Worst job ever

Last weekend I was walking down by the 69th Street Pier in Bay Ridge and noticed a woman working for (I'm guessing) the city parks department. She was carrying a black trash bag picking up garbage that was under the benches, muttering to herself the whole time.

When she got to the bench I was sitting on she shot me an angry look, a look that said "You scumbag, this is what I do for a living and you suck and I hate you and I hope you die". That's how I interpreted it, anyway.

Until today, I thought that was the worst job in the world (with a close second being the p.r. person for Graig Weich).

Then I saw this listing on Gothamist's website, complete with photo, and while I don't want to spoil the surprise, I've seen the MTA workers who clean the trains at 95th Street, the final stop in Brooklyn for the R.

I'm fairly confident if that was me and I found this guy out like a light sleeping in his own shit with his pants around his ankles that I'd use him as toilet paper. Either that or I'd walk off the job.

I am never sitting down on the train again. Ever.

This is what happens when you poke the bear...

*Note: this post is author’s opinion mixed in with a shitload of fact and lots of corroboration from witnesses.

This post is just another waste of time, I know, but as I’ve discovered, one of my major personal failings is the need for the last word. I really wish I was more Zen and capable of just walking away, but I can’t. Not at the expense of letting a sociopathic bullshit artist think he's in the right.

Three weeks ago I discussed the numerous (and often hysterical) falsehoods a fellow named Graig Weich was pushing about himself.

Last week Graig must’ve come across the column, either via googling himself or by someone who tipped him off (probably this guy, who emailed me separately to thank me for explaining Graig, since, in the admin’s words:

On the one hand we could never figure out what the hell his deal was - I could never get an answer to "GRAIG - What the hell do you actually DO all day?" "How do you pay the rent?"  "12 years is a long time to only have two books..." He was so manic and "awww shucks charming" that it was hard to keep up with him topic wise, but at heart he seemed like a good enough guy and this ain't 60 Minutes so whatever. 

because twenty-four hours after I got their note, Graig had dropped an email into my inbox.

In a very short series of email exchanges (which ended with me having his email account blacklisted to avoid letting things go any further), he took issue with a couple of comments I made and challenged me to correct them:

I'm sure you won't correct the things I listed about spawn [sic] Joes class in your write up because you want to allow lies to back up ur Bs, that is just worse than what u accuse me of...

Now, Graig has proven himself to be kind of a borderline sociopath at this stage of the game, because he really and truly believes that everything he says is the truth, and disagreeing with him is just a case of 'haters gonna hate'.

I really wrestled with the idea of even posting this follow-up. This is a guy whose website advertises a quote on the main page, purported to be from the now-defunct Wizard Magazine, that reads "Remember the name Graig F. Weich, for he could be the future of creating comic books!"

....except that that quote was printed on a card which was inserted into Wizard as an ad....by Graig.

This is what I'm dealing with. That's the reality of who Graig is: pay for an ad in a magazine, then quote it as though the magazine said it.

And still, I just find that sad and pathetic, and not worth the time.

No, there's one thing driving me to do this now: His blatant exploitation of September 11th. His disgusting use of the events as a plot in his comic book to uncover alien artifcats?

Yeah, I can't let this pass. On with the show.

Based on the email he sent, there are the only two things he actually challenges as falsehoods.

He doesn’t debate lying about his role in Dark Knight Rises.

He doesn’t debate lying about his appearances on 20/20 or the Howard Stern Show.

But he has an issue with the short version of the story I presented about Joe Orlando’s class at SVA in 1994.

Let me expand a little, then, as to what happened.

Here’s my version: Joe’s class on Thursday nights didn’t start until six in the evening because he came straight from his job as creative VP at DC Comics.

He whipped the hell out of us in a never-ending attempt to make us better, more polished, more professional. Every week we had an assignment, to draw whatever he asked for (a three panel comic involving whatever he decided he wanted us to do on any given week).

For the instance in question, Joe’s directive was to draw a three panel chase sequence. Use any characters you like, superhero or not.

When we finished with the life drawing portion of the class we’d get a break, during which we’d hang our work on the wall and wait for Joe to eviscerate us.

On this particular night, we watched as Graig hung his assignment on the wall. Not three panels, mind you but three full pages. All of them in color, featuring Batman chasing the Joker down an alley.

Scott elbowed me. “Does that look familiar?”

It did, but I couldn’t place it.

“That’s copied from John Byrne. The Man of Steel mini series.”

I recognized it at that point, and it dawned on us that Graig was about to use drawings that were at best directly copied, and at worst directly traced, right out of a John Byrne comic as his assignment.

“Is that comic store next door still open?” Scott wondered.

We spent our break digging through the back issue bin of said comic store, found the third issue of Man of Steel (for just a couple of bucks!), pooled our money and bought it, then made 14x17 copies of the first three pages (Batman chasing Bull, Magpie’s henchman, down an alley) and hung them on the wall next to Graig’s work.

As Joe started looking over the work on the wall, Graig started exclaiming “That’s wrong, you guys are so wrong, that’s not cool” over and over.

Joe looked at the photocopied pages, announced that they were the most professional looking he’d seen anyone in the class do (John Byrne gets a passing grade), then looked at Graig’s mirror image work, and asked “Wait a minute, what is this?”

A chorus broke out among Scott, Bill, and myself pointing out the obvious copy job. Graig jumped to his feet and proclaimed he had done that work when he was fourteen.

Oh, well, that’s okay. Why not bring in junior high school work to show off in your fucking sophomore year of college?

Graig was pissed and called us out for ‘betraying him’ at the end of class.

Here’s how Graig remembers it:

but for the record, Joe Orlando, God rest his soul, gave me a specific assignment to pick some of my favorite art and re-created it in my own style, it was no secret as you, bill and scott thought back then.

So it’s my word against Graig’s…except he wants me to set the record straight:

At least correct these facts on your write up.

Well, I decided to go to a few people who were present that night (four of them, in fact) and asked them, without prompting, if they remembered a certain night in Joe Orlando’s class involving Graig, John Byrne, and some photocopies.

And like one of those 'where were you' moments that are frozen in time, everyone recalled this incident, if for no other reason than the freaky surrealism that it created.

Here’s what Scott remembers:

our assignments were just 3 panel strips, 3 panel strips, 3 panel strips. he was drilling us. Graig showed 3 hideous pgs. if you'll recall, graig's excuse was he did the batman/superman pgs a few yrs previous. nothing about a special assignment for a special little boy. no need to tell him what joe told him out at the elevator that day. he wouldn't believe it.

Renzo? Do you remember this night?

What I remember is he posted a page that Scott identified as being from "Man of Steel" # 2 or #3 or something
this was in joe orlando's class
we went downstairs to the comic shop that had just opened up right next door to the school, you me, bill and scott
and we bought the very issue he swiped from and put it up on the wall next to the page he had posted.

Irv? You were there, right? What do you remember?

I remember very clearly Joe's reaction after the pages were thrown out onto the floor that night. He didn't want any part of it. He didn't even want to look at the pages and have to address the issue but knew exactly what was going on. Had he given Graig any "special assignment", that would have been a good time to clear all that up and explain to everyone how Graig was something special.

Oh. Well, this isn't going anywhere close to the direction Graig claims it did. Okay. Bill? Did you have something to add?

From my recollection, I remember we all had to do this assignment. As to what the exact assignment was? Fuck if I can remember. Everyone posted their work. Graig was one of the last to post. I believe Scott was the first to notice the blatant rip off pages. After a bit of chatter between all of us Scott, I and a few others ran down to the old comic store, bought the issue, blew up the pages, and posted them next to Graig's. I remember all of us talking to joe at the end, I don't really remember what he said. 

To save Graig the embarrassment of what Joe said after class, I'm not posting those comments. More than a few of us remember a variation on his comment, if not the exact words then certainly the spirit of the statement, and I'll show compassion by leaving that out.

So: In Graig’s mind, Joe Orlando gave him one assignment and the rest of the class a different one; Graig’s response when confronted was to claim he had drawn the piece six years earlier, and Joe made no mention of the special assignment right then and there.

We’ve got four people remembering this story one way, and the guy who’s admitted to bullshitting about almost everything on his resume remembering it a different way.

Judges?

Sorry, Graig. Your claims don’t hold water.

Graig’s second bone of contention came from my description of his work as ‘poster artist in Spawn #30.’

As a refresher, here’s what I said:

So yes, there’s a double page spread in Spawn 30 by him. However…

A)   He drew that long before as a fan piece;

B)   He submitted it to Image comics because, if memory serves, at the time they were running fan art in every issue. Stuff by kids, mostly, but anyone could submit something, which was chosen either by Todd McFarlane or someone on his staff

This, then, is not professional work. You can say first work published in a comic, sure.

But ‘featured poster artist’ implies that this was work for hire. And it wasn’t. No money changed hands. I know this because we were both sophomores at the School of Visual Arts in 1994, when this whole thing went down. He showed up in class with a letter from McFarlane’s studio that his Spawn-Angela drawing had been selected to appear in an upcoming issue.

Now far be it from me to shit on someone’s ice cream cake. It’s pretty cool to get your work featured anywhere if you’re an artist.

But for fuck’s sake, that was eighteen years ago.

Graig’s response:

With the Spawn job, Yes, I got paid, it was a real job, and I was blessed enough to get a shit load of cash for it too, I think I still have that check they sent me back then.

I was Hired and Paid, it was NOT fan art though I will always be a fan-boy at heart.

Well, that clears it up, I guess I was wrong—

Wait. Hold it.

So Spawn #30 is dated April 1995. The images below (no pun intended) prove as much:

Okay. So Graig was hired to do this piece a little before it went to press and—

What’s that, you say? Graig’s shield signature also lists the date of his art? No kidding. So what’s the date on this piece in question? Surely has to be no earlier than November or December 1994 if he was hired…

Hmm.

Graig has dated HIS OWN ART February 27, 1994. So he was hired to do the job in early 1994, completed the job by the end of the February, and then it was sat on by Image for over a year.

Now it’s entirely possible that Todd McFarlane paid him for the piece. Granted, he was making money hand over fist back in the halcyon days of Image, so maybe he decided to give Graig a break and pay him to use the piece.

But it likely wasn’t commissioned. The date tells the story. McFarlane didn’t come to him in early January asking for a double page spread (and offering him a shit load of money) for something that would appear in print more than a year later. That’s just not terribly likely.

I'll tell you what, though, Graig: I'm willing to admit I am wrong if you can provide the evidence you claim to have:

I think I still have that check they sent me back then.

Ok, if you have it, post an image of it somewhere. Link to it on here. Just try not to post something photoshopped, okay?

I’m glad we were able to settle this, Graig. Now you can go back into victim mode about how wrong it is for me to call you out.

The reality is you were taught that it’s okay to bullshit at every turn, in your own words:

Look man, we're almost 40 for God sakes, and just trying to pay our bills and take care of our families, as independent artists/writers, we should be supporting each other now since the giants overshadow us little guys, truthfully.

I wish you felt the same way instead of trying to tear me down.

Yes. Let’s take the word of the guy whose moral compass directs him to bullshit and cover up when challenged, all in the name of paying the bills.

Graig, I’m not kidding. This is the end. You’ve been caught with your pants down. AGAIN. Move on and do something productive. Stop living a life of complete bullshit. Use the lessons you ignored from Klaus, Walt, Carmine, Joe, etc. and produce some comic work. Considering your supposed love of the medium, you turn out a surprisingly small amount of work.

Quit star fucking, sit down and produce. And stop pretending your extra work is something that it's not. That’d go a long way to stop yourself from being raked over the coals.

Why the hell am I even wasting my fingers typing this? It will have absolutely no impact. Again.

Cue the pigeon....

Current tallies

Eighty-three pages of script. Closing in on the last twenty or so of first draft. This is an on-the-hop mad scramble to finish an adaptation of a life story I've optioned.

Three hundred and thirty seven pages of Reboot Your Fucking Computer, the book about my fifteen years working in information technology. In the next few weeks I'm going to post some excerpts while I go through the process of literary agent hunting. More than likely I'll ebook it and put it on Amazon. Details to follow.

Both projects have been written exclusively on my iPad, the script via Celtx, the book via Pages. I'll be cleaning them up and editing on my MacBook.

Oh, and one other tally: a hundred words of email responses to my old pal Graig Weich, which was really just a waste of time since he wholeheartedly subscribes to the George Costanza life motto "it's not a lie if you really believe it".

Graig took issue with some of my 'facts' and challenged me to correct them. I'll be doing that a bit later this weekend. Wouldn't want to let my fans down, and I can now number Graig/Terri among them.

Who Watches the Weichmen?

forewarning: all of my commentary below is opinion, albeit with lots of facts mixed in. There, I'm now indemnified.

I can be a prick sometimes. I fully acknowledge and accept this.

However, my definition of prick is someone who doesn’t sit quietly while a load of bullshit is dumped at their feet and told “this is brilliance, enjoy!”. Generally, when someone is obnoxiously pushing people to believe they're the coolest cat with a heart of steel, I know enough to call them on it.

Anyway this is going to be one of those times and one of those posts of calling someone on something, so if you’re sensitive and think this qualifies as bullying…well, you’ve never met a chap by the name of Graig F. Weich.

Graig is a purported comic professional (at least according to him, though he's produced three comic books in something like twelve years) and he has a resume that’s six pages long, and most important, he’s the greatest and most versatile creator since Leonardo Da Vinci.

Now I write this post knowing full well that I’m doing several things: delaying a trip to the gym, taking an hour or so away from writing a first draft of a spec script that needs to be finished by the end of the month, and, most importantly, wasting time.

The analogy I’ve used about bringing some of the stuff that’s coming up to Graig’s attention is that it’s like playing chess against a pigeon. Yeah, I’ll dominate with a series of moves to make Kasparov jealous, but at the end of the day, what’s the point? The pigeon won’t care. He’ll just strut back and forth across the board, knocking over chess pieces and taking shits randomly.

All of this is known and acknowledged, but I can’t keep my mouth shut on this. Sorry.

I met Graig in college. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t be writing this up right now because I would know fuck-all about him and wouldn’t give a shit. He really isn't worth the time....and yet somehow I'm writing this. Go figure.

Graig was the consummate fanboy, more concerned with getting autographs from some of our more famous teachers than, say, absorbing lessons on improving his work.

This is the guy who presented Joe Orlando, at the time a fucking senior VP at DC Comics, with three pages of comic art he plagiarized from John Byrne’s Man of Steel mini-series (the issue where Batman chases the thug down an alley; Graig claimed it wasn’t plagiarism since he changed the thug, Bull, into the Joker) and pitched a fit when he was exposed.

Let’s get this one out of the way, since it’s his biggest claim to fame.

On varying websites (his own and others where he posts with a host of pseudonyms), you’ll see a variation of:

Graig Weich was the featured poster artist for Todd Mcfarlane's Spawn 

 So yes, there’s a double page spread in Spawn 30 by him. However…

A)   He drew that long before as a fan piece;

B)   He submitted it to Image comics because, if memory serves, at the time they were running fan art in every issue. Stuff by kids, mostly, but anyone could submit something, which was chosen either by Todd McFarlane or someone on his staff

This, then, is not professional work. You can say first work published in a comic, sure.

But ‘featured poster artist’ implies that this was work for hire. And it wasn’t. No money changed hands. I know this because we were both sophomores at the School of Visual Arts in 1994, when this whole thing went down. He showed up in class with a letter from McFarlane’s studio that his Spawn-Angela drawing had been selected to appear in an upcoming issue.

Now far be it from me to shit on someone’s ice cream cake. It’s pretty cool to get your work featured anywhere if you’re an artist.

But for fuck’s sake, that was eighteen years ago.

That can’t really be the peak of his life, right? It’s like Danny Bonaduce running around going “I WAS ON THE MOTHERFUCKING PARTRIDGE FAMILY” forty years later, and when asked what he’s done since, mumbles something about reality television and every drug known to man.

So what’s Graig done since? Well, I know he’s been pushing a couple of comics initiatives since at least 2002 (and produced a grand total of two comics, kind of sad for a guy who loves the medium so much), including a sickening twist that the villains in his Civilian Justice destroyed the World Trade Center in an effort to recover an ancient artifact.

Take a minute and let that sink in. A year after September 11^th, this guy uses the building’s destruction as a comic book plot involving aliens and David Prowse.

Fuck. This. Shit. I need a minute here.

All right. Deep breath. Well. Let’s just catch up on what Graig has been up to in the last ten years by taking a look at his resume.

Holy shit this thing is long.

Ah, okay. I see. Part of the problem is that he considers an appearance on a television show ‘employment’.

Calling in to the Howard Stern show and proclaiming “I drew something that was in Spawn!” is nice, but it’s not employment. (What I wanna know is why does the video only have his end of the conversation and not Howard’s response? Did he get laughed at and hung up on?)

Nine times out of nine, it seems the only objective Graig has is to get someone famous to say his name while being recorded, at which point it’s off to Final Cut Pro to make it look like something important, rather than a chance encounter.

There’s also listed on the resume this tidbit:

Batman: Forever, the Movie

Now I remember this bit from our first month back for senior year. He hung this piece of art in the media rooms and called himself the ‘official poster artist for Batman Forever’, which led to this conversation between him and I outside of our portfolio class:

Me: Did Warner Brothers hire you to do that?

Graig: I drew the poster, yeah.

Me: But did Warner Brothers hire you? They paid you?

Graig: What does that matter?

Me: Because you’re lying. You’re not the official poster artist of the movie if they didn’t pay you for it. I’m sure their legal department would like to know you’re passing yourself off as such….

So now, he modified it to as the more likely bit of truth:

The United Artist movie theater in Times Square hired me to do Promotional BatMan Artwork

Well, still really dubious, and unless he’s got tax returns or receipts from them to prove the claim, probably bullshit.

Hmmm. Now here’s something that shows up both on his resume and on his bio page:

Our CEO, Graig F. Weich of Beyond Comics was interviewed on 20/20 ABC News MTV & FOX for his New SuperHeroes: "Ravedactyl" (coming soon) & “Code Name: Justice" (formally Civilian Justice)

Fact check time:

So was he really interviewed by 20/20? Yes.

But was it in reference to his ‘new SuperHeroes’?

According to the accompanying story on ABC’s 20/20 website regarding this episode in particular….not so much.

The episode title was "Food: Myths, Lies and Straight Talk”

Hmmm…that sounds suspiciously non-comics related.

"20/20" picked a random couple and asked if they'd ever had a bad experience in a restaurant or thought they'd ever gotten food poisoning. Their answer? Yes.

"I had probably the worst 48 hours of food poisoning in my life, to the point where I thought it was over. I said, 'That's it. My life is officially going to end any moment now,' " said Graig Weich.

Despite the horrible experience, Weich seemed resigned to the thought that there's a food-poisoning threat lurking in all restaurants. "The truth of the matter is, is that no matter how nice a restaurant is, you don't know what's going on in the kitchen," he said.

Uh oh. That’s not comic-related at all. But let’s keep reading.

But what about our own kitchens? Nealon agreed to look at Weich and his girlfriend, Liga's, kitchen.

The peanut brittle they had left out was not a good idea. It's an invitation to bugs, Nealon said. He suggests putting food in a vermin-proof container after it's been removed from its original packaging.

He also noticed Weich's microwave oven smelled a little funky. "When in doubt, throw it out," Nealon advises.

Kitchen sponges, it turns out, are the No. 1 cause of food poisoning in the home.

Watching the full video and interview, it’s more about the mess in his kitchen than his ‘new SuperHeroes’. Actually, it’s not about them at all. Just a bit of advice on keeping a clean kitchen.

Back in February, New York 1 news stopped me as I passed the World Trade Center site to ask me about problems the leasing agency was having getting tenants to commit to the new Freedom Tower. For the rest of the morning my face would pop up every twenty minutes or so answering the questions asked. I didn’t realize that qualified as work experience. I’ll update my resume.

And from the same page:

Weich’s comic goes to #1!

What in the ever lovin’ fuck does that even mean? Number one what? I guess it’s easy to make bold claims when you keep it vague and don’t need to worry about backing it up.

But hold on, we have some updated news!!!

"Graig Weich gets cast in the Dark Knight Rises 3rd Batman film!!!"

This is the full cast listing for The Dark Knight Rises on IMDB. Go take a look and let me know when you find the name ‘Graig Weich’. I’ll be here when you get back.

Back? So soon?

Okay, how’d you do?

What?? There’s no listing for him? That’s not possible, it says “cast in the Dark Knight Rises”. A casting means his agent got him a part, which would lead to a credit in the film.

It can’t be a case of being cast as an extra, one of the hundreds involved in the cops versus criminals clash on Wall Street at the end and it’s being played up as something that it isn’t. I don’t believe it. Nobody would do that—

Wait, his resume says “Spider-Man 1 and 3: Appearing in the feature film by Columbia-Sony Pictures making a cameo principal-lead speaking role”?

Spider-Man the Sam Raimi movie?

Well, okay….there he is in the crowd when Uncle Ben is found dying outside the New York Public Library….but he doesn’t say anything. There’s no speaking role. And never mind the fact that you can’t be both a ‘cameo’ and a principal-lead speaking role’.

Hugh Jackman was a principal-lead in all three X-Men movies. He had a two word cameo in X-Men: First Class. There’s a difference.

And looking at the credits on IMDB again….nope, no sign of his name.

This can’t be yet another case of being an extra and pushing it as something more, can it?

I mean, that’s just dishonest. Unethical. Would Superman lie like this? More importantly....What Would Batman Do?

Hey, look, he appeared on Buried Treasure and was crushed to learn that the copies of comics he owns (including Amazing Fantasy 15, the first appearance of Spider-Man, Incredible Hulk 1, etc) are not worth the hundreds of thousands of dollars he thought they would be because they’re not in great condition. Wait, he pitched a fit when he found out that a Max Fleischer Superman animation cel would only get him $58,000 (rather than the hundreds of thousands he expected) and cut the video to make it look like there was a ‘final offer’ of one hundred thousand dollars? Really?

Graig can manipulate the video all he likes (including overlaying an image of one of his characters over his wife during the Buried Treasure segment, but also digitally adding scenes of Kevin Smith nodding his head during the Comic Book men segment), but the original video tells the truth. Kevin Smith wasn’t in the shop, and his wife was on the show when it aired. And I'm going out on a limb and guessing he had some variation of a forgery when he proclaimed he was offered $100K by Metropolis Collectibles for the Superman cel.

What’s really great, and what, to me, caps his hypocritical bullshit off with a smile, is the fact that his animation cel, the Max Fleischer animation cel he took forever to track down (and serious kudos to him for doing that) and obtain, the thing that inspired him to go into comics….is something he was willing to go try selling to Nic Cage for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Once he realizes that avenue is closed and he’s not going to get more than fifty-eight grand, well, suddenly it’s a sentimental thing and he can’t part with it.

Even better, he shows up on Comic Book Men a few weeks later, carrying both the 'sentimental animation cel' and an offer made by Metropolis Collectibles, trying to sell it to Jay Mewes' shop.

Just how sentimental is this damned thing, anyway?

The odd thing is that Liga (his wife, also known as rectangular piece of art covering her up when he’s asking if he should sell his Superman cel) says flat out at the start of the Buried Treasure episode they need money to move into a bigger place. He probably convinced her they could retire on what they sold his collection of stuff for beforehand.

But hey, if you want help out a guy who’s down on his luck, buy a signed copy (or more than ten, anyway) of Gekido versus Code Name Justice (even though it sold out at San Diego Comic Con….wait, what? It sold out but there are more than ten copies….my head hurts), by going here. Just so long as you don’t mind spending eight bucks on the comic and twice that on shipping (what the ever loving fuck? How is it being shipped?).

Then again, I can ask what kind of schizophrenia is involved when the seller (rdactyl1, which is clearly Graig) is writing in the comments

Hi!

I am selling my friend's Art work for him, Here is what he said:

Tip for you, Graig: use a different selling alias. Something not identifiable with one of your characters. Gives you a bit more credibility.

Look, I’m a writer. I deal with people for whom bullshit flows freely. I was born in Brooklyn. I grew up with bullshit artists. I can spot it a mile away.

Telling an interviewer

I began working out overtime; I lost 24 pounds for the role actually

when you’re an extra?

Yeah, I don’t think so.

I feel genuinely bad for some of these guys that interview him that don’t realize they’re being spun.

If he’d come out proclaiming “Hey, this is so cool, I was an extra in Spider-Man and Dark Knight Rises, and I made it into the final cut”, sure, that is definitely cool.

Shit, I was an extra in an ultra low budget direct-to-DVD flick called Quarter Life Crisis and I’m not pitching it as anything other than sixteen seconds of screen time.

Nor am I carrying on about being a ‘featured lead actor’ in a documentary on the New York Rangers winning the ’94 Stanley Cup because yeah it’s kind of cool, but at the end of the day it’s just a cool little thing. It’s not the end-all be-all.

And I'm sure as shit not editing these videos together and manipulating entertainment news videos to portray myself as the lead in a movie where I have five seconds of screen time.

But maybe that’s the problem. When your life is one big tall tale pile of bullshit stories about non-disclosure contracts and not-so-skillfully avoiding an honest answer to a question, like this:

GPX: I also hear that filming is taking place all over the world. How far did you have to travel for these parts?

GW: A lot of people did have to travel in but since I am a 5th generation native New Yorker, I thought I didn't hace to travel to far

You didn’t travel far because you were an extra called for a shoot in New York. Instead of saying that, it’s got to be a big production to protect the lie. Ugh.

Maybe this is really as good as life gets for him. Maybe all of the delusions, all of the regressed mentality stuff have made something snap.  

Oh well. Enough of this. The pigeon is in checkmate. I eagerly await his counter move* while I go off and have a life.

cooo cooo cooo <knock over bishop to rooks three, plop plop plop>

* Many years ago, in the web 1.0 days, I posted a few less-than-flattering stories about Graig from our days in college. A year later, I got a cease and desist letter demanding the comments be removed. I was planning on fighting it until the site owner told me he was planning on closing the site down anyway due to lack of traffic, so I let it go.

Just a heads up, Graig: this is never coming down. Ever.

Best fucking advice I've seen all year

Taken from a thread on reddit:

I make sure to start every day as a producer, not a consumer.

When you get up, you may start with a good routine like showering and eating, but as soon as you find yourself with some free time you probably get that urge to check Reddit, open that game you were playing, see what you're missing on Facebook, etc.

Put all of this off until "later". Start your first free moments of the day with thoughts of what you really want to do; those long-term things you're working on, or even the basic stuff you need to do today, like cooking, getting ready for exercise, etc.

This keeps you from falling into the needy consumer mindset. That mindset where you find yourself endlessly surfing Reddit, Facebook, etc. trying to fill a void in yourself, trying to find out what you're missing, but never feeling satisfied.

When you've started your day with doing awesome (not necessarily difficult) things for yourself, these distractions start to feel like a waste of time. You check Facebook just to make sure you're not missing anything important directed at you, but scrolling down and reading random stuff in your feed feels like stepping out into the Disneyland parking lot to listen to what's playing on the car radio - a complete waste of time compared to what you're really doing today.

It sounds subtle, but these are the only days where I find myself getting anything done. I either start my day like this and feel normal and productive, or I look up and realize it's early evening, I haven't accomplished anything and I can't bring myself to focus no matter how hard I want to.