Nah. I’ve just been working.

One of the things I’ve been working on is an article in this week’s Vegas Seven about the relative success of local comic book shops, especially in the face of our struggling economy. I think it turned out pretty well, and there’s a lovely picture of Ralph Mathieu inside the new location of Alternate Reality Comics accompanying it, so you should go read it.

The other things I’ve been working on … well, it’s almost tiring to think about it. I mean, my eyelids are even sagging as I type this. Let’s go to list form:

• Playing shows again with As Yet Unbroken. We went from no gigs for nine months (while we shifted membership) to five gigs in two months. And we’re in the process of recording a proper EP, something that takes a lot longer than expected when all of us have day jobs/lives/vacations/side projects/health crises/potty breaks. But it’s getting done. I’d check out the AYU website for more info on upcoming events and whatnot.
• Making art. I mean, aside from comics (which we’ll talk about in a minute). For whatever reason, people becoming aware (or being reminded) of my semi-ability to draw has led me to be invited to group art shows. There was that LVSK8 show earlier in the summer for which I painted a terrible piece, and now I’m coming back again with an original creation for a zombie-themed show at Blackbird Studios (formerly Place Gallery) in October. I’m still not quite done with it, and the show is being hung next week, so I kinda need to get on that. But it’ll be sweet when it’s done. I hope. I’ll also be at First Friday with my own Outdoor Exhibition Space next week (Oct. 1), showing original art from Tales from the Boneyard, and promoting the Vegas Valley Comic Book Festival. Speaking of which …
• I’ve been on the planning committee for the aforementioned Comic Book Festival for the last two years, but this year, my involvement has been amped up by volunteering to publish, edit and contribute to Tales from the Boneyard, an anthology of local creators to benefit the Festival’s benefactor, the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District. I know I’ve mentioned it here before, but let me just say that it is turning out way more awesome than I ever could have expected. But don’t take my word for it, see for yourself.
• Oh, comics, right. Well, in addition to the Boneyard book, there’s a fourth issue of The Utopian and a third issue of Omega Comics Presents both coming out in the next few months, and rumor has it you can go ahead and pre-order them at the Pop! Goes the Icon website right now. I’ve got a few other things up my sleeve, but mainly, once these two issues and the Boneyard anthology are out the gate, it’s mini-hiatus time for the Peej, as I recover from what feels like a six-month marathon. You know, before I start another one.

That’s pretty much it. I’ve also been trying to find time to work on a major redesign of this website that would take the focus off this blog and put it on the work itself (a portfolio, I suppose), but uh yeah right. In the meantime, thanks for reading and bless your face.*

*Sorry, Toby.

Oh hey you guys, good news: The economic crisis is over. Back to work, everyone!

(More Moments of Zen here.)

Just. Wow.

On the plus side, it looks like a beautiful Las Vegas sunset!

Just. Wow.

On the plus side, it looks like a beautiful Las Vegas sunset!

I’ll have an awesome, senses-shattering post about stuff that doesn’t matter later.

I’ll have an awesome, senses-shattering post about stuff that doesn’t matter later.

I guess they've been short-Circuited, huh? Ha, I know, I am genius.

By now, you should be well aware of Circuit City’s pending complete and total shutdown in these fine United States of America (for some reason, the company’s Canadian operations are staying open, for now). That’s 30,000 people about to lose their jobs in 567 U.S. branches of the 60-year-old electronics retailer. Almost immediately after officially announcing the closures, the stores began running liquidation sales. And not surprisingly, the allegedly struggling American consumers flocked to Circuit City to get their grubby hands on what had to be fire sale deals.

But the deals suck. I went on the Saturday after the liquidation announcement to the location at Sahara Avenue and Decatur Boulevard. Sure enough, the store was probably busier than it had been in years. However, after perusing the aisles for things I really didn’t need (I came looking for a Wacom Intuos graphic tablet, y’know, just in case), it occurred to me Circuit City’s prices weren’t very competitive. Even with 10 percent overall and slightly varying discounts in different departments, it seems as though all these shoppers would have been better off going to Wal-Mart or Target or even Best Buy. When you couple high prices with what I’ve read about increasingly bad/sparse customer service over the years, well, it’s no wonder that the venerable retailer found itself in big financial trouble. I mean, you don’t see Best Buy on the bankruptcy block, do you?

I went to a different location this week, figuring it’s been another week, maybe the liquidation prices are dropping. Nope. There were some killer deals on open box items, but there are always open box bargains in electronics stores. Maybe it’s good that the company’s liquidators aren’t shoving items out the door too quickly. After all, the sooner the stores sell out their inventory, the sooner they shutter the doors and Circuit City employees find themselves out on the street. Is it any surprise that Circuit City employees wear red shirts?

"Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen."

But I digress. Yes, Gov. Gibbons’ proposed budget for Nevada cuts an already-struggling state to the bone. His short-sightedness most strikingly pulls the rug out from under public education, a proposal that Clark County School District Superintendent Walt Rulffes calls “painfully regressive and destructive to the system we have been struggling to improve for years.”

The budget hasn’t even passed muster with the state legislature yet and already schools are on the verge of closing. This further punctuates Nevada’s bottom-of-the-list standing in the national education rankings as well as regional assessments.

However, the blame cannot be entirely laid at Gibbons’ feet. Or even at the feet of the people who voted him into office, likely the same schmucks who thought re-electing Dubya was a good idea. No, this is just the latest painful evidence of a state whose elected officials, citizens and business leaders still think is a maverick frontier state in which the best policy is “every man for himself.”

This is a state that has said “no” to a state lottery to  support education even as it continues to mine the pockets of a struggling gaming industry, which lawmakers “protect” by maintaining the lottery ban.

This is a state that entices businesses to move to Nevada by offering unreasonably low taxes, thereby increasing the number of people our state has to support without increasing funds into the state, allowing these businesses to send their profits back to wherever they come from. And that lack of a diversified tax base, that dependence on gaming revenues, has brought us here, to a crippling state budget deficit.

Listen up, backwards-thinking Nevadans who snub every movement to increase our state’s revenue and possibly secure our long-term future: It’s time to grow up. It’s time stop short-sighted thinking and selfishness. If you call 911, you expect an answer. If your home is on fire, you expect the fire department to show up. You want your children to have a school to go to every morning, maybe even one that doesn’t shove them into an overcrowded classroom with an underpaid teacher who is dead tired from her second job slinging cocktails. You want clean streets, green parks and free parking. Guess what? Someone has to pay for it. You. Me. Your boss. The guy who owns the 7-Eleven down the street. Gary Loveman. Everyone. We take care of each other, we make sure we have working schools, hospitals and roads — maybe even better than “working,” perhaps one day “excellent.”

If you live in Nevada and give a damn about its future, its children or, hell, even yourself, tell the governor and, more importantly, your state senate and assembly representatives that you will not stand for budget cuts and outmoded tax structures that will inevitably make your home unlivable. Here’s how:

• Contact Gov. Gibbons
• Find your state legislator
• Write a letter to the editor of Las Vegas Review-Journal, Las Vegas Sun or Reno Gazette-Journal

It doesn’t matter where you claim political allegiances. It’s time to follow the example of the national political climate: Partisanship is dead. We need to work together for what’s best for our cities, state, country and future. We need to make sure we’re heard, and yes, I’m sorry to report, put our money where our mouths are. Let’s prove that Nevadans will not go quietly into the night.

Oops, we take that back: It was your store, if you live near Tropicana and Eastern avenues or Lake Mead and Jones boulevards. Because those locations of the grocery store chain are scheduled to close on Feb. 19, according to Las Vegas Now.

And their sister Lucky stores aren’t, well, living up to their name either, because the following four locations are also shutting down on that date:

• 4801 W. Spring Mountain Rd.
• 2021 E. Lake Mead Blvd.
• 2400 E. Bonanza Rd.
• 1324 Craig Rd.

Hey, did anyone else notice all of these locations are in lower income neighborhoods and/or minority-majority areas? And who says institutional racism or class warfare are things of the past?

But hey, at least Las Vegas’ oldest predominantly Black neighborhood isn’t being walled in and cut off from downtown or anything, right?

It is? Oops.

Yes sir, we are living in a golden era of equality and opportunity for all.

Oops, we take that back: It was your store, if you live near Tropicana and Eastern avenues or Lake Mead and Jones boulevards. Because those locations of the grocery store chain are scheduled to close on Feb. 19, according to Las Vegas Now.

And their sister Lucky stores aren’t, well, living up to their name either, because the following four locations are also shutting down on that date:

• 4801 W. Spring Mountain Rd.
• 2021 E. Lake Mead Blvd.
• 2400 E. Bonanza Rd.
• 1324 Craig Rd.

Hey, did anyone else notice all of these locations are in lower income neighborhoods and/or minority-majority areas? And who says institutional racism or class warfare are things of the past?

But hey, at least Las Vegas’ oldest predominantly Black neighborhood isn’t being walled in and cut off from downtown or anything, right?

It is? Oops.

Yes sir, we are living in a golden era of equality and opportunity for all.