I found that I like to write. I love the process, the research involved and a great turn of phrase. It’s odd, because I wasn’t a reader–voracious or therwise–when I was younger. Unless comic books count. If so, then I was a voracious reader. But I think I loved the pictures more than the words. I loved comic book art and got pretty good at drawing with comic art as inspiration. Maybe I hated reading because in school, they MADE you read…and I hated homework of any kind.
It has been a whirlwind over the last three months for me and my family. Lots of travel (and double masking) during this very frustrating pandemic. We started in late October with travel to San Antonio TX for my daughter’s wedding. Then off to L.A. for Thanksgiving. Back to the Bay Area for our traditional family Christmas meats fest. And then, sadly, in the first week of January, we return “home” to Cleveland, OH for the funeral of my wife’s mom. The emotions in those three months ran the gamut from exciting and ecstatic for my daughter’s wedding, to sadness and sorrow for the passing of a great lady. My sweet mother-in-law lived a full life of love and family, achieving her 94th birthday in November, a fact she was very proud of because she lived longer than anyone else in her family. Sadly, her journey on this earth ended on January 2nd. I don’t know what lies ahead in the first quarter of 2022, but I’m hoping it’s much quieter and serene than the last quarter of 2021.
Last weekend, we flew to Texas for my middle daughter’s wedding. When she told us that she and her fiancé wanted to get married on a ranch in South Texas, we were like, “Really…why?” Okay, her fiancé is originally from Houston, but the ranch is near San Antonio which is hours away from Houston. But, okay, we’re in. It’s what they wanted, and where she wanted to start her married life.
3 B Ranch
Now, I’m not gonna lie, I really was not very fond of Texas. Anything Texas! Not a fan of the politics, the weather (I can’t tolerate humidity anymore), and the whole “Texas Tough” attitude. The thought of spending any amount of time –and money –in Texas was not appealing to me at all. But…our son-in-law to be is an amazing man, a good man, raised in Texas. They both wanted to start their life together at a destination wedding in Texas. So, we decided not to sweat the small stuff–or Texas large stuff– and go with it. They are so worth the dang humidity.
It was a weekend that lasted (it seemed) an entire month! My other two daughters and son-in-law, a few cousins, and of course, my wife and I, worked very hard to make this event meaningful. In that dang Texas heat. So many details had to come together. So much physical setup had to be done. In the dang Texas heat.
Are you here for the bride or the groom?
However, in the long run, all the work and stress of preparing the venue, securing all the wedding vendors, such as caterers, DJs, tent and dance floor installers, photographers, videographers, a Mariachi Band, and so many other details was worth it. My daughter looked beautiful in her mom’s wedding dress that was made from scratch by her mom in 1977 for our wedding. The venue looked beautiful, especially during the ceremony, right at five o’clock in the afternoon, just when the sun was beginning its descent. Two families came together to celebrate two beautiful young people, both bursting with happiness for the whole, memorable evening.
A suspected wedding crasher
And let me set the record straight. Everyone we dealt with in Texas, from vendors to retailers, could not have been any nicer, more accomodating, and genuine. The people were so very far from my perceived negative image that the state has earned. Just as you’ll find the national perception of living in Cleveland and Northeast Ohio is totally inaccurate when you spend time there. The Air BnB we stayed at was remarkable and the owners were terrific. We had some fresh food, produce, and wine and beer leftover in the fridge because we totally over-bought, and the Air BnB owners told us to just leave it there and they could possibly donate it all to the military base located nearby. We were so relieved that we didn’t have to throw away good food. Politics (and humidity) aside, there are mighty good people in Texas (and all over this country, really) and I just hope and pray we can eliminate all the negativity on social media, with all the hate and misinformation it brings, and just talk to one another, in person and face-to-face like we used to, so we can once again learn from each other and LIKE each other. We are so glad that we had the chance to do all this in the times of Covid. It was a blessing. I even saw my first Texas armadillo in the front yard of the Airbnb as we were leaving for the airport to return home. And now, I can honestly say, “This ain’t my first armadillo.”
So…last year, I made a commitment to myself to continue writing updates on this blog at least once a week, because you know, Covid lockdown, and what else was there to do? So, yeah….that worked out. The last entry was October 2020. Sheesh! I don’t know why it’s so hard to update a blog. It’s not like I don’t have the time. As a freelance VO artist…after auditions are recorded and sent, I really have nothing BUT time. So why the procrastination?
To be fair…I do have other interests. I have been working on recording music, original music, that I wrote myself or co-wrote with my friend and lead guitar player in our old garage band. His name was Jeff Hajma, (JJ Allen) and he passed away unexpectedly over a year ago. It was unexpected for me, at least. Still a “young” man (we refuse to grow old) his life ended much too soon. Then again, as I think about it, was it really unexpected? Jeff had some demons. He was a rocker in many bands and he lived the lifestyle. He had some problems in his life and it may have taken its toll on him.
J.J. Allen (Jeff Hajma)
I played bass and drums and learned how to play a little rhythm guitar, but I was never very good at any of them. Jeff, on the other hand, was an accomplished musician. His guitar skills were top shelf. Great lead player. Our little garage band was kinda stuck in the garage but, we’ve been playing together for so long, our chemistry together was jelling and we started to get really good. Jeff and I grew to be a good songwriting team. We came up with a few tunes that we would play at gigs. We had a lot of material that was still in development. As a band, we were just kinda getting some momentum. However, I had an opportunity to begin my radio career at that time, so I decided to stop pursuing music and concentrate on radio full time…and acting as well. Jeff worked a day job while continuing to pursue his musical dreams. I think he may have hated me for it. Hate may be a strong word here. Let’s just say he was extremely disappointed with me.
As time went on, we went our separate ways. Lived our separate lives. Sadly, never really keeping in touch. My wife and I moved to Connecticut for career opportunities in CT and New York City and, after eight years on the east coast, we decided to move back home for family reasons. When I got back to Cleveland, one of the first friends I reached out to was Jeff. And he pretty much ignored me. Actually, he kinda went out if his way to ignore me, so it was clear that he still harbored some animosity toward me for leaving the music behind. But time has a way of healing things and within a year of returning “home” Jeff reached out to me. We sat and talked for hours and decided to revive our musical collaboration and record together. Technology was making recording cheaper and more readily available on computers and my audio skills developed in radio helped immensely.
We recorded a few things, revisited and revitalized our old material. It was great to stir the creative musical juices again. But the years changed our priorities—changed us—and we moved on again. I moved to Northern California and found out through our friend and drummer in our old band, Dave DeMarchi, that Jeff had passed away of cancer. It hit me pretty hard, even though we hadn’t seen each other for a few years. Hadn’t been close for years. But to have once been very close to someone, to work and create good stuff together, no matter how much time had passed, I still grieved for my friend.
Dave (a really excellent drummer) mentioned that Jeff had continued to record music and post those songs on his YouTube channel. He mostly recorded solo covers of songs from Clapton, The Beatles, and many others. I found his channel and listened to his music…his voice…his guitar, and was feeling really melancholy. But then, I was inspired to take one or more of his cover songs and record WITH him, posthumously, as the surviving Beatles did with solo John Lennon tunes. I chose Free Fallin’, his version of Tom Petty’s song, and began to get to work.
Over the years I continued to learn and play music solely as a hobby. I got a little bit better over the years but still…just a hobby “musician.” But I was inspired to work with Jeff one more time. I took Jeff’s version of Free Fallin’ and edited it down so that I was able to keep time on my electronic drums (he was just playing by himself without a metronome, so his timing was just a touch off-beat.) Once I got the timing right, I tracked the drums, then the bass then filled it in with rhythm guitars. Then the backing vocals. It was very cathartic for me to do this project as a sort of tribute to my friend and bandmate.
As a writer, I don’t think there would be any way in the world that I could dream up a storyline and subsequent unfolding events that would be so untenable, so unbelievable, so implausible as the story of the year 2020! Book Critics would never recommend a book so outlandish. If it ever got published at all. There have been some classic science fiction novels of deadly viral pandemics, political thrillers of espionage, tall tales of corruption, malfeasance, ineptitude, cronyism, nepotism, and the end of democracy as we know it.
And yet…reality! And the year ain’t even over yet! How the hell did we ever get here?
I’m on my way to my first Comic-Con in San Diego, the granddaddy of all comic conventions. It’s one of those bucket list items that I’ve wanted to check off for quite a while. I’ll be heading down south with my firstborn daughter, who has to attend for work. So, it’s a day stopover in Burbank to pick her up before driving down I-5 together. As I wait for my daughter’s day at the office to finish up, I’ve been walking around “beautiful downtown Burbank” just people watching and catching all the sights. Busy place, Burbank. And nice, really. But uh-oh, my phone is running dangerously low on battery. Which it shouldn’t because it’s less than a year old! So now what? Well, I’m doing something right now that I never thought I never would. I’m writing this blog post from inside a Starbucks. I’ve ordered coffee and plugged my phone into one of the many power outlets to charge up. Fortunately, I found an empty outlet near a stand-up table, the only one available. I’ve always wondered how writers and others can do work inside a Starbucks. Writing to me is a solitary activity. I’ve always felt the distractions in a Starbucks or other coffee shop type of environment would drive me crazy so I never even attempted it. But here I am, kinda forced to do it as sort of a cover-up just to charge my phone. And …yeah, I hate it. Soooo many distractions. How can anyone concentrate? But it’s only a one-time thing for me and my phone is charging. So …onward.
have been a comic book geek all my life. Ever since I can remember, my father would take me to the corner drug store and buy me the latest issues of Batman, Superman, Justice League, Flash, Green Lantern, Legion of Superheroes and so many more. As I got older I would buy them myself. I had quite the collection! Books that would probably be worth a lot of money today …if I still had them. I either gave them away or just threw them away before I knew exactly what I had in those comics. Granted, some were not in the best of shape, but some were in really good or mint condition when I unloaded them. D’oh! Primarily a DC comics person, I didn’t get into Marvel books until I got a little older and started to buy issues of Captain America, Spiderman, Daredevil, Fantastic Four, X-Men and Thor. As a kid, my daydreams were filled with saving the world and fighting crime with some sort of superpower. I was always trying to invent my own superhero character. Comic books kindled a love for writing and drawing that remains with me to this day. Comic books stoked my imagination and encouraged me to create stories, draw cartoons, and become an actor because I wanted to be one of those characters. Or voice them in cartoons.
Well, it’s 2019 and I can finally say, I’ve been to Comic-Con! On its 50th anniversary, no less. Attending a Comic-Con has been one of my bucket list items that I can finally check off! Truth be told, it’s an experience I’m not planning to repeat. Once is enough for me. The “Con” experience has probably changed immeasurably over the last fifty years. Just getting a ticket to attend SDCC has become a grueling adventure over the years. The application procedure is frustrating and very time consuming. It’s basically a lottery, and the odds of winning one of those are not very good. An episode of the Big Bang Theory showed us what it’s like, when the four boys are sitting in Sheldon and Leonard’s apartment, laptops at the ready, waiting for “go time” to refresh the Comic-Con website for the chance to get in the queue to be able to apply for tickets. You might think it’s comedic exaggeration for the show, nope, it’s real! Been there, done that. But if you are one of the lucky ones to get a ticket, you should expect to empty your bank account.
The cost of attending a Comic-Con requires at least $250 for each ticket. Then there are travel costs for airfare, or if you’re driving, gas and hotel parking for four days. And, of course, hotel accommodations. Let me tell you, if you want to go to Comic-Con in 2020 and beyond, make your hotel reservations NOW! Because so many people already have them. Finding a hotel near the San Diego convention center is a must! Walking to the convention center is preferable to driving and parking or getting an Uber ride from a hotel that’s further away. And prepare for the cost of breakfast, lunch, dinner for the three or four days you’re there. Hotel food and drink is a small fortune. For example, at my hotel I had a glass of bourbon and splash of ginger ale–-one drink–-for $22. I could’ve bought a whole fifth of bourbon for just a few bucks more! Of course, there are restaurants and bars within walking distance of the convention center, many located in the San Diego Gaslamp district. Just be aware that you’ll pay higher than normal prices in those establishments during Comic-Con, so make sure to budget all that in.
The Spider-Verse
With all that being said, I am so very grateful I had the chance to attend this year. It was a rare pleasure to attend with my eldest daughter, who had to be there for her job. She attends every year. It was so great to be with her, just the two of us, for four days. I was able to meet her colleagues and coworkers, who were all great people. We walked the convention floor together to view all the booths where artists, writers and creators were displaying and selling their work. Of course, being the T-shirt collector that I am, I had to buy superhero T-shirts at various booths. I bought artwork for my wife to frame and hang in her office. There were freebies like posters and souvenirs. And I got pictures of lots of cosplayers. It was so fun to see these people in costume live at the Con before their pictures appeared on fan websites posted under “Best Cosplay of SDCC.” I gotta tell ya, these people are very committed. And there were some people in costumes who should actually BE committed, but for the most part, the cosplayers were great. My daughter and I deemed that the most popular costumes of this year’s Con were Deadpool and The Spider-verse gang. And for some reason, lots of Doctor Strange, as well.
In the audience for a Comic-Con Panel
The biggest disappointment for me was not being able to get into as many of the breakout panels I would have liked. Mostly because waiting in long, long …LONG lines just wasn’t worth it. Every year people actually camp out overnight just to secure a place in line for the Hall H presentations. This year, Marvel Studios shared all the information on their upcoming slate of films and tv shows in Hall H. Honestly, there is no panel I would care enough about to sleep outside overnight for chance to see it. However, we did brave a few long lines to see a couple of these panels, including the CW ArrowVerse presentations, where they show a sizzle reel for the upcoming season, and bring out and kibitz with most of the cast members. We set out in what we thought would be plenty of time to see the start of the presentation but, unfortunately, the line was so long we missed the whole Arrow panel that kicked it off. Thankfully, we made it in time to see half of the Supergirl panel and all of the Black Lightning and The Flash panels
All in all, it was a fun experience. One that you should at least have at least once if you are so inclined. My biggest takeaway, however, was the number of people that were there for the four days. Over three hundred thousand is what I heard. Three hundred thousand people, who for the most part, were well behaved, friendly, helpful and very enthusiastic. The diversity of this group of people was incredible. Three hundred thousand black, white, brown, yellow, and red-skinned people all getting along together and enjoying the experience. There were even some blue, green, and purple-skinned people enjoying themselves, too. I loved that.
So, if you attend a future Comic-Con, you won’t hear “Live Long and Prosper” or “Scotty, You Have the Con” or even, “Nanu-Nanu” very often. The sentiment I always heard was “Have a great Con!”
As a voice actor, I have a modest home studio where I record commercials for my VO clients and auditions that have been sent to me by my agent. My studio has been configured throughout the years with all the gadgets and gear I would need to send quality audio. I started out with a lot of bulky analog equipment like a reel-to-reel tape recorder, bulky microphones, processing gear, etc. Not very portable in any way shape or form. You can imagine that trying to record commercials and auditions when you went on vacation would be next to impossible in those analog days. As a freelancer, you would have to sign out for however long your vacation was and probably miss out on auditions that could mean income. I remember taking my family on vacation to Disney World in the early nineties. My steady client at the time needed some commercials recorded and on the air during my vacation, but I had no access to remote equipment. Fortunately, the recording studio where I normally recorded these spots secured the Disney broadcast studio right there in the Magic Kingdom for me. Through the wizardry of ISDN phone lines, I was able to record the spots at Disney studios and the spots made it to air on time. It was actually kinda cool. The Disney audio engineer videotaped my recording session (with my hi-8 video camera) as another Disney souvenir that, for me, was even better than the t-shirts and mouse ears. Then, along came the home computer and everything went digital.
As computers and the internet became the central hub of an audio studio, the analog machines, bulky recording gear, and even ISDN telephony has gone the way of the dinosaur. You can now record using a laptop and a microphone with a USB interface. You can take it all with you on vacation and record from your hotel room, or inside your car. There are now internet connections such as SourceConnect and iPDTL that enable you to record live sessions remotely, from anywhere, to anywhere.
Today, the gear, gadgets, and gizmos have all gotten even smaller and more compact than ever. I found a little gem of a device that’s designed for musicians, who now have the same capabilities to record and collaborate with fellow musicians anywhere inspiration strikes. Just bring along your guitar. It’s a relatively new gadget on the market called Spire Studio, created by iZotope, a company renowned for its fantastic professional audio enhancement and restoration plugins. This little round, portable recording wonder was specifically created for musicians on the go. You can plug in your guitar and /or bass right into Spire Studio and start recording a new song. It has an amazing microphone and professional audio plugins built right in that work to create incredible sounding audio! Or you can bypass the built-in mic and plug in your own preferred professional microphone. You can plug in a drum machine or any other auxiliary source to make music. Mix it down on the companion iPhone app and send it to a bandmate or fellow musical collaborator. The app allows you to record multi-track audio, mix all your tracks and send the finished file anywhere, from anywhere. You can even send your recorded audio to another audio editing app, make your edits and then email the finished product. No bulky, space-eating laptop, no extra microphone or interface to carry with you, just a small round recording device and your iPhone.
I’ve always been kind of an early adopter with gadgets. I discovered this wonderful little round box and immediately thought it would be extremely useful to record auditions when I was traveling. And I was right. I absolutely love it. I bring my Spire Studio and Bluetooth earbuds with me and I can do all sorts of editing and audio corrections right from my iPhone. It’s fabulous and very affordable. I’ve written to iZotope to implore them to include voice-over artists as well as musicians into their marketing. Also to update the app to make a definitive iPad version. They haven’t yet …and I believe they’re missing out on another revenue stream here. But I think they will eventually come around to it. Musician or VO talent …you can check it out here: Spire Studio from iZotope
I’m on my way to my first Comic-Con in San Diego, the granddaddy of all comic conventions. It’s one of those bucket list items that I’ve wanted to check off for quite a while. I’ll be heading down south with my first born daughter, who has to attend for work. So, it’s a day stop over in Burbank to pick her up before driving down I-5 together. As I wait for my daughter’s day at the office to finish up, I’ve been walking around “beautiful downtown Burbank” just people watching and catching all the sights. Busy place, Burbank. And nice, really. But uh-oh, my phone is running dangerously low on battery. Which it shouldn’t because its less than a year old! So now what? Well, I’m doing something right now that I never thought I never would. I’m writing this blog post from inside a Starbucks. I’ve ordered coffee and plugged my phone in to one of the many power outlets to charge up. Fortunately, I found an empty outlet near a stand up table, the only one available. I’ve always wondered how writers and others can do work inside a Starbucks. As a writer, I’ve always felt the distractions would drive me crazy so I never even attempted it. But here I am, kinda forced to do it as sort of a cover-up just to charge my phone. And …yeah, I hate it. Soooo many distractions. How can anyone concentrate? But it’s only a one time thing for me and my phone is charging. So …onward.
I felt a nostalgic twinge in my gut the other day when I learned that Mad Magazine will cease publishing forever. I mean, I knew it had to come eventually as we continue on in this digital age. But Mad Magazine was such a part of me growing up, I find myself mourning as though one of my childhood best friends has passed away. Ever since I can remember, I was always a comic book reader and collector. I loved superheroes, Batman in particular. Big Batman fan. I also loved cartoons!. Big fan of Hanna Barbara cartoons. But that’s for another post.
As I got a little older, maybe nine or ten, I taught myself to draw comic book heroes just by copying the art in the books. Not with tracing paper, but just by observation. Of course, at first, I wasn’t very good at it. My drawings were of misshapen figures way out of proportion but, eventually, I actually got pretty good at it. I learned to draw lots of Batman and Superman images in their heroic poses, mimicking the style of those comic book artists. I would spend hours drawing and I didn’t even know that I was actually learning figure drawing, action, movement etc. I was just in a zone and loving the end result I put on paper. The real artists did the hard part, I was just copying their lines and style.
Then I discovered Mad Magazine. It was a whole new world for me in learning how to draw. The illustrations in Mad were not so heroic, much closer to cartoons, which I loved, than comic book art. It was another source of inspiration and I dove right in. Don Martin, Mort Drucker, Paul Coker, Jack Davis,Sergio Aragons`, Al Jaffee and Dave Berg were my favorites. Just incredible artists and illustrators who taught me how to draw. I learned so much from these greats and really didn’t know it. I didn’t know that I was actually learning figure drawing, caricature, exaggeration and more. I was just drawing for the love of it. And I would draw late into the night and early morning hours. I’m such a night owl anyway and late night hours drawing put me into a zone that was an incredible place to be. No noise, no distractions, just me, a pen or pencil, some paper and my latest issue of Mad Magazine.
I really wish I would have continued learning the craft as I got older. I did take art in high school but didn’t go any further with it in my teen years. I stopped my late night drawing sessions by then because I discovered another creative diversion: music! Learning how to play bass guitar and singing at the same time, and wanting to be in a rock band became my all consuming passion. But again, a whole other subject for another blog post.
