And I'm running behind. I'm gonna knock out 30 & 31 on Halloween. I drew 28 & 29 tonight.

Maybe it was DJing an event on Monday night in Monterey then going to bed super late that's got me all screwed up now. I slept in and was still tired all day Tuesday. I went bed early around 8:30PM and woke up a couple hours ago around 2:00 AM. Now it's almost 5:00 AM and I'm laying in bed awake when I realized I forgot to write a blog post. Blah!

I DJ'd a corporate event tonight and dance floor was empty soon after we opened it up. Not just the dance floor but the whole room eventually emptied. Everyone went outside to the patio. It's a beautiful venue with string lighting outside, fire pits, heaters, and a bar so I can't blame them. But it got me thinking about my first few years DJing. I used to hate when nobody danced. I felt like I failed to do my job. It would ruin my weekend, sometimes my whole week. What made it worse was playing fast, upbeat dance music to an empty dance floor. After a few more years of DJing I realized there will be occasional empty dance floors but instead of playing nothing but dance songs I've started playing more laid-back & less dancy music. Stuff I usually don't play during dance sets. I figure if people wanna lounge I'll play more lounge type music. Today I don't feel bad if no one wants to dance.

The video below is from a wedding I did exactly 3 years ago today. It was as hot as hell inside and everyone, except for one older gentleman, was hanging out outside or had already left. It was just this one man sitting in a chair directly across from me.  The song was the bride's request and it was just too funny so I filmed a bit of it.

​

I didn't really do shit today. The most productive things I did were draw my Inktober drawings for Days 26 & 27, and give Andrew Jackson a 3rd eye. 

I had nice streak going. There were a few cheater posts, where I couldn't think of anything so I'd just write a few words or post some drawings, just to say I posted something. I did 56 straight days in a row. I'm a little bummed out that I missed a day. I wanted to make it at least to 100. Oh well.

And in other womp-womp news, it doesn't look like that vending opportunity in downtown is gonna go thru. We'll see.

I got some good news today. I might be able to vend, for multiple days, in downtown San Jose over the next couple months. It would be indoors too and I wouldn't need my canopy. It should be a lot of fun if it goes thru! I'm still waiting on more details and confirmation. Stay tuned...

Day 22 - Pepperoni, sausage, mushroom & olive peeksa
Day 23 - Marking tool chorus line

The last couple years I've made short videos that show how I made my drawings for the last day of Inktober. Day 31 - Halloween. They've included all the sketches I drew and I added music. For 2017 I drew trick-or-treaters with the Silver Shamrock song from the movie Halloween III. For 2018 I drew myself as a zombie Michael Jackson, from the Thriller video, and added the Steve Aoki Midnight Hour Remix. I have an idea of what I'm doing this year but I'm going to wait till we get closer to Halloween before I start sketching. 

Day 19 - A dance floor full of ghosts
Day 20 - An obvious mask
Day 21 - Potted eye plant

I went to check out Campbell's Oktoberfest today. I don't think I've ever attended one before and I heard it draws a lot of people. I went to see if my booth & shirts would be a good fit for the festival so I could come next year and vend. I learned at the Jazz Festival that my gear doesn't do well at all events. I walked past all the vendor booths today, starting on one side of the street then the other side as I walked back. On the way back I stopped at Recycle Book Store. It was my first time there and right when you walk in there were a few Edward Gorey books on display on the counter. I love his illustrations & wanted to bring them all home. I walked around the store and saw a painting on the wall done by my old roommate, Jeremiah. I then found a book called Street T that features tons of pictures and write ups on graphic t-shirt designers. I had to have it. I bought it instead of the Ed Gorey books. After leaving the bookstore I stopped by Mike & Niki's Honey booth. I know Niki from a networking meeting we both go to. I sampled some honey and bought a jar of their Double Chocolate Creamed Honey. It's so good! I almost ate half the jar already. I had good time at the festival, even though it was a reconnaissance mission. I think I might vend at next years Oktoberfest. We'll see.

I usually listen to music while I draw but lately I've been kinda watching shows while I do my Inktober drawings. I say "kinda watching" because I'm more focused on my work and listening more than actually viewing. Over the past few days I was finally able to to finish Fargo seasons 2 & 3 and American Horror Story: Apocalypse. Damn, they were good! Fargo has awesome characters with their own crazy stories and AHS just is just crazy AF. I'm looking forward to Fargo season 4. I heard comedian Chris Rock is the lead in the next season. Tonight I watched a couple episodes of AHS: Freakshow. I picked up where I left off about a year ago. I didn't like it as much as the previous seasons but after watching Apocalypse I was reminded that they usually start off slow and eventually they hook me in. 

I spent all day Friday trying to come up with Inktober drawings for Days 17 & 18. For hours, I couldn't think of nothing. I would start sketching something then erase it, over and over. I even looked the official Inktober 2019 prompt list and that didn't help. 17 ended up being a quick goofy demon drawing  but for 18 I used a small plastic skull Halloween decoration as a reference and my me wearing my hoodie to make a warm & comfortable grim reaper. It took me all god damn day. I might be losing my mojo. Idk.

I pulled an all-nighter yesterday and uploaded my drawing for Day 16 at 5:00 AM. My whole day & sleep schedule was thrown out of wack and I haven't done a drawing for Day 17. That means tomorrow  is a twofer. Here are all 16 drawings so far...

Wednesday night I went to the gym and ran on the treadmill for the first time in 3 weeks. I had hurt my knee and didn't want to risk making it worse so I've been taking it slow and only walking. Now that I'm feeling better I ran for 30 minutes, 5 minutes at a time over an hour. It felt good. I wanna get back on track with the weight loss because my goal is to look sexy AF before 40. I only got 14 months to make it happen  :)

It was easy for me to decide which brand blanks I wanted to print on when I made my Frankie Mcfly t-shirts. I had already worn the brand's shirts for years and loved the way they felt and their quality. Now that I'm considering hoodies, I don't have lots of experience with them, or at least any that I absolutely love. The ones I've been using for personal use were good but not great. Today I received a new blank. I'm gonna try and wear it as much as possible and run it thru plenty of washer and dryer cycles for the next few weeks to see how it holds up. I want to make sure this garment is the same high quality as my t-shirts before embellishing it with my work/art/name. 

I spent a lot of time today, and previous days, trying to figure out how many shirts I should reprint. I used to try and guess which sizes & styles would sell more. Now that I have more data I can see what sells faster versus what stays in inventory longer. And because I'm on a budget for the rest of the year (I'm setting money aside for income & sales taxes) I've decided to reprint in smaller batches, starting with my most popular design. I intended to reprint all EMNSJ styles but my supplier was all out of heather gray blanks so I just bought black shirts for now. That's ok since my two most popular styles are the Black/Blue and Black/Pink EMNSJ (San Jose) t-shirts. If I ordered the right amount, and sales continue the way they have been, I shouldn't run out of one style/size too quickly or have others sit for too long. They blanks should arrive soon then they're off to the printers. Hopefully it won't take more than a couple weeks to have the finished shirts in hand. 

This is now two days in a row running a day behind with the Inktober drawings. I was supposed to draw & upload Day 13 tonight but I'm gonna do it tomorrow with Day 14. A twofer. Back to Day 12 - I already knew what I wanted to draw and that it would take me a long time to finish but I DJ'd a wedding Saturday night and didn't want to pull an all-nighter so I did it today. My inspiration and reference was an animated short from Sesame Street. I used to watch it all the time when I was a little kid growing up in the 80s. It's the pinball cartoon that teaches kids to count to 12. It's called "Pinball Number Count" and it was produced in San Francisco and vocals by the Pointer Sisters

​"1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 ,8, 9, 10, 11, 12"

Saturdays are for weddings. I've been DJing for 5 years now and this is my usual routine:

• The night before the wedding I'm prepping music requests and typing up my notes.
• On the day-of I start my day with coffee & breakfast before getting ready.
• I change into my load-in clothes. Company polo and khakis. I also pack my suit & shirt for later.
• I load my suit bag, backpack and gig-bag into my car. 
• If I don't have the DJ gear from the night before I drive to pick it up in Scotts Valley.
• After loading out of the warehouse I'm on my way to the venue.
• Once I arrive I check in before unloading my vehicle. I make sure I know where I'm setting up.
• First I setup the ceremony system and do a soundcheck. I usually leave the music playing while I go and setup the main rig.
• I set up the main system where the dancing is going to happen. That includes dance lighting.
• After I'm setup, and all sweaty, I go and change into my suit. Yuck!
• When I'm suited & booted I go and find the officiant and get him/her mic'd up and talk about the ceremony cues.
• When it's go time I'm at the ceremony rig waiting for the coordinator to give me cues to play the processional songs. 
• After the processionals I'm just monitoring the mic levels until the recessional song at the end.
• During cocktail hour I'm usually watching the crowd to get an idea of what the dance floor might look later.
• After cocktails, when everyone is seated for dinner, I line up the wedding party and read out their names making sure I pronounce them correctly.
• Next is the Grand Introduction where I play music and announce the wedding party when they come into the reception. This is usually one of my favorite parts of the day.
• After intros it's usually dinner time and sometimes I have time to relax a bit and eat.
• When dinner's over it's time for toasts, formal dances and open dancing till the end of the night.
• After the last dance I make my final announcement and it's time to change back into my load-in clothes. Usually still wet from my sweat earlier in the day. Double-yuck!
• I strike all the gear, load it back on the cart and wheel it to my car. 
• I drive back to the warehouse, unload the gear and enter my post-event notes in the system.
• I then drive back home, sometimes stopping for food because I'm still hungry.
• It's then time to shower and I usually just hang out for a bit because I've running around all day.
• After that it's already super late and it's time for bed. 
• On Sundays I sleep in.

And that's it! Super easy, right?

It's 4:15 in the morning, I haven't gone to bed yet and I'm DJing a wedding later so here's another cheater blog post... It's all my Inktober 2019 drawings so far, day 1 thru 11.

Follow me on Instagram @frankiemcfly to see more

There have been several times I've had screen printers try and sell me on using cheaper blank shirts for me to print my designs and I've told them this story: 

I've always been a big dude so finding cool shirts that fit has never been easy. The shirt I'm wearing in the picture below, taken almost 10 years ago, was one of the few tees that fit and had a cool graphic. I loved it. I probably only had it for a couple years then threw it out because it faded or the seams came undone, or maybe both. Soon after, I bought myself a few American Apparel blanks to see what the hoopla was about this brand. The material was super soft and felt better than almost every other shirt I owned. I loved them. I wore them all the time up until a couple years ago. The shirts are over 8 years old and they still look and feel great, The only reason I stopped wearing them was because I dropped from a 3X to a 2X. When it came time to choose which blank shirts I'd use for my Frankie Mcfly shirts the choice was simple, American Apparel. I want other people to love my shirts as much I do and I want them to feel great wearing them. Yes, they cost more than other brands but I feel it's worth it. 

I didn't finish my drawing for day 9. I did one rough sketch (left) and redrew it (center) so I can ink it tomorrow. It's based on an old painting of mine. I gotta get up in 3 hours so I'm going to bed now...

Since all I do is complain about how long it takes to create new things, I thought I'd talk about the Inktober zine I've been working on. I've taken pictures of all the Inktober drawings I did in 2017, processed them and laid them out so they're ready to print. Now I need to come up with art for the front cover and few other pages. Here's what I've done so far. I'm not crazy about any of them. I hope I can knock this out soon because I still have to do Inktober 2018.

I counted my shirts today after vending at the Street Mrkt on Friday. I sold out of a few more styles  & sizes last week. There are a lot of shirts I need to print to replenish my inventory. I have the money but  I can't spend too much because we're almost at the end of the year and soon it will be tax season again. I'm setting aside 50% of this year's revenue for sales, state & federal taxes. That leaves me with little money to play with. So, instead of reordering all shirts at once, I'm going to do them in batches. I'm starting with the EMNSJ (San Jose) shirts then doing EMN shirts (circle.) Last will be least expensive to print, the 1.0s (logo tee)

I love the idea of posting a daily blog post and drawing something new everyday in October but Damn it takes me a long time. It took me a few hours yesterday and today to come up with an idea, sketch it in pencil then finish it with ink. Now it's almost 3 am and I've been in front of my laptop for atleast an hour thinking about what to write for my blog. I still feel weird writing and saying "I have a blog." A part of me doesn't want anyone to read these. I'm doing the daily blog posts, as recommended by Seth Godin, as an exercise in self discipline, to provide new content, become a better writer, and put more thought and effort into my business. The coolest thing so far has been watching the list of categories grow longer and my archives now span 3 months. (I started August 30 and we're only a week into October, so it's really only been a little over one month) Soon I'll have just as many blog entries as Inktober drawings. The current score is Inktober Drawings: 68 vs Daily Blog Posts: 38. They'll be tied up by the end of the year and by next Inktober, blog posts will be leading by about 270. That's a lot of hours... if I keep it up (It is now 3:18 AM)

Shit I gotta do today:

• Sleep. It's almost 5:00 AM and I'm running on 4 hours of sleep from the night before.
• Finish my drawing for Inktober Day 5. I've only done the pencil sketch so far.
• Draw something for Inktober Day 6
• Wash, dry & put away laundry
• De-prep all my vendor gear that I used on Friday
• Count & fold my t-shirts and update my online store's inventory.
• Figure out my budget for reprinting shirts.
• Clean my desk
• Work on, and hopefully finish, my first Inktober zine.
• Hopefully knock out a few other things that have been on my to-do list for a while.