The animation for my video is coming along nicely, I'd say. Remember the kitten animation from my previous blog post? Well, this is a further cleaned up version of it. What do you think?
I'd also like to point out that having a kid is quite a time consuming thing. When my son was still a tiny baby, he could just in his crib or wherever he was comfortable and either just sleep or play. This gave me some time to dedicate to this video of mine. However, now he can walk around and get into things. So, he needs so much more attention now, especially since my wife's maternity leave has ended. This, as you can imagine, has pretty much reduced the production process to a small trickle. I'm not sure when this will be done, possibly when my son starts kindergarten.
But, at any rate, I look forward to the finished product and the reaction it will get.
Up top is some animation of a kitten I just roughed out. I'll clean it up nice and as polished as the time on my hands can allow me. As you can imagine, having a full time job AND an infant son can eat up sooooo much of that time.
Hey, speaking of my infant son:
sx z
My son was on my lap for a brief time while I was making this blog post. That " sx z " text is the first thing he ever typed. I enlarged it and changed the colour for emphasis like the proud father I am. Could this be the start of him typing many profound and thought-provoking things? Only time will tell.
At any rate, please give enjoy and/or give critiques of the above animation. Thank you.
I managed to get some more commentary onto Anthony's Animation Talk channel. This time it was for a cartoon called Catty Cornered. As I mentioned in the video, this is one of my Top 5 Sylvester & Tweety shorts and if you have ever seen this cartoon in its entirety you could probably see why. My dialogue starts at about the 16:30 mark but I'd still recommend watching the whole video. It's loaded with info and insights that you wouldn't want to miss.
Oh hey, I did another commentary on Anthony's channel more than a year ago but I never got around to posting it here for some bizarre reason. I participated in a massive pastiche of commenters for the cartoon Rabbit Fire. For those who don't know, that's the first of three "duck season / rabbit season" cartoons. There are many guest commentators plus a guest appearance from the original director's daughter. I forget exactly where exactly my bit starts. I guess you'll have to watch the whole thing to find out. Whatever! Enjoy!
As of last Monday, I have reached a milestone I knew I'd reach but never imagined myself reaching. Yep! I turned the big 5 - 0!!! I still don't quite feel "old" yet, but I can easily see I'm part of an older generation. It would be great to be young again, but at the same time I'm glad I was born when I was. Gen X is having a good run I'd say. I certainly do NOT want to sit around grousing about my age and my life lamenting "OMG I'M 50" all over the place. For one, it would be a waste of time and energy. But also for a bigger reason, obsessing over age is exactly what the baby boomers did.
Many of you younger millenials and all of Gen Z have only known boomers as these creaky old curmudgeons. But, those of us in Gen X witnessed the boomers when they started aging and, believe me, it was pathetic. Practically the moment the first boomer turned 30, age is all they would talk about. "Oh my God! I'm 30 now! What am I going to do??", is something we heard from them all of the time. There was even a prime time drama dedicated to placating these people:
That is a real show. It was a drama series with a highly depressive tone that was just 54 minutes of people trying their darndest to cope with the despondency of...................... being more than 30. I'm so proud of my generation for not getting like this. Millenials are in their 30's and 40's and they haven't said much about their aging either. We're watching Gen Z though. They could create shows on Netflix/Hulu?TikTok all about being "triggered over becoming old and cringe". Here's hoping that can be avoided.
OK! That's all about aging I'm going to talk about in this post and anywhere else. I'd like to spend the rest of this time talking about someone who everyone should be talking about more.
A man named Jose Rizal! He is a great man who made the ultimate sacrifice and started his home country of the Philippines on a path to freedom. It all started by him simply writing a book.
It all really started in 1521 when the explorer Ferdinand Magellan landed on the shores on the Philippines and conquered it for Spain. He and his conquistadors immediately and brutally imposed so much of Spanish culture on to the island inhabitants. Heck, the place was named Maharlika when before they showed up. Magellan then renamed it the Philippines after Prince Phillip, One of the biggest aspects of Spanish culture foisted upon the Filipine people was its catholicism, which still very much exists to this day.
This was all very much a way of life for the Philippines when Jose Rizal was born in 1861. He went to school just like every other kid at the time. However, his grades were so exceptionally high that he was granted the opportunity to attend university in Madrid, Spain. Living outside of his island country of origin gave Rizal a much broader perspective. He recollected all of the Catholic missions in the Phillipines run by the Spanish. Upon reflection, he could see just how restrictive and even abusive they were. This inspired him to write a book about his experiences with these missions: Noli Me Tángere (Touch Me Not)
You can pretty much guess how both the Spanish Government and the Vatican felt about Rizal's work. They weren't just mad because of the words he published, they were absolutely seething moreso because his book had sparked a revolt among the Phillipine populous. The United States then intervened on the Philippines' behalf and they were soon liberated from the iron fist rule of Spain.
Sadly, before that liberation could happen, by order of both the Spanish government and the Vatican, Rizal was executed by a firing squad on December 30, 1896. Still to this day in the Philippines, December 30th is a national holiday.
Someone being killed by two authoritarian institutions for the "crime" of expressing oneself is definitely someone who belongs among the pantheon of free speech heroes, much like other people we know:
FREE AT LAST! FREE AT LAST! GOD ALMIGHTY, HE'S FREE AT LAST!
So, in that spirit, attempted drawing a picture of Mr. Rizal.
It's always a daunting task to get baby to calm down and mellow out so that the parents can perform to necessary duties of even just feeding that baby or changing the diaper. It can be a long and arduous battle under less ideal conditions. Thankfully, there is usually some little thing that helps soothe that baby's demeanor to a workable level. Sometimes it's a toy, sometimes a certain blanket, or it could be a certain song or a video.
One of those things that makes our son Avery happy and quiet is the Disney movie Moana. That movie is literally on the TV in our house every morning. One of the first things mom does when it's time to feed Avery is to put on Moana to keep him happy. He's practically mesmerized by the entire movie. But, as you may have guessed, his absolute favourite parts are at the beginning when Moana is still a baby. He relates to that in rather obvious ways.
I think pretty much everybody in our household has the entire movie memorized by now. My wife could recite the grandmother's entire speech almost verbatim while were riding in the truck to keep Avery happy. So, I could say that I'm in a position to gave a rather indepth analysis of Moana the movie, in how in relates to my baby son, myself, and possibly the world in general. I can't speak for my entire family, but my own personal assessment is........................... it's a good one. I like it.
The very basic elements that make an animated movie good are in place for sure. It's got a rather airtight story about "restoring the heart of their island" in order to make things great again and give us that happy ending. Visually it pleases the eye, both its CGI rendering and its movement. I'm not dazzled but I don't cringe either, so I'm good with that. The voice acting also works. Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson aptly portrays the character of Maui and Chloe Auliʻi Cravalhodoes a very impressive job of voicing Moana herself. Nobody else could have done this better than her. This brings me to what I want to talk about most pertaining to this movie.
There's been so much talk of having a "strong female lead" in movies over the past few years (decades really). So many productions in Hollywood have been pushing for the creation of that "perfect girl boss" with.................. some doing better than others.
This.............. didn't happen.
However, one of the biggest complaints about so many of these attempts is the "Mary Sue" aspect, in that the female lead is propped up as a perfect being that can do no wrong. They attempt to make her "badass" but she just comes across as boring. 95% of the time it's not the actress' fault. The fault lies with, as usual, unartistic producers trying to push something that shouldn't be pushed thus compromising the artists and the entire project.
Moana thankfully does NOT succumb to this trap. She's not a Mary Sue and not at all perfect. She's a hot-headed teenager who is in over her head. The ocean "chose" her to complete the endeavor of saving their universe by returning the heart stone to where it belongs (as reiterated by her quirky but wise grandmother). However, she is not entirely up to the task. As she tells the demi-god Maui, she's a "self taught" sailor and she has only a fair-to-middling idea how to navigate through the ocean by looking at the stars. She's practically an "anti-hero".
"Sailing is not so hard. I just unfurl the sail like this and... WHOA! GLAVIN!! HELLO, DEAN!!"
But, she does possess qualities that do help her succeed in the end. She is both fiercely determined and immensely resourceful. No setback can discourage her and she's able to use whatever is around her to do what she needs to do, most often to get herself out of the
trouble she got herself into. You can absolutely see that in her dealings with Maui even at his most obnoxious and arrogant. Just watch how Moana deals with the situation of Maui locking her in a cave. Most everyone else would just be doomed to a slow emaciating death. But, Moana quickly finds a way out and is back to her mission in no time.
I don't know about you, but that looks pretty badass in my book. Moana is consistently like this throughout the entire movie, even at the beginning when she's still a toddler. She keeps a baby turtle from getting eaten by covering him with a wide palm leaf. THIS is the reason the ocean chooses her soon afterwards. The ocean can see her potential at being the island's saviour despite her flaws.
I'm glad my son enjoys this movie. In my opinion, Moana is a good fine role model for girls and boys of all ages. Being fiercely determined against all obstacles is something everyone should aspire to. With that in mind, here is a drawing I did of my son Avery standing with baby Moana while enjoying the antics of the chicken Hei Hei.
I'm sure this scenario happens inside Avery's brain all of the time.
Yes, I am aware that there is a Moana 2 in the works. Yes, I'm also aware that it will be coming out in late November of this year. Will I take my son to the theatre to see it? Hmmmmmm, he might be too young for the theatre experience both now and at that time. But, he'll for sure be watching it when it's eventually put up on Disney+. That's a guarantee. For now, let's all watch the trailer together. Enjoy!
I'm slowly but surely making progress with this video I'm working on. As you can see by the clip's title, this is Scene 16. In this video there will be 52 scenes in total stitched together to make one full video. I can't wait to unleash it onto the world.
Yes, progress has slowed to a crawl because I have a full time job AND my baby son was born. Both of those take the utmost priority. Oh well, maybe when this video is done I can make animated videos my new big priority. It all depends on how this one is received. But until then..................
The guy in the photo above is Canadian parliamentarian Arif Virani. Not many people know who he is here in Canada and even less people in the rest of the world have even a wisp of an idea of who he is. Well, I think it would be a very good idea for more people to know that this man exists and for a rather relevant reason. He's the carbon(?) based lifeform that is responsible for presenting the following bill into parliament:
Yep, that one. If that becomes law, people all over Canada could face LIFE in prison for..................... posting "nasty" things on the internet.
WOOO-OO-OOO-OOO-OO! Isn't that scary, kids? Wow! Did you see that post on Facebook? Or that one on X? All those...... nasty dirty words! WOO-OOO-OOO! Maybe somebody might read those words........ and.... and.... feel sad about them maybe. And then....... LOOK OUT! Because......... WOOO-OO-OOO-OOO-OOO! So so scary and....... um........
Oh alright! It's not scary. Only a meglomaniacal idiot would put anyone in jail for that.
One of the worst parts is that the dude's proud of this bill. He's pinned a video of himself singing the bill's praises to the top of his Twitter/X profile and expects it pass into law with impunity.
Mr Arif claims its primary purpose is for "protecting children, especially from seeing porn or being used for porn". Hey, that's all well and good. However, Canada already has a law in the books to perform that function:
That one. Bill 291 is already used to keep kids safe from sexual predators. C-63 is simply piggybacking on this already established bill as a means to target speech Arif doesn't like, such as.......
Yeah, that old chestnut. He's making a law against something that doesn't actually exist in the first place. "Hate Speech" is a bullshit concept created by bullshit people used to stifle speech and spread bullshit. The only words that could apply here are credible calls for violence. The rest is just spiced up Rabelaisian content that only the flakiest of flakes can't handle. This law is nothing but enforcement of mandatory pearl-clutching.
But wait, there's more.....
Um.... yeah. I've heard of "wrong-think", but this is "wrong-emote". So, having state-disapproved emotions will be punishable under this law. How does that work?
Ah ha! But, here's the absolute worst part of the entire law. This is the part that makes one question if Arif Virani is actually a demon from Hell, an acid-dripping warlord from outer space, or an evil robot built by Gargamel sent to destroy us all.
Wow! Arif wants to arrest people who haven't even committed an offence but IS FEARED that this person(s) will commit an offence at some point in the future. That's something right out of pretty much every dystopian scifi end of civilization novel you can name. Even screw-loose senator Joe McCarthy is looking down from his assessment room in purgatory and saying "WTF?".
Those are some of the "big highlights" of this ridiculous law. I could copy & paste the entire bill from the government's website and post it here, but that would be a long and dry read. Instead, I'll be a good Gen-Xer and sum it all up with a Simpsons reference. Such as this thusly:
"...There's alot of shitposters that have got too much freedom. I want to make it legal for policemen to beat 'em..."
And there you have it. A Mad Max style dystopian nation created at the mere stroke of a pen if this law is passed. Arif is, of course, under some delusion that this law will only shield "vulnerable" people from harshness. But, my prediction for this law is it will play out like Bill c118. For those who don't know, c118 is a law drawn up that was supposed to force social media companies to pay news organizations in Canada for uploading their content. You and I have to PAY the social media companies to advertise and promote our stuff, but Canada's news orgs would GET paid for uploading. However, what happened was social media companies instead just stopped hosting Canadian news altogether. It only makes business sense on the websites' part. They would save money by NOT hosting news content that the country's government is forcing them to pay for. I'm thinking that's all that would happen under c63. Social media companies, or perhaps even Google as a whole, will simply pull all of their business out of Canada. It would certainly be easier than combing through every post from the past 20 years looking for "questionable" content AND then tracking every individual down for an arrest. THEN watch the support of the Arif and his party, the Liberals, plummet to even further depths than anyone could imagine.
Hey, come to think of it, Arif is not the only perpetrator of trying to pass illiberal censorship and other dystopian nonsense into law. There's been a bunch over the past few years. There was C-11, a bill that gave the government control over the content in Canada's film industry. Trudeau also rammed through another stifling law with bill C-36.
And, of course, there's still a whole controversy over the Trudeau government's handling of the Emergencies Act against the truckers' big protest back in 2022. But, of course, I shouldn't leave out any of the equally dystopian things that former PM Stephen Harper did during his time. He tried to pass C-11 back when it was called C-10. He also tried to implement a hotline where people could report on any suspicious things Muslims might be doing. Why have politicians been so brazen to try and enact dubious laws that blatantly violate Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms? Is there a way to put a stop to it? I think I might have a solution. Here's a bill I'd love to introduce to parliament some day:
BILL C-8675309: the "READ THE CHARTER, DAMNIT" Act
1) any and all laws introduced to parliament must adhere to the provisions stated in Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Failure to do so would result in any of the following punishments:
a) immediate loss of political position and title
b) an automatic prison sentence of up to 35 years
c) 2000 hours of community service in the worst part of that MP's constituency
d) I get to spank that former MP's bare butt with an object of my choice every time I feel like it, and I will always feel like it
There we go. With that bill becoming law, we should never have to deal with any tyrannical politicians ever again.
There's a lot of vitriolic things I could say about this man that I haven't said already. I draw his with a "classic" Hitler moustache of course. I could put a Chairman Mao bald spot and mole on his face or a full Castro beard. A Darth Vader mask? Naw, that's been done to death. Depict him as the Eye of Sauron from Lord of the Rings? No, J.R.R. Tolkien's ghost might sue. Well, hey, my first thought when I saw this guy for the first time was "his nose looks like a penis". So, here's my depiction of him:
Arif the Dick-Nosed Censor Monkey
Uh oh! Would this drawing get me in trouble with the c63 law??? Well, if it does, my response is from a classic Was Not Was song. Enjoy, and see you on the other side.
This is the first Tex Avery's birthday post I've done since my son was born. Like I mentioned before, my son's name is Avery taken after the great master Tex Avery so I feel it's fitting to involve he little guy in this post. Throughout this post we will all answer the question put forth in the title: "What is my son's assessment of Tex Avery's work?"
What's that? Why, yes, my boy Avery has indeed been watching many many selections from my DVD/Bluray collection pretty much since the day his eyes were fully open. Why do you ask? It's a good way to keep him quiet and happy.............. some of the time. If he's genuinely enjoying what he sees, then it works quite well. If not, well then you've got a loud cranky baby on your hands and you'd better do what you can to alleviate that situation fast.
One big selection from Tex's filmography that my son has seen is the "magnumest opus that ever magnumed an opus", that seminal masterpiece: Red Hot Riding Hood.
The verdict: I am sad to report that this cartoon made my son Avery cry. He wasn't crying at first, which is good. However, when it got to the part where the Wolf was going crazy at the table looking at Red dancing on the stage, that's when he showed his displeasure. Ah well. He's only 5 months old as of right now. Cultural works have ways of growing on people once they mature and become more worldly, which I'm sure my son is destined to do.
Here are some other shows that have given him displeasure in the first few months of his life:
Sesame Street - he's scared of The Count
Fraggle Rock - he's scared of the Gorgs, especially in the openning theme song when Jr grabs Gobo
Dumbo - Avery does NOT care for those lady elephants that pick on and exclude Dumbo. Well' y'know, he's not wrong. If you watch the movie you can easily see that those elephants are pieces of shit in general throughout the entire movie. That's the point of their characters of course, but it's understandable that he would not enjoy watching them.
I'll give a special mention to Sylvester & Tweety right here, because he has a kind of love/hate opinion of them. Li'l Avery loves anything with music in it, you see.
As many of you reading this now are aware, most S&T cartoons start off with Tweety singing a song. My son is thoroughly entertained by this. But he is quickly taken aback the moment Sylvester makes any kind of grab for him. Avery lets out a shriek that seems to be saying "NOOOOOOOOO! DON'T KILL THE SINGING BIRD!!!!" That grief is short lived the moment Sylvester fails with either a long fall, dog punch, or explosion. That is then followed by a feeling of relief. But, the grief begins anew when that "puddy tat" recovers and makes another attempt. It is of course then followed by another sense of relief. Grief --> Relief Grief --> Relief Grief --> Relief over and over again. So, to him, the Sylvester & Tweety series is more of a heavy drama than a slapstick comedy. Well, again, he's 5 months. He will eventually notice a pattern within this cartoon series and hopefully experience joy or what have you.
There is one thing in this world that he does fully enjoy. It lights his face up every time he watches it. Anybody with small children already know who it is. But, for everyone else, I will embed his very favourite show right below:
Yep! This video has been playing much more than once a day every day for several months. And now that I'm showing you this video, now YOU have every one of her songs stuck in your head with no chance of escape. HA!!!
Although, I have heard that the above figure Ms Rachel is being hailed as the new Mister Rogers and for good reason. She does a tremendous job of reaching, teaching, and educating children I'm sure all over the world. She helps keep my son happy and that's great. More power to her.
He's not ONLY entertained by Ms Rachel though. His horizons are a bit more broad than that. Here are some things I've seen him enjoy:
Robin Hood Daffy - I saw him smile al through the scene where Daffy and Porky are laughing with each other. He found their laughter to be infectious and it got to him.
Louvre Come Back To Me - Well, for pretty much the entire cartoon he had no idea what was going on. He saw Pepe Le Pew pursuing the black & white cat throughout the art museum while her naturally jealous boyfriend was trying to step between them (only to be overpowered by Pepe's stench). However, I saw him smile at the very very end of the cartoon. There's a "montage" of sorts showing many of the paintings reacting to Pepe Le Pew's odour all through the establishment. The very last painting to react is the Mona Lisa who simply says "I can tell you chaps one thing. It's not always easy to hold this smile." Whether you think that joke is strong, weak or whatever is immaterial. Avery found it amusing that a painting suddenly started talking and that's great.
Oh hey! There is a Tex Avery cartoon that my son Avery did enjoy. He likes that cartoon about little Owl Jolson wanting to sing jazz much to the dismay of his conventional symphony-loving father: I Love To Singa. I've seen him enjoy seeing that little owl singing the signature song for the whole cartoon. So, in a small tribute to my baby son, I've drawn him as Owl Jolson.
I can't wait for him to start his education just so I can see if he would "get through Yale with buela buela"!
Here's a screenshot from that animated video I'm working on. I figured that it was too crazy NOT to share. Anyway, there it is for your visual enjoyment or whichever emotion takes you.
I've seen people online decrying smear animation and too wonky and weird. People just take a screenshot of it and just focus on that one image pointing out everything they find "wrong" with it. These are people that are of course 1) not in the animation business 2) have never tried to animate anything in their entire lives. Therefore they have no inkling of how any of it works. On the day they finally do acquire that knowledge, they'll find out that the image they once gawked at does indeed work within the movement where it counts.
This is, of course, something that AI artists could never fully duplicate even with the biggest computer with the highest amount of RAM memory.
Anyway, that's my post and subsequently my rant. Here's hoping my video, smears and all, is done and online soon. I can't wait.
That's quite a hot take I know, but I just have to say it. It's true. Kenny Rogers was a highly talented artist who had a special gift for writing songs. He had that spark, that indelible flair for crafting songs that entertain and uplift generations upon generations of people from all walks of life. A true master of his craft if there ever was one.
I know a lot of creaky old boomers and various music nerds will read that line above and maybe respond with "WELL NO BIDOY! I've known that that since his work with the First Edition! I know what condition his condition was in! It's like common knowledge, man! Where have you been? Are ya deef and dum maybe?! What's the big idea?? Why I oughta........."
Whoa whoa whoa! Calm down there you hyper hypothetical. Yes, I'm quite aware of how famous and well established he was in his lifetime. He had multiple selling albums and many hit songs to his name. I know that full well.
However, my assessment of Kenny Rogers' music right now is not based on the usual criteria. I'm not going by how many fans he has or any number of album sales. I don't care about any sold out concert performances at all. I'm definitely not going to use any measures or charts that musicologists use to over analyze a song to see if it follows a proper wave pattern or whatnot. No, I am not using any method used by any of the most obsessed music nerd you can name. My assessment of Kenny Rogers is based on my son Avery.
A most discerning connoisseur.
I'll explain. One fine day, not long ago, I was given the task to keep my son occupied so my wife could cook either a breakfast or lunch. I remembered that there are several episodes of the original Muppet Show on Disney+ so I decided to check that out. Yes, you guessed it, I selected the episode with Kenny Rogers in it. I can't quite recall why I chose that particular show, but I'm glad I did.
I already knew that my son loves any show with music in it and I was also very familiar with the Muppets' proclivity to burst into song at any given notice (I was indeed a big fan of the Muppets back when they were originally on the air). So, I figured he'd enjoy that. Being that he's only a few months old, some parts of the show entertained him but other parts scared him. I guess Jim Henson was a little TOO ambitious with his creations sometimes.
However, Avery's fear completely melted away when Kenny Rogers sang the final song of the show. He just grabbed his guitar and softly played Love Lifted Me. My son's reaction to that song is probably the most precious thing I'll ever witness. That song makes him sad and happy at the same time. It's difficult to describe, but that's how it looked to me.
Keep in mind that this is a months old baby. Lyrics mean nothing to him. They all just sound like babble babble babble to him. My son reacted to pure melody. That's the mark of a good song writer, really. If just the melody or the hook can reach a person right in the soul, songs can't get any better than that.
Even though Kenny Rogers left us back in 2020, I'm sure he's happy to know that he just got a new fan in my son. Here's a drawing I made of the two of them enjoying each others' company:
That's all I wanted to say with this post. I just wanted to let everyone know that Kenny still inspires people and probably will for generations to come. For those woefully unfamiliar with Kenny Rogers' Love Lifted Me song, I'll embed a video of him singing that song on The Muppet Show, the very same version of that song which delighted my son. Show this clip to brighten the day of other people in your life. Enjoy!
