D.J. Coffman - Sequential Artist, Thinker

Before I blog today, I just want to remind any folks in PA who’d like to vote for Obama (or Clinton BLECH!) the deadline to register to vote is Monday. If you’re not registered to vote, I mean, CMON! Do you really need me telling you why you should be registered!? — We have a a chance to make some history here… here’s the PA Deadlines and office locations

Now a few photos from Wizard World LA:

from left: Me, Gareb Shamus founder of Wizard, Jorge Vega 2007 CBC winner, and the big boss Scott Rosenberg — we pose during the “passing of the torch” type shindig.

Scott Rosenberg, myself, and Donald Faison (Dr. Turk from Scrubs) when they were introducing me, and they gave me the new “H” ring. — Donald is a funny a guy I forget what he was saying to me, but It kept me laughing. You might be surprised to know that he’s just a geek too, he’s got mad Comic book knowledge and old school table top RPG knowledge he will drop upon you. Anyway, from our brief encounters at shows, I can tell he really likes like me as an authentic person. Whatever the hell that just meant!

Here’s where they gave me the new ring– which is FRIGGIN AWESOME. I couldn’t stop looking at it.

Jorge Vega and I talking on the Comic Book Challenge panel. - Then Jorge speaks, and I listen.

And then I probably talk too long and ramble and Jorge gives me a “What are you talking about Coffman!” look.

Below… myself and Jason Embury sign our hardcover for some kind folks…

I think that’s something that never gets old to me– the kid’s eyes when they look at the covers. I’m sure they do it to other comics too, but for seeing them memorized by our work in front of them… I love it.  I’m glad other people were around to witness a little of that this go around. It’s magical.

Man, I’m so self conscious– even though I’m dieting, working out and losing weight, I still feel like a giant ogre in these pictures. I’m working on it though! I hope by San Diego con, people might not even be able to recognize this sasquatch. — I’m one of those guys I guess, I don’t feel like i’m THAT tall or big framed… but look at me next to Jorge! I’m like a jolly irish giant or something!

Special thanks to ZaP! for getting me these photos. I like calling him ZAP now. Because it’s cool. ZAP!!!

Back to the drawing board, where I belong!

Something for this week’s Digital Webbing Draw-Off– I envision that Electro would devise gloves that would help him control and program in different nasty electro weapons, like electric knives, bolts, etc.

Feeling EAST COAST today.

Sort of back on track here. Hit the gym this morning, which I’ve skipped for a spell, so I’m feeling that. I’ve lost some weight though and I can see the progress which makes you want to go more, even though it hurts like a mothercrunker. This morning I pulled my man-boob muscle. YEE!!!

I woke up this morning laying in bed thinking about business. Thinking about all the great information I’ve shared, and I love to share with aspiring creators and other publishers and creators. Some things on my mind I’d rather not talk about publicly, but I’m kicking around among friends. Maybe they are ridiculous ideas, but aren’t most?

I had listened to about 6 hours of Seth Godin on the plane rides. Love that guy. “The Big Moo” is a neat collection of success stories and anecdotes about life and business stuff. I try to apply this to my work as a cartoonist and inject a lot of into comics. The only thing comics has right now that is REMARKABLE is, WEBCOMICS. And i know that well. — I forget sometimes all the things I’ve done in the past 12 years working online with comics. People remind me at shows… they say…oh, didn’t you do this? or didn’t you do that? — OH SNAP! I’ve done work for Kevin Smith and Brian Lynch! I forget that not only did we do all sorts of crazy pop-culture comics, the logo I did, within a week ended up on Kevin Smith’s chest on the tonight show— weird! I forget that I was in newspapers once. When people ask me what I’ve done, I guess I sort of focus on the present— because I really do have a crazy amount of different genres of work I’ve done. In webcomics along, I’ve done everything from niche comics about ukulele, to poker, sports, music, Howard Stern, Llamas– and now I’m doing super heroes.

And I love to talk to other creators. I love to set them off and inspire them. At the Webcomics panel in LA, not many people inside, maybe 13 total in the audience this time, not as busy as the other webcomic panels we had done, but it seems all the panels were light– even the Jack Kirby Panel on saturday with Mark Evanier I heard was light crowd…. but I digress…. at the webcomics panel, it was nice to look right into the eyes of  creators and ask them what was holding them back from starting TODAY.

Back to Seth Godin– there’s a video up online somewhere– he mentions bottled water, and it’s something I’ve thought of before. We all know it’s friggin tap water. We pay for it because of the packaging… the marketing. They even pay more for it then a gallon of gasoline! Wrap your mind around that. But the even more ironic thing to me I was having a conversation with a stranger in Los Angeles about the price of gas, as he was hugging down a cold bottle of water. Is it that they convinced people it was worth paying more for than gas? A jedi mind trick perhaps.

I’m off to go consume and buy Easter goodies for the kids now. That’s another thing… Easter is SUPPOSED to be about religious beliefs… but to the masses, it’s about chocolate eggs– and now, I think of drumming gorillas… drumming guerrillas indeed.

You know, it’s weird– when you travel to the west coast for more than a few days and you’re not use to doing that often, the time stuff can mess with you. I know the first two days I was still on East Coast time, by Saturday I was on West Coast– but last night I was wide awake at 11:30pm ready to watch recorded LOST I missed, but my wife was ready for bed… So I went to bed. Unfortunately though, the dog was in bed with us, and well, he was pushing me around all night. Forget that noise! Tomorrow it’s back to his crate for sleeping at night. UGH…. so I slept till 11am or so here, which is, 8am out west… I’m having coffee at noon and writing my “TO DO” list.

My TO DO LIST:

Prep pages for the printer on Hero By Night issue 3. It’s a VERY fun issue, wraps up the new Saul Simian arc well…

- Check schedule to see how I can coincide a possible Saul Simian one-shot origin dealy online, with the print release or pre-issue 4 release date in June. Hmmm…. Same goes for a Doctor Nowhere mini story I have…. it’s all about the timing.

- Do designs for issue 4, including a big security robot, which I have a COOL way to tie into the old HBN history as well…. see, he fought a giant communist robot before… possibly they can be connected? hmmm… fun!

- I need to brush up on the new baddies…. a bunch of tough girls…. People have asked, where are all the girl characters? Well, here they come– and in some cases, here they come AGAIN! nuff said.

The Swipe update — from a few posts ago, about the apparent Iron Man cover, swiping the Iron Talon Hero By Night issue 3 cover…. Sent it along to Rich Johnston, who simply said “not a swipe” — but a sheer “blind coincidence” and he pointed me to Hulk’s #380 cover…. which, come on now, is a much different composition. There’s too much similarity not to have been inspired by– the shape of the mask, which is not Iron Man’s usual mask shape, the ONE eye in the mask peeking out, the spot where Hulk’s reflection is… it’s the same composition, just flipped direction. Well, anyways, even the folks at the Marvel booth got a chuckle out of it, and I’m not pissed at all, I think it’s kinda funny too. — In fact, yesterday I was invited up by some folks at Marvel to stop by and show them some things in NYC– we’ll see how that goes. I was just told in early March by someone pretty well known who works there that Hero By Night was well received by the editors inside.

Again though, that’s not why I’m making Hero By Night, as a try-out book to go work for the big leagues. Essentially, my goal was to make a NEW icon with a new company that will later compete or crossover with the other bigs possibly. A Batman/Hero By Night crossover? Let’s do it! Hero By Night vs Dr. Doom? Hulk vs. Saul Simian? IT’S ON!!! — Maybe Platinum can make that happen at some point, hah!

Alrighty– gotta get to REAL work here… one last thing…
GOBAMA! 

First, forgive me if I forget to mention or thank any particular person here, because I have so much on my mind, and had so much on my mind the entire trip. Especially the FUTURE of comics.

Thursday- The trip was great, no air troubles… but it was a whirlwind of activity once I landed at LAX, we were picked up by Platinum’s mighty story editor, DAVE COLLINS, and whisked to Dave’s apartment complex where he had graciously put up his pad for the Comic Book Challenge Commercial shoot, set one. I literally walked in the door and there were those giant heat lamps setup and the film crew waiting on us– so I put my bags down, and jumped into bed to film the opening scenes. I guess that worked because I was a bit jetlaggy and tired and hungry from the flight– METHOD ACTING!!! Hooray! — the day took us to all sorts of strange places, from a quiet street in Santa Monica, where Jason got to be “CROSSING JUSTICE!” — a crossing guard super hero, but the ironic thing was, people thought he was a REAL crossing guard, so the guy was directing REAL traffic. It was hilarious! — Also Ty, from Platinum, served up some HILARIOUS lines in the car scenes. TUPACALYPTUS NOW! — We ended up at Platinum’s swanky offices in West Hollywood to finish up filming in their lobby, and an elevator scene.– I don’t remember all the film crew’s names, but I gotta say, they were AWESOME! Very thorough, and I really wish them luck for big things in their future directing careers out there. Thank god I just draw and write comics! that’s all I’ll say about that!

One thing I noticed off the bat, was a the big difference from last year– last year in March, I had to go out and be introduced to all of the folks I didn’t know but who knew me… and it was overwhelming coming from my little hermit cave here south of Pittsburgh. But in working with everyone there since 2006 now, it was awesome to show up and KNOW people and be greeted warmly by usually unseen folks like Hank, Daniella, Kihn, Jason, Dylan, Michael– the list goes on and on, and I’m not going to name everyone…. but it felt cool that it was like seeing a bunch of friends who I only see briefly in person, so catching up with some folk there felt great.

I considered this Jorge and Dom’s weekend, so I tried to lay back and let them enjoy this… this was their GUNPLAY debut! They are now the MEN! The torch has been passed! Heh. — I actually felt a little teary eyed watching how happy those guys were and being there the moment for the first time they held their printed comic in their hands… photos of that I took over on Gunplay’s Blog…

I also got to hang out with a lot of what I call the Yirmumah Crew— because well, most of them have been brought in by me in some way from the Yirmumah friends into Platinum– Adam Black draws KISS, Brandon Carr draws Weird Adventures, Wiz Rollins tags along and pees on things… Got to meet Adam’s wife Phaedra (she’s awesome) and we talked some Yirm business… there are gears ticking around there…

Friday– We did the Comic Book Challenge panel– the audience was light around the con in general, but it’s awesome to drop some knowledge on aspiring creators who were in the audience who were REALLY interested in this opportunity. I mean, it goes without saying that it’s an AMAZING OPPORTUNITY. — I joked that, who knows, in 5 years, the first few challenge winners could actually be running the comics line for Platinum– wouldn’t that be an AMAZING story? From obscurity to developing or managing their Macroverse of over 3800 characters— ahem…. my ambitions aside, that’s a thought for another day.

Talked with big boss Brian Altounian, who I’m always happy to see– I had heard he was going on vacation to Hawaii from someone, but no, he said Palm Springs! I use to live there, and we got into a conversation about how the Coachella Valley has grown to the point where you wouldn’t recognize it. Still, if I ever move out west again, I’d be taking my family to the Coachella Valley because I know it, and it’s not as bustling as the LA area…. plus I’d only be 2 hours away from the hustle and bustle of all things comics, San Diego one way, Hollywood the other… I gotta figure out a way to make more money first!

I think I’m so use to having an actual table I have to man, that I felt sort of useless or naked, if that makes sense? I had set signing times of an hour or so, and then I was free to roam— but in my head, I really enjoy meeting the fans, pitching the story to them… I’ve probably literally told the pitch over 10,000 times now over the past year or so… and I never get sick of it– I LOVE bringing on new readers, or hearing from folks that they sat down online and started reading, couldn’t stop, and now I have a fan for life! HOW GREAT IS THAT!? — Dan mentioned to me, it was great seeing people coming up and taking HBN out of the backboards, they brought it to the show specifically for me to sign. We’ve been seeing that for awhile at the Wizard shows over the past year, and it always makes us feel great. Readers care! And I care about them too. — I also helped the Cintiq sales guys out, with setting their settings and showing them how comics are actually MADE on them. Actually Hero By Night is almost 100% done on a Cintiq— which put some more instant opportunity thoughts into my head….. so I did a lot of thinking, plotting and planning while I had he free time…… it’s dangerous to give me free time, because my brain doesn’t stop trying to think innovative. Not a bad thing, but I’m sure some people are SICK of hearing me ramble on and on about business stuff.

Saturday– Much of the same of me signing and then having time to think about taking over the comic industry. This was the day I had a lot of people asking me “so, what’s next!” — and if I’d ever consider doing stuff for Marvel or DC– and I answer, well, yes, but nobody has ever offered. So I answer “what’s next?” I say— I’m doing an ongoing series right now! Issue 4 is next! Not only that, we have this great universe and audience building with Hero By Night, and now some opportunities to develop things within that universe too, like Doctor Nowhere, Saul Simian, Elementress, The American– it goes on and on. That’s sort of where my mind is next– that and WEBCOMICS. Of course.

Saturday we also had the Comic Book Challenge Ceremony with Donald Faison in attendance to do a “passing of the torch” thing. A huge crowd gathered and cameras and all that jazz– I was brought up first as the 2006 winner, and Scott Rosenberg (THE BOSS!) presented me with a custom “H” ring that is AWESOME! And in my ring size– they had gotten my ring size from my wife– SNEAKY AWESOME! — And then they brought in my pal Jorge Vega and they also gave him an “H” ring– and I was confused at first– and they dropped the knowledge on me that this H ring would be like the new “Super Bowl” ring for the Challenge– THE symbol of the Comic Challenge winner… that blew my mind a little.

I’m honored by that… deep down, the IDEA of this ring was about a characters CHOICE. Not only with great power coming great responsibility and all that jazz or what do you do with it…. but doing what’s right, for the right reasons. That might be a message to comic book companies in general too… it’s EASY to sell a comic with boobs on it, heck, I’m not opposed to that— it’s easier and easier to sell to a “mature” audience— but the tougher thing might be staying true to the roots and keeping all age books alive, and that’s definitely what Platinum has done with Hero By Night. People ask me sometimes, how can Platinum launch it ongoing, and if it’s not selling like Marvel or DC books– it’s because it’s better. Scott Rosenberg had told me in private and now in public on that panel that he was surprised by it, because Platinum has a lot of super hero genre ideas in their library, but this came along and it was “better”. And now they believe in it too, and it’s all because of Comic Book Challenge, and taking that chance. Hearing all of these things is VERY humbling to me. I mean, this is the guy who believed in Men In Black, after it was turned down 70 times… he stuck with it, because he believed in it. — Hey, no pressure or anything on me! HAH!

I was also chatting with Zach Pennington, the master of design there– telling him I hope he gets some awards for his layout and design in comics. I think he’s already won for DVD and film type stuff he’s designed (forgive me zap!) But he reminded me… we’ve only been putting out books for a year! — So here’s to good things to come, and I think somewhere along the way here soon, we’re going to fix the distribution system for comics too, because it’s a bit backward and wonky. Again, see, lots of me standing around and thinking about the future of comics. We can fix it!

Saturday night Scott Rosenberg got us into the VIP cocktail party at the convention, which takes place upstairs and hidden away. I never knew about this, I thought the “Wizard Party” was just the one over at the hotel each year with the invites– This might have been a little GEEK highlight for me for a few reasons– So I’m in this room looking around to all the “BIG” names in the industry, thinking they’re probably looking at me like “Who’s this dude?” — and I scan the room for anyone I might KNOW to say hi to– and I see Dan Wickline, thank god, so I go to say hey to him since I missed him on the con floor. I drew a caricature for him ages ago which he still uses, of him crushing hollywood like Godzilla— I go up for “last call” and look over my shoulder and see Darwyn Cooke, and I geek out inside, but keep it tame– I don’t want to turn around and tell him how much I love New Frontier… I feel like I’d be bugging him, and he’d say “WHO LET THIS FANBOY INTO THE VIP PARTY! GET HIM!”— hahhaha…. so I got my little drink there and was walking back and who do I see moving through…

Danny Miki! — I stop him to say hello, knowing he won’t recognize me. It was 1993 or so at Extreme Studios the last time I saw him. He had invited us up to the Image building back then when I was 16 or so, to show us around– (long story) and he of course didn’t remember– I told him I didn’t expect him to remember ME, after all, I was 16 back then and physically fit, and now I’m an out of shape 32 year old. Danny laughed saying, HOLY CRAP has it been that long? — But I told him the day that Rob Liefeld was freaking out and kicked everyone out of the office because of Wizard having photoshoot for the top secret Badrock costume, which nobody else was supposed to see or something— and Danny remembered that day well— but I thanked him, because that was a very eye opening experience to me as a 16 year old know-nothing back then. That the smiling faces in magazines can actually be real douchebags behind the scenes—– 5 years later in 1998, I was producing Yirmumah all about those experiences, and it was Yirmumah that brought me to Jack Kirby…. and BACK into comics… and Yirmumah which then brought me to Comic Challenge and helped me win that….. and here I am now… weird circle of life, huh?

After the cocktail party Scott took the Comic Challenge winners out to dinner– Jorge, Dom, Myself and Jason. We talked about the movie industry and he enlightened us about how complicated it can be, meetings, pitches, deals made, how one little tiny thing can put the brakes on something big happening… but all along it’s apparent that Scott just LOVES comics. He loves entertainment… he knows it in and out, and it’s great to pick his brain. I also learned he absolutely LOVES TO WORK ON SAILBOATS!!! Psyche! He doesn’t. (inside joke!) — And I’m glad that now other folks like Jorge and Dom have met him and spent time with him, and know he is NOT the guy Penny Arcade drew about, which makes that all the more funnier. He’s not some diabolical CEO in a boardroom. He’s an immaculate dreamer. — Also, somehow the Badrock costume came up at dinner– and Scott mentioned they have the HEAD of it in the office, which I’ve seen there and wondered…. but I thought how ironic that was when mixed with the story I told Danny Miki. Fate is odd, huh?

The rest of Saturday was spent next door at the Figueroa hotel and the official Wizard Party shindig. I gotta thank Wizard too, they put on some great shows, and I’ve met Gareb Shamus before, but only in passing– this time I got to at least talk with him a little on Friday at the Platinum offices and we talked a little about IFL and mixed martial arts stuff. His eyes light up when you bring that up– sidenote: you can often see him in the front row of those events, if you’re an MMA fan. — Anywho, Wizard is very generous and I’m glad to be included. –

Sunday was goodbye time— I had thank Dan Forcey and Dave Collins once more for taking such good care of us all over the place. Seriously– If the grid ever falls, and it’s like that one movie where the Russians invaded America, Red Dawn– I’d want them in my group!

Now, I have a wife and family to attend to for the rest of the day— then tomorrow– it’s back to work! Lots of comics to draw!

My colorist and good friend brought this up to me at Wizard World Los Angeles over the weekend, and he was pretty shocked when looking through the programming guide… My reaction was, I laughed. But here it is… you decide, and then I’ll tell you what I think under the pics….

So, while not a traced swipe, clearly there are some things in the composition going on there to make everyone who was shown this, including people at the Marvel booth go “OHHHHH!!!!” — My old EIC, Jim McLauchlin, who actually worked on this issue said jokingly after his “OH!” — “Hey, now you’ve REALLY made it!” - And we laughed.

My opinion of course is that no one at Marvel is responsible for it, it would likely be artist Ed Mcguinness who found the cover and copied the composition. I found it funny that ours is “Iron Talon” — the swipe is “Iron Man” — perhaps someone stumbled upon it during a google image search of some name? Am I mad about it? Heck no! I immediately thought, hey, I’ll send this to Rich Johnston for LITG and hope he puts a link to herobynight.com to go along with it. I mean, let’s not forget, you’re talking to a guy who has had his art actually photocopied and put into a Bollywood Movie and production posters and all that and I couldn’t get much press for that— but Marvel? Ed McGuinness swiping from me? — I’m honored.

Every interview I do, or people come up to me at shows, even this past weekend in LA, and ask if I’m going to be working on stuff for Marvel or DC, I figure, heck, maybe this is the time to let them know I’m available for some work on the side if they want. So hey, e-mail me with offers at idrawcomics@hotmail.com - I’d love to do something for that Marvel All Ages line. (tee-hee)

And to Ed McGuinness or any other famous comic artists out there who’d like me to do composition and layouts for them, I’d totally give you a good deal on a page rate to save you the time of being creative! I know it must be hard with all the deadlines and such.

I’d say I was joking, but I’m actually not anymore.

One more thing…. It’s ironic to me that this is for Marvel’s “Digital Comics Unlimited”, when “Hero By Night” is STILL the #1 super hero webcomic. We’ve got more readers than Batman and Spider-Man (maybe combined?) — And I’m kinda sick of not saying that. Maybe it’s time to brag a little?

I’ll be heading out of town soon for Wizard World L.A. — I’ll be twittering my thoughts and journey over the entire weekend. LINK.

If you’ll be at the show, I’ll be at booth #410 with Platinum Studios. I believe Wacom may be setting up with us as well with Cintiqs, and we may be doing some sort of quick draw challenges for free books or something.

Beyond finding me around the booth, here is a list of panels I’ll be on:

FRIDAY March 14th, 2:30 - 3:30 P.M.
The Wizard Auditorium
The Comic Book Challenge: A Unique Opportunity
Are you an aspiring comic book creator and just can’t find your “in” to the business? The Comic Book Challenge is one option many creators have chosen to pursue to get past having doors slammed in your face. Join 2006 Comic Book Challenge winner DJ Coffman, 2007 Comic Book Challenge Winners Jorge Vega and Dominic Vivona, Platinum Studios’ Chairman Scott Mitchell Rosenberg and other special guests for a discussion of the Comic Book Challenge past and future. Find out the inner workings behind this unique competition and where exactly it is going in 2008, including an announcement about this year’s sponsor.

Saturday March 15th- 1pm
The Platinum Studios Booth #410
COMIC BOOK CHALLENGE CEREMONY
Special appearance by “Scrubs” and “Clueless” star Donald Faison!

3:30-4:30pm
The Wizard School Room
WEBCOMICS PANEL
Are you a comic creator looking to take your comic to a professional level? Join D.J. Coffman for a discussion on how to develop your web comic into a marketable property. Topics will including growing your audience, grassroots marketing, industry networking, digital merchandising and licensing.

___________________________________________________________

And other than that, the crew will likely be hanging around the Hotel Figueroa after hours, sketching and chilling and talking about comics. Some of the ol’ Yirmumah family will be there too- Adam Black, Wiz Rollins, Brandon J. Carr. 

Catch me on Twitter…

This was for a Digital Webbing “draw off” — drew the whole thing on the Cintiq.

It’s been a sucky couple of days here with the whole dog situation. We made up for the lack of sleep from the day before by sleeping in a little today. Good news is, the dog is back to normal it seems, so I’m really happy about that.

You know, when it happened, I immediately went to the web and searched blogs for “dog ate inhaler” or “dog+albuterol” and other terms about dogs possibly overdosing or poisoning themselves to see if my dog was gonna make it or what other people did. I only found ONE real post about a couple who took their dog to an emergency pet place, which we were already doing. — But the bottom line is, if this happens to anyone else and they may be searching, get your pet to a vet ASAP so they can induce vomiting within 2 hours of the incident.

I don’t know if it would have helped our guy– the capsule he bit into pretty sprayed up into his jaw and gums, and it’s instantaneous medicine really when it hits your mucus membranes. SUCK. We were really worried the other night and couldn’t sleep because of his crazy breathing. This morning around 4am he woke us up with some crazy sound effects and whimperings and we turned the light on and it looked like he had died right in front of us as his chest just stopped. — my wife ran over to shake him, and he just woke up and looked at her like “what’s your deal, lady!??”

But yeah, it’s about 48 hours later now, and he seems back to normal, trying to snag food when we’re not looking, etc. We love our dog.

– Well, that’s my update for a Tuesday here at ye ol’ blog. I’m busy working on getting issue 3 of the new Hero By Night ready for the printer and tweeking some of the captions and sprucing up some of the dialogue as I go. I think we’ll be turning that in next week right after the coming WizardWorld show in LA.

OK… back to it!

Yesterday and last night sucked. Didn’t get one ounce of sleep. I’m only typing this now, waiting for FedEx to come then I’m crashing (hopefully) — Here’s what transpired…

Around 5pm yesterday, I heard a loud PSSSSSHHHHT!!! sound from the living room– our Bassett Hound, Kirby, decided to snag my son’s inhaler off the back of the couch and use it as a chew toy. He punctured the little canister and and the medicine must have shot out into his mouth or face. He seemed fine all evening, in fact, we thought maybe it just scared the crap out of him. Around 9pm though, he was lethargic and breathing rapidly and his heart felt like it was going to explode out of his chest. We monitored him for a bit, but finally decided to get him to an animal ER about a half hour away from here.

It was a long night– I don’t think my wife was back until 2am or so. I stayed up watching “Primary Colors” on the tube.– Basically there’s not much they can do for him, they gave him a shot of potassium under the skin, after doing blood work. He just wanted to come home and sleep, it seemed. Listening to him breathe rapidly it was hard to get to sleep– and around 4am he was up and roaming and couldn’t get comfortable, leaping in bed with us, out of bed… too tired and weak to get down the stairs– it doesn’t help that he’s a basset hound and always looks incredibly sad. — but yeah, no sleep– not a wink. I tried putting on some music to mask the sound of his breathing– didn’t work really. I faded in and out, but still was worried and listening to him.

What’s suckier is– I think i actually started dosing off around 6:50, a few minutes before my kids have to get up and get ready… I awoke to my wife asking if the clock was right– it was now 8:05am, two minutes or so before the school bus pulls up– we leapt up and tried to get the kids ready in time, but to no avail. So then I to sit and wait 20 minutes or so before driving them– all I could think about was getting back home here and SLEEPING….. but then I realized the Fed Ex guy usually shows up early– 930-1030– so I figured why torture myself, the minute I lay down, he’ll knock and I’ll have to run downstairs to sign for something.

UGH.

As I type, the dog is still at the foot of my bed, panting rapidly, but it seems like he’s finally settled to that one spot, so I hope he can ride this out. –

Like I mentioned, I was watching that “Primary Colors” last night, and it’s so odd how eerily prophetic or similar things are in that film to what’s going on in this Democratic primary. In case you don’t know, Primary Colors was a movie based on a book, about Clinton’s run for president. John Travolta played a brilliant Bill Clinton but only the names were changed… “Jack Stanton” — but there were moments in this movie, you could see how the “Hillary” character was beginning to become that MONSTER she is today. In the movie, the character based on her, sort of pushes away the facts and scandals of her husband’s philandering and just focuses on winning… she seems to become obsessed with doing anything it takes to win. There’s a scene where Kathy Bates character is against REALLY digging up dirt on another candidate, but the Clintons…. erhm, the Stantons, convince her that, it doesn’t matter if it’s true or not. They say, hey, people used this dirt against Bill even though it’s not true (which it WAS true though) — it doesn’t matter if it’s true or not once you dredge up some dirt on the opponent, it sticks in people’s minds and it sways them. People are sheep.

Anyways, I thought that was interesting. If they make a Primary Colors part 2, it would be an excellent movie for these characters. How a life of her husband’s shenanigans took a toll on a good woman, and she replaced real emotion with something else. Some drive to win…. win… win. She’ll do anything she can to destroy her opponent. Even when the math is against them… logic is against them, the “Stantons” seriously believe they can win. — I don’t think this time though. I think that Primary Colors 2 would end with Mrs. Stanton being defeated, almost humiliated… maybe she shoots her husband? Finally taking out the real opponent in her life?

ARGggggg…. me sleepy… come fast FedEx man!