When I heard Bob was in the Hospital I sent him some ART. I hoped it would cheer him up knowing that someone he had given a chance might have been worth it.
 
 
 

The message on my small card read "BE THE LIGHT"; the title of a Black & white inked piece I did immediately after seeing the CANDY APPLE " DAYS OF THE WEEK" downstairs my first night at abels.

Some of you may remember that as a tecnical illustrator, my accuracy and enthusiasm landed me my first job for Bob... rotoscoping a matte for a 7-UP spot.

I couldn't believe my luck
 
 

I remember strolling into Taylor's office one night to hang out. He gave me that "I'm working..." look, and as I explained that I was waiting for TF1 stats from Stat House, he cut me off with a single word... "WAITING?".

As I usually was working on three jobs at once, I went back to my office and started on the next item on "the list".
 
 
 

Even when I left ABELS, I found the skills and discipline I had practiced there, along with my own list, following me wherever I went. 
 
 
 

I'm still working and the list is ever shorter.

After watching the Super Bowl for new spots however, and seeing the Texas Instruments logo (RELOAD), FEMALE TERMINATOR (not nude though...), and the ever more "State Of The Art" WAR graphics, I'm not waiting any longer.

Einstein burnt the midnight oil looking for a Unified Theory that would explain everything. Working Without Westwiction on the World Wide Web, I know just how he felt. 

Listening to Midnight Oil, it's easy to find oneself trying to post a "page" that includes everything. Free of a dollar driven deadline, it's easy to forget that the clock is still ticking and that no one has a plasma modem in the 40 watt range... yet.

Working for Robert Abel taught me the importance of not only documenting the boundaries of what Art could do, but of bringing those results back; in a timely fashion, from beyond the visual horizon so all could benefit from what the few were able to accomplish.

So, here is my contribution to Win Without War (which, at least, LINKS to everything); the second of the three things I'm working on, followed by more chronological commentary generated as I tweaked HYMNEN; itself bookended by the work I've done within and outside the SYSTEM, and that which I've done since: in support of those fighting in the streets, with their Children at their feet.

"Part 2" ends with the death of someone else close to me, but like the music that inspired it, speaks only to the results of "CHOOSING LIFE" on a daily basis.

Once again, let those thumbs load and enjoy... 

Forgive any redundancies.

I REPEAT MYSELF WHEN UNDER STRESS...
I REPEAT MYSELF WHEN UNDER STRESS...
I REPEAT MYSELF WHEN UNDER STRESS...
I REPEAT MYSELF WHEN UNDER STRESS...
I REPEAT
 

CYA in September...
;>
MS 

T+41 / REGIME CHANGE / ALL BETS OFF

Wedging DONE / Color Move Test DONE / Take ZERO DONE.

HOW LONG WAS I GONE? / YOU BACK AGAIN?

OCTOBER has come and gone. Much more than a just a memory, we NOW KNOW if it was a GOOD WITCH or BAD.

This NEXT TO LAST UPDATE documents the real REGIME CHANGE, when the SNIPER is NO LONGER NECESSARY, and as IRAQ pre-empts the BEAST only to suffer the fate of all Beasts.

Booboo, Buboe. TOO MANY AMERICANS will FEAR DEATH, while their "leaders" DEBATE who's responsible for THE THREAT.

70% of SAD AMERICA didn't vote, and ONE of the two families that control the world are claiming a MANDATE. POPPY'S TACIT NOD to Saddam back in '91 makes PERFECT SENSE in 2002. If you really want to eliminate 70% of the population of the PLANET.

Maybe there IS a reason for all this. RED PLANET detailed the dire straits that the Human Race found itself in before they WOKE UP and were forced to Mars in State-Of-The-Art spacecraft. Bush 41 spoke at Martin Marrietta before they disappeared into the DEEP BLACK hole that is Lockheed. I was interviewed in Colorado Springs just before THAT Regime Change, and he who was ready to hire me as MEDIA DIRECTOR for the National Test Bed, found himself out of work after that speech at FALCATRAZ.

I was told by his successor to "not worry about Mars."

Was OK2GO, but put on NO FATE 3: The LAST Shan Kive instead

RCH started to run into TROUBLE about then, and we both have been EARTH BOUND ever since.

The Garden Of The Gods are now OWNED by HOUSE HILL, and NOTHING goes on THERE anymore, ESPECIALLY BIG PARTIES at the BIG RED PLACE, and TEM may not be ONLINE tomorrow.

In Fact, there MAY BE only TWO YEARS left for IDEA AMERICA; the BATTLE between HOUSE BUSH, and HOUSE CLINTON; NEOPHOBES VS NEOPHILES has "officially" begun, and I... as did Gandhi, know it MUST be a NON-VIOLENT one to SUCCEED.

Senator McCain, with his STRAIGHT TALK and his COURAGE in the face of ridicule (REPEATING... "THANK GOD FOR THE DAILY SHOW!"), and Fred Thompson who has returned to what he does best,  and before he too, was corrupted by the FORCE under the Capitol Dome, have shown us that PASSIVE RESISTANCE works, even while you're LAUGHING and MAKING MONEY.

Look to HOUSE CARTER. 

Our BEST PRESIDENT (NOT DEAD YET) who proves TODAY that you can LOVE while you BUILD.
 
 

As for me, I know that REGIME CHANGE begins with your own, and I have already CHANGED MINE.
I am definitely UNDER BUDGET, and AHEAD OF SCHEDULE.
I've been told to "get my head out of the Clouds" my whole life. ABEL'S was the first time in my adult life, much less professional one, that I felt at home there.

Far from grounded, the freedom to FLY Bob gave us all has kept me ABOVE IT (by inches sometimes) ever since, and I intend to not just hit the ground running when I TOUCHDOWN, but to have already won the RACE.

I closed the FIRST ISSUE of FLYBYTE with a quote from HAL 9000: "all any conscious entity can ever hope to do...", and I HOPE that I have done his CREATOR proud with this; MY SUBMISSION as a "Conceptual Illustrator of the HUMAN CONDITION".

THANKS for letting ALL THUMBS load / LOOKING FORWARD!
 

THE GIFT IS GIVEN. The Dream Is A Dream No Longer.

T+55... FULL MOON BEAT

Done down to file size.

At one point, I thought what this was all about was challenging ABEL DOGS to PLAY w/ the CARDS online. You could download them all and overlay them the way Richard did first, and then how I DID later. FAR BETTER is "What has in fact, happened".

In googling the NET as it is now, I have left behind the WAY IT WAS, and embraced the WAY IT SHALL BE.
 
 

All before THREE MOONS have passed, and the WAR IS OVER.
 
 

Headed NORTH for THANKSGIVING AT LAST and FOR FUN (REST AREA's ALL THE WAY), I rejoice with all that KNOW that CHRISTMAS IS ALREADY HERE.
 
 

THE GIFT IS GIVEN; in spite of threats of "Terrorist Acts", BIOWAR incidents, or RANDOM CHANGE.

HOPE you liked it.

Giving IT has changed me forever, and THAT was something wonderful.
 
 

:)

Mirda / MIND PIRATES (Valhalla?)

11/17/2002.
 

T+77... STAND BACK / White Whale Written

December. Well, here IT is; TWEAKED down to the <ALT> tags... down to the filenames.
ONE PAGE whose pages; content, context, design, and DELIVERY I am, once again, soully responsible for.

BEFORE America may provoke Biblical Iraq into attacking Modern Israel.

UP, before the United States; in someone else's NAME, may commit a more heinous act than any Japanese General doing his duty ever would dream of without committing Hari-Kari for having offended the Gods by doing so.

ONLINE in time to welcome Ni Bi Ru and those who come to seek a Leader.

THAT should count for something.
 
 

Too late however, to save the Bangladeshis... Sorry George. Guess it's time to PLAY OUT.

Might even be able to help the 8.5 MILLION AMERICANS who are out of work too. 
Have till 2003 to DO THAT (piece of pie)!

But, on this; the NINTH DAY, I'll rest.
 
 
 
 
 

I remember one of my first nights off, sitting with Michael Gibson; waiting to order at the Aware Inn on Sunset across from TOWER (I know... it's not there anymore either), and bringing up what we were REALLY doing working at Rubber Table. I suggested buying the rights to "Childhood's End" as THAT would be worth working on, and that would insure we would. Gibbo just said, "why don't you just write your own?"
 
 

12/13/2002

Visual Horizons / TRIUMPH
 
 
 

T+87 / FULL MOON FIVE (CAN YOU FEEL IT?)

A word about "TAKEN"...

One of the last things I did for Bob was to almost lose the "TRIUMPH" job for him.

Hired back to design as apparently only I could, I spoke up one meeting as only I do; telling Michael Jackson that it would be wrong for him to end his Special FX video by stepping down from ABOVE like God to dispense healing balm to a circular crowd of onlookers at some remote site in a fantastic desert. 

It's not just little girls who can stop Time. 

No one in that room breathed for 30 seconds until the Man In The Mirror; to his everlasting credit took the suggestion that IT should be a SYMBOL instead, simply said in that wonderful voice of his: "You mean like a Peacock feather?"...

TUT could not have been wiser.

Plop, Plop, Fizz, Fizz has got NOTHING on THAT Moment!

Went on to have "too much fun" and left when it just wasn't fun anymore.

Gibson hired me back in 1984 to draw grids for, and attention to, an E-COLI spot.

I already had one foot in Meteor Crater and the other on that 'ol banana peel, and my Heart wasn't in it.

After THAT, I was free of Hollywood and went on to LEAD my life.

Jackson did however, show the finished "TRIUMPH" to Steven Spielberg. It had an extra 12 minutes that Bob himself had directed and added. Those 12 minutes made little sense to us then, but blow my mind today.

I had watched parts of "TAKEN", and had come to several conclusions. First that it was cancelling out the entire "RESEARCH / LECTURE" Industry that had grown up around the FACE on Mars (still there). Second, as I noticed that EVERY DETAIL was PERFECTLY realized (though overdone into the ground), I began to wonder if the sets weren't "sets" at all, and everything we were being shown was REAL, and that THAT was the true Disclosure whatever deal had been cut had been cut to bring about, for whatever, or whomevers reason.

THAT went out the window when they showed the crashed saucer boundary...
:(

BUT... aside from the ArtBell / Hoagland VINDICATION (was that GREAT, or what?!), I REALLY started to pay attention during the final scene.

Started to choke up when I saw that our scene wasn't "Our" scene any longer, and began truly losing it as the collective emotion began to build as a result of the "Aliens" alien action.

Smiled as I realized that THAT was the POINT, and the Goal all along.

Chuckled at the thought that though it was "All matted in", it was still EXACTLY what it appeared to be and the Human Race was being tapped through a simple broadcast viewed by millions for the very tears that began to appear unbidden in my all too dry for way too long eyes.

Laughed as I reached for the Kleenex as I realized that the WHOLE THING was a TRIBUTE to Robert Abel and his Son Josh, who Bob insisted on as THE CAMEO.

THAT, is ART.

Art that didn't have to be sought out. Art that found you whether you were hidden in a cave, or just out for a walk in the woods..

...or a Crater.

Win Without War
MS