Cowboys in the Morning

We're off to the cowboy festival in Santa Clarita tomorrow. I'm really looking forward to old favorites Sourdough Slim, Baxter Black, Don Edwards and fave Whit Smith's new band, The String Devils. Here's their press info:

• "Western Swing is alive and well in the hands of former Hot Club of Cowtown members Whit Smith and Jake Erwin. Their recent alliance with Texas fiddler Katy Cox has the band writing new songs and arranging everything from jazz standards, early Americana and Latin melodies to fiddle breakdowns!"

Luxor is an odd place

While in Las Vegas, we stayed at the Luxor, the pyramid shaped hotel. The decor is quite breathtaking if you are in the right frame of mind, but the graphics the hotel used were hideous.



They have this ugly image of grimacing Carrot Top everywhere, as well as an ad for a topless review, right on the folder your plastic key is in. Even blurry it's ugly. I have more shots from the Luxor at my flickr page.

Charbucks napkins

Click on a napkin. This is from my old Charbucks saga around 2000... I reassembled it in Flash just now.

David Halberstam crossed my path

When I was in eighth grade I was the feature editor for the school newspaper, and very serious about pursuing a career as a newspaper writer. I was invited to go to a special conference in New York, for school newspaper editors, the culmination of which was a luncheon at a big old hotel in Manhattan. David Halberstam, the famous journalist and author who died this week, was the guest speaker.

The room was filled with young teenagers who took themselves seriously. They didn't seem at all like the kids in Chatham, New Jersey. Everyone seemed so smart and informed. I'd never experienced anything like this. Halberstam's speech was very inspiring, and it left me with the feeling that there were many more possibilities in life than I'd ever imagined before.

I can still picture that dining room. It had balconies where people were also seated. I didn't know anyone there, and I had a wonderful time. I always felt this luncheon changed my life.

And thinking on it later today, I think it made me feel as if I'd crossed into the world of "Catcher in the Rye."

Las Vegas World Cup was a wow

Three days of watching the best riders in the world compete was a great thrill. The fences were gigantic, and the arena a tight little space. I ordered tickets early so we got seats up really close, along side of numerous wealthy oversize people wearing VIP necklaces. On the final day we were overlooking the jump where Meredith Michaels Beerbaum, number one rider in the world (and winner of the Cup two years ago), jumped the liverpool, (a jump with water below it), and fell off for no apparent reason, just like any other rider in the world might do. See someone's video of that ride here.




Beat Mandli of Switzerland with Ideo du Thot won the World Cup, second was to German Daniel Deusser and Air Jordan Z and the two tied for third were Marcus Beerbaum, Germany, and Steve Geurdat, Switzerland. In the U.S. the majority of competitive riders are women, but it's the reverse in Europe.

We didn't see the first day's event, when our personal favorite, Richard Spooner, had a hard time on his horse Cristallo.

But Richard did place third in Saturday afternoon's Grand Prix, a separate competition from the World Cup. He was riding eight year old Ace. Eight is very young for a horse to be jumping these heights. You can see a video of his go here.




Here's Richard conferring with legendary trainer, George Morris, who formerly was quite disdainful of West Coast riders but seems to be changing his mind about them.

Dinah was getting Richard's autograph here. He is so nice to his fans. The t shirt she's handing him to sign was shot out of an air gun by a clown, and she managed to catch it. She was annoyed that I took her picture. She has about a dozen grooming brushes signed by Richard.

Hooked on the Watering Hole

I get up really early, and since I've gotten so hooked on the African webcam it's even earlier. The only times I get a good view are before 7 am in California.
I madly push print screen and print into a Photoshop file. It's always at the same watering hole, so you get a sense of place after a while, and it seems that much more amazing when new animals are seen there. (off to Las Vegas in the rain, which we haven't seen in a LONG time.)

Going to Vegas on Friday

Dinah and I are driving up to see the FEI Showjumping World Cup: the greatest jumping horses in the world competing for big prizes and recognition. I hope Richard Spooner wins. (awful site, great rider) He's my favorite rider, a California boy. He's always nice to his horses and his fans, and looks like a surfer.

Here he is going over some monster jump two years ago, in Las Vegas.

Nice Frog Art- Jim Woodring

Ever feel like this? I received a link yesterday to jim woodring's site. The site is a bit overloaded with links and text, but the images are a treat.

the big fantastical sea...

my mother flushed my sea monkies down the toilet... she said they were unchristian...

she wasn't usually that illogical... why did a Chinese firecracker company choose this as the image?

virginia on my mind

so sad
so sad
so sad
so sorry
for students
for parents
for people in authority
who have to answer...why? (and why didn't you...?)
strange, the multiple bomb threats at this school, this year. was the unnamed killer behind those too?

Many goats like it high

I like goats, even though our goats kamikaze me at the knee when I look the other way. This goat was up high at a farmer's stand in Somis, California, on Saturday. Those bare feeder stations you see are resting spots for the goat, if it cares to climb.

African webcam-- careful, it's addictive

This is an amazing live web cam from a watering hole in South Africa. I'm not sure if it's triggered by movement or someone is watching the camera remotely and following whatever moves, but it operates 24 hours a day.

I've seen elephants, turtles, wildebeest, deer, wild dogs, and warthogs, in the last couple of days. The action is much better in the daytime. You may find it to be quite addictive.

Looked in the mirror lately?

Kind of matches my self image after a day of writing Flash code. Love those double roller bangs, don't ya?

Firecracker collectors

When I feel uninspired, I go to ebay and look at firecracker labels. It amazes me also that people order these through the mail. In spite of all the disclaimers, I'm pretty sure they're buying an ancient string of crackers.

In 4th grade, I held one in my hand after lighting.

Don't try it.

a little blue

Chick didn't make it.

Happy Easter!

There are lots of military Easter postcards, mostly printed in Germany, from the early part of 1900's. Here's a fine example. Nuts!

Found this chick late this afternoon. Notice its stub beak, (is it called the eye tooth?), used to break out of the egg. The whole phenomenon of eggs hatching is so amazing.

Unfortunately one of the moms is psychotic, so I've had to move this chick to the laundry room, with a heat lamp and stuffed animal chick for company in a cardboard box. Unidentified psychomom was pecking away at the baby. eek, it happens. (cause of last chick's demise.)

I'm guessing it was Pirate, the one eyed hen, because we always wondered if she lost a part of her brain when she lost her eye.

I moved the parakeets into the laundry room too, so chick can hear their melodic sounds. Here's hoping chick survives. Chickens live a pretty brutal life, let's face it. And don't even talk about turkeys... (or maybe I will.)

Come ON chickens!

Our silkie chicken hens have been sitting on 13 eggs for three weeks, so it should be time for some chicks to show their cute faces. We had one early hatch that didn't survive. These gals have been so dedicated to warming the eggs. It would be a shame if none hatched. There were two roosters to provide the essential brew. But these chickens are so inbred now, they're almost like that song, "I'm my own Grandpa."

Video video everywhere

Suddenly there are so many opportunities to post your video. I'm just testing brightcove.com. It's not clear to me whether you'll see an ad when you look at this, and honestly I wouldn't even want to look at this myself, but I just wanted to test the code and playback.

I've seen a startup that's charging money for downloads,cartoon brew films. Everyone's looking for the missing dollars, knowing how popular internet video has become. I don't have an ipod, so downloading to my ipod doesn't exactly appeal to me. I kind of like the scruffy bus station feeling of youtube. These other places are trying to grab the bucks with more dignity. Just thinking about it.

A Delightful Surprise

Have you ever received a chocolate cake out of the blue? No, of course not.

Imagine my surprise and delight this morning, when Mr. Fedex, whose name is Country, brought me a mystery box and inside was my own chocolate Easter egg cake from my new internet pal Linda D, totally unexpected, and already half eaten!

WOWOHWOW! And love those candy worms!
Thank you Linda!!!

Amidst my chocolate frenzy, I suddenly thought I should take a picture before it was all gone. If only I'd had more self control, you'd see more of the cake in this picture.

Pepper needed the emergency vet

Got a phone call last night that Pepper wouldn't get up-- the news a horse owner dreads. Dinah and I rushed out to the stable. He had a fever, was breathing heavily, wouldn't eat. Ben gave him some Banamine, which worked wonders. The vet said to hose him down because it sounded like fever. She heard sand sounds in his gut. They've been feeding him on the ground the last month, bad bad. But by morning he was okay again. This is a picture from the early days. He's now about 25.

I live in Northridge

If you don't see this, it's because you don't have a flash player.

A rock for Linda Davick

Linda Davick
has some nifty rock faces on her blog, so I had to post one of our own moss smiley face rock in Colorado.

Year after year this dear rock keeps smiling.

Driftwood Horses

Whinsey asked me to post this. I love the look in a natural setting. More pictures here.

Look out April Fools!

Got a busy weekend ahead,
with a trip to San Diego today,
back tonight, and two herding
lessons in Fillmore this weekend.

It's a dog's life, or is it a duck's life?

I've plunged into the code world of Flash CS3 regular expressions, my idea of fun.

Watch out for whoopee cushions or exaggerated statements on Sunday. Oh what the heck, have fun on Mars!

Robert Blake in cold blood

Jon ran a Cinemascope print of this movie last night. I watched it reluctantly, and was amazed.

Released in 1967, the movie's documentary style photography captures an America that seems so distant.

The artistic and intelligent story telling and acting were astonishing, reached a level which movies just don't begin to touch anymore. And for Robert Blake to be playing the slightly sympathetic nutso real life killer...

The sound track by Quincey Jones certainly helped build the mood. Which reminds me, some time I'll have to spill the strange saga of Quincey Jones, me, and the weird Bugs Bunny anti-drug rap cartoon that never got made.

Springtime in London 1983

london tree
Originally uploaded by Big Chicken.

While setting up the silly Flickr badge at the bottom of this blog, I thought this painting I did long ago in London might give you a happy spring feeling. The color is a little more subtle than this old gif shows, but the mood is about right.

Molly and I are off to another encounter with the sheep in Leona Valley. I'm attempting to blog more often, but a little voice inside keeps saying, "aah, shut up."

The inside of my computer

How dirty is your garage?
Originally uploaded by Big Chicken.

No-- wait-- the inside of my garage. Ahh, springtime, when you hope no one will think to open that door except me, and imagine spring cleaning will be done by elves.

Rooster Elle spends the nights in the cage, and Jon's friend left the two 35mm projectors. That's an extra seat from my Honda Element on the little red wagon, a dog crate that the other rooster was over nighting in, a heat lamp for those cold winter nights, and straw so Elle has a nice landing pad when he jumps out of the cage in the morning. I forget why I made the large white papier mache chicken with Egyptian necklace sitting on top of the cage. Three bicycles with flat tires complete the scene, as long as you don't turn your head.

lickin

lickin
Originally uploaded by Big Chicken.

Molly, don't you know it's tacky to lick your lips when you go to meet the sheep? We were sheepherding on Sunday, and those fuzzy young ones looked mighty tasty.

Interview with me in 1980 at Snazelle Films

(On youtube you can never choose the featured image- it's the frame half way through!)

I found this old interview with me and had it transferred, then uploaded it to youtube, source of many new friends... Can't resist including this amazing message I got from a youtuber today:

Sally,
your film Quasi at the Quackadero is tacked onto the end of a very old and mysterious video tape my father has owned since I was very small, although the opening credits are lopped off and I never knew it was yours until very recently. The tape starts out with Warner Brothers cartoons, which get weirder and weirder and then suddenly switch to your cartoon after almost an hour. After Quasi, there are a few other things such as a surreal cartoon about a mutating fly and a terrifying claymation piece about Hell, but Quasi at the Quackadero is the pinnacle of the tape. Watching it has always been a sort of ritualistic journey for me, as it progresses on and on and on from innocent Bugs Bunny cartoons to the strangest, most far-out things. The enduring of the entire tape is a mind-altering experience, to be sure. I was very excited to see you with a YouTube profile, and I wanted to take this opportunity to thankyou for providing the psychedelic climax to a bizarre and wonderful childhood ritual.
-Atticus

Keyboards of the Future

This is a keyboard that's already available, but once they start projecting that keyboard into the space in front of you, rather than on the flat, and people are typing into the air, it will be as if sign language and keyboards have merged... or maybe in the future they will.

Even though I'm 57, I like to think about the future a lot. I think humans are evolving into an insectivorous form, hive-like. I think the constant partial attention syndrome relates to that.

Linda Davick Nice Artist

Linda Davick interviewed me this week and posted the results on her attractive blog:

http://ldavick.blogspot.com/

Her site is wonderful. I put together some code last night to make the find it game more interactive.

Whale Watching

We spent Sunday on an Island Packers boat out of Ventura, whale watching. We saw a couple of humpback whales and two gray whales also. We cruised past Anacapa, and were out for a couple of hours. Last year's whale watch was disappointing, so it was great to see quite a few this year. The Channel Islands National Park is a wonderful place to visit. I've been to every island that's open to the public. There are a couple that the military keep closed. Amazing to think that pygmy mammoths once inhabited these islands.

I'm selling artwork online now

I've been doing a lot of code work, lately. I tech edited the latest Flash for Dummies book, soon to be published. My critical nature helps me with tech editing because errors just jump out at me.

After building a friend's custom jewelry site in Flash with Paypal, I decided to use what I'd learned to sell my own artwork. I have a simple art gallery
with very inexpensive pieces for sale. I'll be adding more items as free time permits. This piece is from the youtube/Sesame Street song, "Above It All."

If you're an artist who wants a simple method of selling your work online, I could build you a sales site quite readily and inexpensively.

Escalator Safety etc.

Ahh, accident-proof excalators. I'm off to visit my mother in South Jersey this weekend. I've got Whinsey back on line and I think she's working. I've been in code frenzy state this week. Off for two hikes now. Also, if you go to my youtube channel, do check out the piece "impossumble." Youtube seems to grab the image at the exact center for each video's icon, and I lost on that one, as it's an image from cnn. But the piece has more going on than that I promise.

Just a pretty swamp picture.

I'm so pleased to finally get Flash 8 to work on my blog. There was nothing difficult about it, I just didn't know exactly what code would work. This is another experiment based on code by pixelfumes It doesn't animate- in fact I had to switch out a jpeg for it due to blog complexities. But the lovely reflection and blur are created dynamically in Flash.

The artwork is from the Sesame Street song I did, "From Your Head", sung by jazz great Betty Carter. You can see it on youtube

A Flash Kaleidoscope

I found the code for this at quasimondo
and popped an image into Flash 8. Loved the results. Move your mouse over this one!

Back in the pencil and cel paint days it took me a 40 hour week to make an animated Kaleidoscope sequence. I still have the cels.

where them gators?

No trip to Florida is complete without a "Do Not Feed the Alligators" sign. What's Dinah doing at the Tramp pickup?

What was in her bikini!

We're going to Florida in the morning and I couldn't help but think back to the bikini fish that turned up in the shower, with shrieks, last time we were there.

aww poor fishie.

Molly, our mega bright German Shepherd, is now at the fancy kennel, signed up for Yappy Hour, Kindercare, Busy Bones and Agility. We signed up for guilt. Well at least we didn't choose the option to pay for someone to sleep with her in the theme cottage... (an option!) plus the web cam.


Dinah's dear horse Tia survived colic surgery two weeks ago but it was too shocking and bizarre and scary and expensive to write about. The surgeon did a great job.

Original Quasi art for sale

UPDATE Feb. 14: (relisted, url is current.)Since some of you who stumble by are "Quasi at the Quackadero" fans, I thought I'd point out that I'm selling an original watercolor sketch from the film on ebay this week. This is an idea sketch I did before I ever started animating the film.

Smiley Face Premieres at Sundance 2007

I had SO much fun designing and animating the main titles for Gregg Araki's "Smiley Face", which premiered over the weekend at Sundance Festival in Park City.

Some Days it all Falls Down

Like yesterday. ..

Did the weight of Dinah knock over the tree?
Did Molly the German Shepherd pull it over?
No, the nasty nasty winds knocked over our lovely pepper tree. The tree man said pepper trees never survive repositioning.

Then later in the day when I backwashed and rinsed the pond, I somehow got the valve stuck. When I went out in the dark last night, to put the roosters in the garage, I discovered the pond was almost entirely drained and the koi were gasping. Emergency work restored their home at least.

Then this morning got an email from the nice fellow who hosts my site saying the hard drive holding all my files was destroyed.

The chickens weren't happy about their loss of tree. Anyone want a gorgeous silkie rooster? We have one too many.

Retiring my Chat Bot

Some of you may have had conversations with my talking horse Whinsey, a chat bot I built myself over the years with a code brain consisting of regular expression in JavaScript, and a lot of php backup from various search engines.

For those who don't know, a chat bot is a character that you can talk/type to, who attempts to answer reasonably, and in my case I tried to make her funny too. I used a php script to grab an image off of google images, so the funky tv in Whinsey's barn would show an image related to what you were talking to her about, while she "spoke" (text only) her response to you.

As search engines have gotten more and more personable and astonishing, the effect of the chat bot began to seem last century, to me at least. The various chatbot contests were seeming increasingly inbred and rigged.

I did see an amazing chatbot yesterday, missdewey.com
Not sure who's claiming credit for that. If anyone can tell me how that super real flash/live action effect is accomplished, I'd love to know. It's not that she was so smart, and her answers were kind of lame, but the presentation was superb.

Today I learned my server had lost ALL my files, and though I could put Whinsey back together again, every time google or answer.com or thesaurus.com changed the layout of their pages, all my pretty php scripts ceased to work, and it seemed like a good time to retire the talking horse. She's still a continuing character in my flash animation.

Just as an aside, code freak that I am, I'd written a log script that logged everyone's conversations with Whinsey, though it never id'd them. All those logs vanished yesterday too. Probably just as well. Another reason I took the horse gal off line is I was tired of reading all the hot and dirty things people typed in. I mean, I worked hard for her to have a response to "Who was Sylvia Plath?" but most people just wanted to talk about sex with Whinsey.

ROSE BOWL 2007 we were there

Aloha all around

Christmas greetings from me and our horses Tia and Pepper, co-starring in "Hawaiian Honeymoon. " Well, why not? Actually they've just been moved to a new and awful location at their five year home in Bell Canyon Equestrian Center, and it's no walk on the beach.

I found this amazing link to the M.I.T. Drawing Project yesterday. I've installed "Stumble" on my Firefox and it pops up treats frequently when I click on it. But this is yet another step towards making animation so dynamic you won't even think of it as a process. Be sure you watch it all the way through. At first it seems like a Mr. Science demo, but it's quite astounding.

Above It All

Wow 3500 views of this Sesame Street song I did in 1989. And such nice words of praise too. If I got a dollar for every viewing I could give extravagant presents this Christmas. But then I don't own rights to the piece-- oops-- but then I got paid peanuts-- oops-- but then what is happening to copyright law these days? I never particularly liked this song, "Above It All", but it was run more than any of the others, and seems to have really struck a memory ping in the youtube audience. Some of the comments people have posted have great depth to them. Oddly, my other films are also up on youtube, and have only a fraction as many views. You can see it here.

Right now I'm doing a new animated piece for youtube. So stay tuned.

Halloween Postcards

I have a large collection of Halloween postcards from the turn of the century. I like the way they sentimentalized images of fear. I used to collect various Halloween items, but have lost the desire to collect, which is a good thing! Halloween's been a bit over taken by the Hallmark crowd these days, and the inflatables really give me the willies.

I have recently put a great number of my animations, including Sesame Street pieces, on youtube. The image quality really goes down the tubes by the time they chew on it at youtube with their video codecs, but I'm happy to circulate them. Maybe if you like them you'll buy my dvd at www.funonmars.com. Shameless Sal.

Got Work? Yes!

Shh- I'm doing animated movie titles for a very funny comedy. I'm not supposed to reveal the specifics, so don't ask! I'm doing it all myself in Flash, exporting through After Effects. Those two applications are dynamite. This is a very far out piece and the director is a delight to work with.

Nuff said. Every morning I walk Molly twice around Lake Balboa, at sunrise. The abundance of bird life is thrilling, and constantly changing. I'm headed there right now. I get up early!

Golden Boots etc.

A few weeks ago we went to the Golden Boots awards dinner. It honors motion picture Western stars and forgotten workers, with an ever shrinking list to honor. The money raised goes to the Motion Picture Home in Woodland Hills. People come in Western costume, if they wish. The men seem to get into dressing up for this more than women do.

I had a nice new Rockmount shirt to wear. This fellow came dressed as a sidekick, or maybe he just sloshed into the hotel lobby.

Clint Eastwood got the top award, at the end of FIVE HOURS of slow ceremony. No one told him that the top of his hair was sticking straight up like a rooster comb. Maybe he took a snooze before the dessert course. Burt Reynolds told a funny story about how cheap Clint is, then rambled on like a beatnik poet till they pulled him away from the mike.

I thought it was pretty tacky that they asked us to bow our heads and pray for God to give us more opportunities to make Western movies and tv shows. No one mentioned Brokeback Mountain. They also brought some army guy in from Iraq who proselytized about harm's way, the usual crap. The emcee should have had his speech checked at the door.

July 4 in Telluride

We spent the first part of summer in Colorado, loved the fourth of July parade in Telluride, pictured here. A lovely time with hiking and reading. Best book I read was "Lonesome Dove" by Larry McMurtry. I was so sorry when it ended-- I just loved that book.

I'm back in L.A. working on movie titles-- yay hooray. I published a children's book that my mother wrote in 1957 and my sister Carol illustrated, when she was only 16. I used www.lulu.com, and am going to try other projects there. The book, for young children, is available here . It's quite amazing how easy it's become to self-publish.

I've made a first chapter animated online

Maybe this is the sort of thing that people would enjoy getting on their cel phones, but I don't know since I don't even have one. Just a little story I got started on. It's about five megs, but on my high speed line starts playing pretty fast.

I welcome any comments on it. I used the AT&T voices because it means I've got voices, even if I'm not thrilled with level of emotion. Anyway, if you'd like to see it, it's here: http://www.funonmars.com/ajax/futuregirls.html

R.I.P. Lulu

Our beautiful Chow Lulu died unexpectedly during what we thought was a routine vet visit. She was only seven years old. It's so hard to lose a dog....