This past week, we had the first-ever (and hopefully, the "last-ever") "Site Maintenance Week" here at The Solitary Life. So, what did we do, you ask?! Well, I'll tell:
I drew this little guy for my abortive attempt at forming a "skateboard club" here in Indianapolis. Of course, like so many ideas that I have, it kinda came and went in a flash before I was sidetracked by more urgent matters. In this case, "more urgent matters" was a summer tour that ended up lasting for a couple of years. That'll do a hell of a wreck on any "plans" that I might have made, real fast. Upon my return a year later, I found that Bart Kelley had already gotten the ball rolling on an old-guys' skateboard club... and, my little guy was relegated to the "art-bin scrap heap". Well, now that I'm tired of scouring Google for suitable images all the damn time, I figured it was time to raid the 'ol art-bin for some original stuff... and, voila! Some original stuff...!
The first thing that I did, was to figure out how to "digitize" my hand-drawn art, without the aid of a scanner. Why "without the aid of a scanner"? Because, we're not high-budget enough yet to be able to afford a scanner. So, I figured out that, with a bit of patience, I could merely take photos of my artwork, migrate them to a bitmap file, and colorize them in Paint. It's all about getting creative, and making do with what you've got. Kind of like skateboarding, actually...
This is how I oftentimes visualize myself, when I'm skating: Old, Fat, and Balding. That's how one of my exes, in a fit of temporary frustration, described me once... and, I guess it somehow stuck. And so, those words sometimes manifest themselves in my self-portraits. The only problem is, the self-portraits sometimes skate better than the "real-me" does. Take this guy, for example. I wish I could lock into stand-up frontside 5-0's like this one (on gnarly-ass pool coping, no less), and throw a clean pair of horns at the same time...
The other thing that we did, was to cull through all of the old posts, and add title tags to them all, for ease of cataloging, archiving, and searching. This makes The Solitary Life a bit more user-friendly, long-term... although, the short-term affects might be some broken links here and there. Note: If you've linked to The Solitary Life in the past, you may wanna check those hrefs! We do apologize, of course. On the other hand: Hopefully, the long-term affects will be way worth the short-term pain.
This was a concept drawing that I did for Concrete Wave Magazine several years back, that never got used. It's Old, Fat, and Balding again... this time, saving the planet by skating to work.
A fun factoid about this little doodle is that, if you look super closely, you might see that the coffee cup says "Gnarbucks" on it (an obvious "Starbucks" spoof). But wait, it gets even better! The dude in the middle of the logo?! That's supposed to be a caricature of David "The Gnar" Hackett, himself. I thought the whole thing was fuckin' hysterical, but I guess the dudes at Concrete Wave just didn't get the obvious pun or something.
There's a shit-ton of articles and photos coming this month, as well. This looks like it just might end up being one of the busiest months so far, and I suspect that it's only gonna keep getting busier, as The Solitary Life continues to grow. Thanks to everyone that has contributed to, or taken the time to read, The Solitary Life. We love you all.
I've always been a huge fan of Wes Humpston, and the whole Bulldog Skates deal. Of course, I'd love to draw the way he does... if I didn't insist on drawing like a fifth-grade retard or something. And, people have the audacity to give Mark Gonzales shit for his art-skills. Believe me: No matter how bad Mark's drawing can be (I think it's great, myself)... I can assure you all that mine are far, far worse than Mark's will ever be.
Speaking of the readers: We've also added the capacity to track how many unique visitors and pageviews The Solitary Life receives on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. It's a pretty detailed report that gets e-mailed to The Headquarters every so often, and it's pretty cool to see just how many readers we actually have. Although, I was kinda weirded out when the first report came through. What I suspected we got in like, a month, is actually what we get in a couple of hours or so. Oh, shit...! What in the hell have I done...?!
Hopefully, these little improvements will add up to an e-'zine that's easier to use, more fun to read, a bit more colorful, and a hell of a lot simpler to build and maintain. If not, then we'll get right back on it. The odds are on our side: We can only fail so much, before we ultimately get it right.
Thanks again for all of your support,
Bud Stratford
Head Cheesehead,
The Solitary Life
Yes: We even updated the little article footer that we use to close all of our posts with. We seriously had waaaaayyy too much time on our hands this week, and it shows.
