Swami From New Jersey

The Swami From New Jersey laid down some wisdom today with the help of his New York Wisdom Cards at DeLaMontanya Winery in Healdsburg. Good food, good wine, good times.

Twice upon a TWICE UPON A TIME

Over thirty years after the release of TWICE UPON A TIME (a Korty Films/Lucasfilms production) Warner Bros is on the verge of re-releasing the animated film on DVD. I was flown down to the San Diego Comic Con where I spoke on the Warner Bros panel. I was the Supervising Animator and a Sequence Director on the film lo those many years ago. True to its name, here it comes again. Shot in a stop-motion, 2D, back-lit, cut-out style it is unique in many ways.

It has been many years since I was a guest at the Comic Con and it has grown into a monstrous event that engulfs a section of the city. One of the best things about being there is the opportunity to see old friends such as MAD Magazine's Sergio Aragones.

New DADDY DUCT TAPE book

Secret Agent 7 is the latest in a series of ridiculous adventures by James Guyette, saving the day once again with duct tape: featuring Obama, the Clintons, Bush and a tornado of a kid resolving the Iranian nuclear crisis. Other DADDY DUCT TAPE books are available on Amazon.

Radio interview

I was interviewed on the radio last week on the topic of making a difference with humor. I had a great time until I tried to drive out of Oakland at rush hour. Let's just say it taxed my sense of humor. I'm back with the cows now in Sonoma County and feeling better.

http://www.9thfloorradio.com/dealingwithkryptonite/2015/5/6/brian-narelle-how-to-use-humor-to-make-a-difference

Snoopyland

Once more into the fray with cartooning classes at the Schulz Museum. During my Cartoon Safari class yesterday I became aware that none of the young children in my class knew what a safari is. Is this normal? I think I was born to go on safari. I just haven't gotten around to it yet.

Dark Earth

“Don’t give me that intelligent life crap. Just find me something I can blow up!” When those words came out of Lt. Doolittle’s mouth in John Carpenter’s DARK STAR it seemed to capture so much of our foreign policy, not to mention our treatment of the environment.

Recent footage of dolphins stranding themselves (energetically) on the beaches of Barbados leads to an educated assumption that they are committing suicide as the result of being deafened by manmade acoustic assaults. A deaf dolphin is doomed to a grisly end at the hands of predation and/or starvation. “What in the world could deafen them?” you might ask. Aside from naval sonar blasts there is a worldwide underwater acoustic assault that is the product of extensive oil exploration. Ships trolling for oil deposits emit loud blasts and analyze the acoustic return in order to find deposits. The result is an auditory assault of unparalleled magnitude.

It’s not like the Koch brothers wake up in the morning plotting the deaths of sea creatures. It is merely the side effect of their corporate activities. They have to put up with the occasional protestations of pesky “environmentalists”, but at the end of the day profit motives rule.

The mission of the scout ship DARK STAR was to make space travel safe by blowing up unstable planets. It will be a dark Earth if we don’t stop blowing up this formerly stable planet.