Don't forget to check out the book! Sales are doing really well. Have you gotten your copy yet?

She had the teeny-tiniest squintiest little eyes I've ever seen!

After the gallery show in December I decided that I'd like to try and self-publish a book version of the show so it could be distributed a bit more widely. It took a lot of research but I chose lulu.com as the right publisher for me and started working on the book. Then came the hard part. I decided to edit the show a bit, so I chose 99 of the sketches, including 7 that had not been drawn by the time of the show and I started putting the book together. There was a bit of a delay in January when I was overwhelmed by other work, and then in February I kicked the project into full gear and got it done. The process of laying out the book took me about a month, and then the process of uploading it all to Lulu took about a week and a half, since it turned out to be a bit more difficult than I had anticipated. Then I ordered the first proof...

And it's here!! I got home this morning to find the proof copy sitting in my mail box, and after a short perusal, I think it is finally ready for public consumption! So if you are a fan of my subway sketches, please go here, or click the button in the sidebar and head on over to Lulu.com to get your very own copy.

The sketches are presented in chronological order, and at the actual size that they were sketched. There is a also brief introduction, (though there probably isn't much in it that visitors here haven't already read).

I'm really proud of this project, and the results and proud to be able to present it to you!

Well, Day 1 may have been a bust but Day 2 is starting out well!

Yesterday I got an email from a reporter at the New York Sun. Turns out that she is the transit columnist and was writing a column on New Yorkers who find inspiration in the subway. Well, that's me! So check out the New York Sun today. (Read the online version here.)

(The article spoils my announcement for Day 3, by the way... but I'm going to ignore that when the time comes, probably early next week, monday or tuesday.)

So if you are here for the first time as a New York Sun reader... welcome! You can see all the sketches by clicking here, all my posts about the subway (including text posts) are here, anything else you need to know? Enjoy and, I hope you come back often!

Well... it didn't air. I'm working out at the studio tomorrow so I'm sure they'll have something to say about it. Oh, well...

Here's hoping that tomorrow's exciting announcement actually happens or this whole thing is gonna fall apart!

Okay... I don't watch the Tonight Show normally, but tonight I have it on in hopes of seeing the piece that I worked on. And as life for me often does... coincidence steps in.

If you were watching, when Jay finished up his interview with Howie Mandell, Howie was plugging the home game version of Deal or No Deal (game shows still do home versions? Who knew!) and then he tossed the copy he had out into the audience.

So what's the coincidence? Well... the guy who caught it? I know him. He's an actor who worked with me last year at the summerstock I was at. I watch this show once expecting to see my own work, and there sits a friend in the audience. (Hi Ryan!)

There's lots and lots of cool stuff going on in my life right now!! Keep checking back, I expect to be making two more major announcements in the next few days, but first things first: Got a TV? Got a local NBC affiliate? Well then you might want to catch the Tonight Show tonight. There's no guarantee that it will be on, it might get bumped for time, or whatever, but the Episode of the B-Team that I worked on is supposed to air tonight. I painted all the backgrounds, and in a career first I puppeteered the Olsen Twins in a couple of the shots!

More to come....