I've never been a fan of year-end wrap ups, best-of lists, top-9 pics... none of that. But I do want to shout-out everyone whose rocked a Frankie Mcfly t-shirt. Every time I saw a picture online of someone wearing one a took a screenshot. I made these collages today and uploaded them to Instagram. It makes me happy to see all their smiling faces. Some in beautiful places, some rocking out and some just doing their thing. Thank you so much to everyone that's been supportive of me and my lil endeavor.
Cheers and Happy New Year, Frankie I spent 6 hours today trying to figure out why Covered California (Obamacare/Affordable Care Act) sent my "case" to Medi-Cal (Medicaid) resulting in me not getting health insurance coverage after this year (1 day away) This included a couple phone calls to each office (mostly holding) and a visit to the Social Services office in Gilroy 32 miles away. I was pissed off after being sent back and forth and not getting any definite answers. By the time I got to the office in Gilroy I was fuming. The lady at Social Services said Covered California won't take be back because Medi-Cal needs to process my application (I never applied) and either approve it (stay with Medi-Cal) or deny it (then Covered California will take me back) My application (which I never submitted) was pulled before it could be approved or denied when a Medi-Cal rep called me a few weeks ago get information. I told him I didn't apply and already had healthcare via Covered California. Now the Medi-Care lady said I should apply again (I didn't do it the first time) to get denied (I don't qualify) so Covered California can take me back. I don't want to do that. I want my coverage back and I don't want to pay penalties next year for not having health care coverage in January so I'll probably be spending more time dealing with them tomorrow.
Lately I've been uploading old drawings onto Instagram. I drew these in a sketchbook back in 2010. I wasn't drawing a whole lot at the time and these were exercises to fill up whole pages using ink without fucking up.
I am tired of staring at spreadsheets. The whole reason I started doing this now, instead of waiting till February, is because of Covered California. I have to update my information before the end of the year so I can continue getting healthcare coverage. I went and figured out how much money I made from DJing, t-shirts, murals and graphic design work. Then figured out my business expenses and how much I can deduct. Once I got those numbers I went to the Covered California website but kept getting stuck. I spent a couple hours trying to figure it out till I got frustrated and decided I'll just give them a call on Monday. At least when this is all said & done filing taxes should be a breeze.
I was almost done logging all my 2019 transactions. All my spending was done but now I'm working on logging all income. Every dollar made in 2019 from DJing, t-shirt sales & side jobs are being consolidated into one doc. I'm figuring out as I go what are the best ways to log things like fees & sales tax so it's taking a bit of time. Once this is done I'll have a complete picture where all my money went, and came from, in 2019.
December 26th, 1980. That's the day I was hatched. My mom said if I was born on the Christmas she would have named me Jesus. Yikes! It's always been a shitty day for a birthday. When I was a kid my Christmas presents doubled as birthday gifts. When I got older, people were too tired & broke after the holidays. It's not fun. I once joked to my cousins about switching my birthday to different date and they threw me a surprise birthday party on that day, months after my actual birthday. That was pretty cool. Today I didn't feel like doing anything special. All I did was treat myself to some Mongolian bbq for lunch.
I'm heading out of town soon to hang with the family-bamily so I'm posting this now so I don't forgot and miss two in a row. Enjoy these old Xmas themed pics: Me as Santa, My homemade ugly sweater with decapitated polar bear head and a Secret Satan gift tag. Happy Holidays from me to whoever's reading this shit.
Shit! I forgot to write a blog post last night. I went to go see the new Star Wars movie and totally forgot. I think this is the 3rd one I've missed.
Today I finished going thru all my credit card transactions from 2019, till now, and made sure they were all properly logged and categorized on a separate spreadsheet. After every purchase, I'd log the date, dollar amount, who I paid, how I paid, category, and notes on the doc. A lot of damn work. I made a Google Form and saved the link on my phone to make it easier. I mostly pay everything with credit card so this took me a very long time to go thru. I've already logged my business debit & checking transactions, all I have to do is go thru my personal checking transactions and make sure they're all been entered properly. Once I'm done I can start figuring out what's tax deductible and have a head start when I file taxes.
I'm going through all my credit card transactions from 2019 and making sure I log which ones where for personal use and which ones were business expenses. I've covered 7 months of transactions so far. I hate seeing how much money I've wasted on fast food and interest fees. I gotta be better about those things. I need to eat at home more (also good for my health) and make more money to pay off my credit card debt. Those are two good resolutions for 2020. I've also decided it's time to open a business credit card. Going thru all these transactions and figuring out which ones were personal and which ones were business takes way too much time.
My last event of 2019 was a holiday/birthday party with Santa Claus, face painting, balloon artist, photo booth and karaoke. It was actually really laid back. I played background music during cocktail hour and dinner then opened up the karaoke after we ate. Only a couple adults sang at first then the kids went at for the rest of the night. Check out the video of the kids battling each other with balloon swords and axes. They even had balloon holsters for their balloon weapons. I kinda got forced into starting my taxes a couple months before I originally intended. I'm not filing yet but I do have to figure out all my income and expenses asap. Figuring out the income was easy but going thru all my receipts, invoices, bank & credit card transactions, adding up my business expenses, is taking a long time. Once I gather up all the expenses I need to figure out what can & can't be deducted.I gotta come up with a better way of managing and logging all these transactions for next year.
That award I designed was presented to the recipient tonight. It was GenArts annual Movers & Shakers award and it was given to The Red Ladder Theatre Company along with a check for $2,000. Congrats to Red Ladder! My friend Amanda at GenArts referred me when they were looking for a local artist to design this years award. She connected me with Kristen and together we ended up with the final design. I've also shared the other designs I came up with that didn't get picked. For funnies, I hid the teeniest-tiniest logo of mine in the final piece. It's so small no one will ever find it :)
8 years ago I joined my buddies non-profit group known at the time as Mexico Extravaganza. The year before I joined they put on a theater production called "Monarca" and they were gonna do it again. One of the scenes involved a large tree in the background. Someone had built them a tree the year before but they needed something bigger so they asked for my help. We went to the hardware store and bought two or three 2-inch thick 8'x4' styrofoam panels, paint and supplies. I think I shaped it with a knife and boxcutter then cut the grooves with my Dremel. I brushed on a lighter shade of brown inside the grooves then rolled on a darker brown on the surface to highlight the texture. When it was done it was 16' tall and about 10' wide at the bottom. In the end I think it was too tall so they had to chop off a few feet. I only built the trunk and someone else made the top. I don't remember if I got a chance to watch the show. I might if had to work that day. I think all I saw was the picture below.
I changed the oil in my car today and rotated the tires. When I went to drain the oil I found that the metal plate covering the drain plug & filter was bent. If it ain't one thing, it's another. The plastic it was bolted on too, part of it had been pulled off the metal frame as well. I can probably clip the plastic back to the frame if I find replacement clips and then bend the metal plate back into place. Wish me luck.
Today was a super lazy day. I didn't go to sleep till around 5:00 AM this morning and woke up with just enough time to eat get ready to watch a live taping of the Retro Game Guys Podcast in Downtown Campbell. I've been listening to these guys for months. It's four guys that play old video games to see who gets the highest score. They also dig up cool facts and other fun tidbits about the games. Today they covered the game Contra for the original 8-bit Nintendo and even raffled off on old cartridge. It was fun to watch and meet the guys after the show. The Contra podcast episode drops next Wednesday but you can watch the live video recording here.
I DJ'd a holiday party tonight. The client wanted me to begin 30 minutes before the contracted Start time so music is playing as the early guests start arriving. No problem, since I was scheduled to set up 2 hour before and I'd be ready by then. The client wanted to use the mic to announce raffle winners after the booked End time. I thought it would be quick. They ran late and it took 30 minutes to finish. It pissed me off and it's still bugging me hours later. I should have brought up the contract and offered to charge them overtime but I was afraid of my making my employer look bad. I'm over that shit.
Today I dropped off the printed award I designed and helped put it in its frame. Mission complete. I'm looking forward to the event next week where it will be awarded, along with a cash prize, to the recipient. I'll post pics of the award and more details after the event. After delivering the award I went measure the walls where my art show will be next May. It's a big space and I want to turn that sucker out. I'm even thinking of building a miniature version of the walls & exhibit area to help visualize the show as a whole. After measuring and taking notes I came home & warmed up to go to the gym. I'm trying to work off of some of this recently acquired end-of-the-year chunkage. After sweating my ass at the gym I came home to shave & shower then headed out to pick up the DJ gear for my gig tomorrow. I just finished prepping music. All that's left to do it write this blog and maybe watch some Stranger Things before bed. Goodnight.
I've been cleaning house these last few days. Knocking out some to-dos, clearing out email and deleting old shit. Today I came across the flyer for my first, and only, solo art show. (October 1st, 2011 at 8:00 PM,) an animated gif I made from a drawing (Plantimal,) and a crappy picture of the Hoverboard prop I made for my Marty Mcfly Halloween costume many-many moons ago (that's where Frankie Mcfly came from)
And in other news:
That job to design an award is almost done. The design was approved a couple days ago so I got it printed and it's ready to drop off. I had the design printed on a couple different types of paper and printed extra copies as backups. It'll go in a black wooden frame and be awarded to the recipient next Wednesday at an event. I'll post pictures of the final design, and the different versions I came up with, after the event.
Now that I'm happy with my last draft I've started laying down the pencils on the actual piece. The final piece will be slightly different than the last draft and much bigger. The original plan was to just make prints but I'll probably make a t-shirt out of this which will require me to redraw it again and make some more tweaks. I can't wait to be done with this so I can start working on more pieces like this.
This morning I went to the oral surgeon my dentist referred me to to examine the tiny bit of extra tissue on my gums. She stuck a popsicle stick in my mouth, looked at it for a few seconds and suggested cutting it out. It's probably just a callus, nothing bad, but I didn't want it removed and risk it being something serious so we sent it out for a biopsy. I felt like crap all day today, not because of the anxiety & stress of having to wait for the results, but because I kinda felt like I threw away a lot of money. My insurance barely helped, it only covered a small portion of the bill. I should have tried negotiating a better price or waited and shopped around for a better deal. Oh well. Afterwards, I didn't feel like doing shit so I went home and crawled in bed and watched a movie before getting back to work.
I've made some changes to this thing and I like they way it's looking. I also gave it a name, "Head Thing 2." The first Head Thing was one of the three designs I came up with before I printed my first Frankie Mcfly t-shirt. I printed my logo (1.0) instead and made Head Thing into a sticker. This sequel to Head Thing might end up being my next t-shirt design.
It's 4:00 AM and I just drove back from Sacramento. I'm too tired to think up something to write so I'm throwing up a cheater post so I can say I posted something tonight. That is all.
|
Frankie Mcfly's
|