Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Men And Cats

I'm Jewish and not really doing anything right now, but Merry Christmas. I don't think I've ever posted about this: Here's an entry about me on Men and Cats from two and a half years ago. My friend Hannah submitted me.

Man, I was so much smaller back then, a measly 190 pounds at six feet. Now I'm 215 and I like being this dense and heavy. I just wish my old suits would fit.

Me hunched over petting a projects cat on Staten Island.

New post about inking and coloring cartoons to come soon.

Monday, December 10, 2012

Politico Writer Interviews Me, References A Couple Of My Political Domain Names In Article That He Didn't Use Me For


A few days ago, a guy named Steve Friess who writes for Politico called me to interview me for an article. The cool thing was that he didn't do this because of one of my parody sites, or the "legitimate rape" thing, or anything I've done that's gotten press attention. He was doing a piece about political domain name squatting for 2016 and saw through a "whois" search that I own around 100 domains through several pseudonyms. So that was kind of cool, the idea of being newsworthy for multiple, separate things this year.

Unfortunately he didn't mention me in the article. He used some of the stuff I told him (as well as the Seinfeld-referencing title of the article, possibly), but he mentioned a bunch of other squatters instead. I think my narrative of it being tied in with autograph dealing, and parody websites, and Intrade for me didn't fit his article. I also talked about how people just typing in urls will become less and less common and political domain squatting will mostly die and what remains will have to be about search ranks eventually, like my Santorum site. And his article was already long enough, I guess. But he did lead the article off with one of my domains! ClintonCuomo.com. 

Here's an unrelated political cartoon I made an edit to, to break up the text in this post. In the original one, disdainful Obama is not farting onto Romney's face.


It's scary how many good Democrat domain names I have, particularly Clinton. I have many good ones that start with her name. I like to imagine selling a domain to a Democratic campaign and then donating the money back to it. I don't know if I could keep that money. It's a lot less morally ambiguous to take money from Republicans that they would have spent on other campaign stuff, and thus hurting the Republican Party. I don't want to do that to the Democrats. I just couldn't ignore these domains and let somebody else scoop them up. Maybe I'll rationalize it by saying the Democratic Party is too conservative or something, but that sounds like bullshit. 

The picture drawn by Politico's resident cartoonist, who won a Pulitzer recently, includes a couple of my domains too! That's kind of neat. Also, the writer of the article did tell me afterward that he's going to revisit the topic in more depth and will keep me in mind.


Thursday, November 29, 2012

What I Do When I Have Insomnia While In Law School

This is what I do when I have insomnia. I walk to the law school after midnight and draw huge cartoons on the whiteboards for the morning classes to see.


Wheels within wheels, man.


Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Notes From Wisconsin

I left my apartment at 4:45 AM on Election Day to watch polls in rural Wisconsin--specifically Mt. Pleasant in Racine County--for prevent voter suppression, getting back to my apartment around 10:45 PM. It was fun. The Romney people who were there were very friendly and we got along very well; same with the poll workers. Even the woman there for the Tea Party (they never actually write their affiliation on the registry; they'd all been instructed to call themselves "concerned citizens") was pretty nice. We all ate a lot of unhealthy food. I took notes about suspicious people while I was there. Here they are:



Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Legal Advice (Rejection Letter)

God, I'm sick of getting rejection letters.

Tue, Oct 16, 2012 at 9:11 AM 

Dear Mr. Green: 

Thank you for sending your resume. Despite your impressive qualifications, I regret to advise you that we are unable to offer you a summer associate position. We appreciate your interest in our firm and wish you success in your legal career. 

Very truly yours, 
Redacted 

Tue, Oct 16, 2012 at 9:18 AM

Redacted, 

Thank you for the advice. I will take it under consideration. 

Sincerely, 
Jeremy Peter Green

Sunday, September 30, 2012

Paul Ryan Accidentally Attacks Torture In A Statement About His Tax Plan

In an interview with Fox News's Chris Wallace, after Wallace brings up the Obama campaign's claim that the Ryan/Romney tax plan will cost five trillion dollars, Paul Ryan says, "Look, this just goes to show: If you torture statistics enough, they'll confess to what you want them to confess." He goes on to refuse to answer Chris Wallace's request for actual math to show how his plan can possibly be "revenue neutral."

This statement is significant because the metaphor Ryan uses actually harms the Republican case for legalizing torturous interrogation tactics like waterboarding. According to him, the Obama campaign waterboarded Ryan's tax plan's numbers until it gave harmful results.


Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Time To Write An Article About Singer-Songwriter Emily Earle Before Everybody Else Does


Next week, a young musician named Emily Earle will be on NBC performing her blind audition for The Voice and she will probably get through to the next round. I first saw her perform in Manhattan during my 1L spring break after dragging my girlfriend to a bar somewhere around Avenue B. I don't remember why I wanted to go to this bar so badly, but it wasn't because of Emily Earle because I didn't know who she was or that she would be performing there.

Anyway, she was very endearing and she has a good voice. Her drummer/back-up vocalist was very good at his role too and it's a shame that she had to leave her backing band behind. I talked to them after the performance and they told me she was leaving for Nashville the next day to try to make it down there. I think she has a good shot because of her talent and because she has a charm that will carry over to television very well. Plus one of her bandmates told me that her uncle is accomplished country musician and producer Steve Earle, so Emily's pretty set.

Here's her most popular Youtube video right now: 


Watch for her on The Voice next week.

Update: Well, she made it through. Here's her interview right after her blind audition: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xtpaob_the-voice-after-the-blind-audition-emily-earle_shortfilms



Friday, September 7, 2012

Failed Moodstring Design Attempt #1

Click to enlarge.


This was going to be on the "splash page" for the social networking/self-improvement/data collection site I'm working on, meaning people who haven't registered or logged in would see it when they visited the site. Yeah, I don't know, it hasn't gotten positive responses.

I had the lines continuing throughout the three images, to show how all three things will interact on the site, and a lot of repeating colors. The red, yellow, and green are important because those will be used to represent moods on the site. The map picture is what I think the map overlay feature will look like on the site, where you'll be able to see the moods of different countries at whatever time and date you want.

I guess I need to go more modern. I've been wanting to use that baby picture in something for two years now. I took it at the Glenn Beck rally (obviously I wasn't attending as a supporter).

Maybe I'll go for a more hand-drawn look. The site will be full of cartoons anyway. I could make a cartoon background instead of trying to look like every other major social network and start-up website.

Small update on the "legitimate rape" viral definition thing. In addition to all the other news sources that have used it, a Mother Jones article about men defining rape closed with my fake definition. The article has about 2000 tweets and 2000 Facebook likes, which indicates that it was read by hundreds of thousands of people. Very glad to be part of the national conversation about rape, as long as my satirical definition doesn't start getting taken seriously by conservatives.



Thursday, August 30, 2012

My Literary Criticism Of Atlas Shrugged Got Published In Extremely Prestigious News Blog The Huffington Post


I'm on a roll. My Quora answer got popular enough (125 votes up so far) that it came to the attention of Quora's publishing board. They then posted it on Quora's Huffington Post blog.

The post is an apolitical criticism of Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, ripping it apart for being written so badly. Hopefully you'll find it entertaining.

In other news, please give me a job for next summer, seriously.

More cartoons to come soon. I bought a new drawing tablet, as well as hand-drawn animation supplies including animation paper and a ruler for my light box. I'm going to try to make some entertaining cartoons using a combination of these two animation methods. Sort of a cross between Don Hertzfeldt and Shmorky. I love the work of both of these artists.

Saturday, August 25, 2012

One Of The Fun Things About Having Something Go Viral


Edit/Update: My definition was also posted on The Daily Beast's tumblr, and tweeted by a few legitimate political reporters. The Washington Post printing is still the coolest mention though.

Looking through the tweets about something you made is a lot of fun, especially when new ones keep coming. According to Twitter's share button programming, my Urban Dictionary definition has been linked to on Twitter 183 times. And that's just the direct links, of course. I like seeing what they have to say about it, as shown in these two links: https://twitter.com/#!/search/realtime/http%3A%2F%2Fwww.urbandictionary.com%2Fdefine.php%3Fterm%3DLegitimate%2520Rape%26defid%3D6722495
and
https://twitter.com/#!/search/legitimate%20rape%20urban.

The Urban Dictionary direct link also has thousands of Facebook likes. That's around ten times as many as I ever got for Santorum-2012.com and Gingrich-2012.net (directly). And about 800 Facebook shares, which is hard to wrap my head around. But Santorum 2012's Twitter mentions and Buzzfeed reactions were probably the most fun to look through.




Friday, August 24, 2012

OCI Is Really Tiring And Here I'll Show You How

Here's a pre-enactment of all my interviews at Northwestern Law's On-Campus Interviews (OCI) that I cut from an old episode of Nickelodeon Arcade:




And here's a quick sketch I did of myself:



Wednesday, August 22, 2012

The Washington Post Printed My Definition Of "Legitimate Rape"

I feel honored. I'm a real part of this national scandal now. This was actually printed in the physical version of the Post, as well as online.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/rep-akins-comments-just-the-latest-attempt-to-define-rape--and-women/2012/08/21/de8151a0-ebca-11e1-a80b-9f898562d010_story.html

My definition has also been used in the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Arizona Daily Star, and a few other news sources.

Monday, August 20, 2012

The Definition Of "Legitimate Rape" I Made Up Has Gone Viral

9/12/2012 Update: I'm going to turn this post into a catch-all post for places this definition has been used.

I submitted an entry for "legitimate rape" last night on Urban Dictionary and it was their Urban Word of the Day today. About 4000 thumbs up so far, and many dozens of tweets linking to that definition. Urban Dictionary's first of two Facebook status posts that link to the entry has over 2000 likes and hundreds of comments. About 800 people have shared UD's two status updates about my definition.

I did this in reference to Rep. Todd Akin's recent remarks, of course.

I'm now the leading authority on Legitimate Rape. How do I develop this into a legal paper?

Update: Popular legal culture blog Above the Law did a little profile of me because of this. They even suggest that people hire me. Seriously, please hire me.

Update 2: Mentioned in the Washington Post! Not bad!

Update 3: My definition has now been used in a few other news sources. A Mother Jones article about the history of men defining rape even closes with my definition. This article has been tweeted about almost 2000 times and liked on Facebook 2400 times. These numbers indicate that hundreds of thousands of people have read this article, which is very cool. Thousands of years of men defining rape, and now I'm the latest! That kind of makes me uncomfortable, but as long as Republicans don't start actually adopting my definition, I'm proud that it caught on. The hundreds of posts on various forums about my definition are fun for me to read too. It's cool to think about thousands of people, which is just a portion of the hundreds of thousands of people who've read my definition, choosing to "like" something I wrote.

I'm part of the zeitgeist now. Decades from now, when people read about this scandal as a minor historical episode, my definition will be mentioned as one of the major cultural responses. I'm glad that I've made this revealing episode for the Republican Party that much more memorable and I hope it keeps biting them.

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Recent Doodles

Boy Who Can't Comprehend Things

Try not to get overwhelmed. I know there's a lot of stuff in this update. But read everything! I'm debating separating each character into its own cropped image-with-caption in a later post so that this is easier to take in.

The pencil I used was pretty crummy. The photos were taken with my cell phone as usual.

Upper left: Bear
Lower right: Stern Bear


Condescending Monkey

Clockwise from upper left: 1. Guy Who Just Realized MTV Reality Show "Bully Beatdown" Is Completely Scripted 2.  Baby Who Is Prematurely Learning That She Lives In An Unjust World 3. Depressing Guy Who Languishes In The Corner Cubicle And Is Given No Substantial Work By Employer Until He Dies 4. Guy Whose Eyes Are Just A Little More Intense By Default Than Is Socially Acceptable 5. Terrifying Specter Of Your Disappointed Ancestors 6. Guy Deciding Whether Or Not He Should Run To Get His Metro Train 7. Somebody's Stupid Uncle

Clockwise from left: 1. Saucy Robot Who Is Understood By The Other Characters In The Movie But Not The Audience 2. Determined Pellet-Shaped Candy Mascot 3. Guy Having An Epiphany About Something In His Cubicle 4. Mountain Lion Who Can See When He Is Going To Die

First row: 1. Unfinished 2. Tiny Genial Robot Who Is The Life Of The Party
Second row: 3. Person Who Is Surprised When Somebody Tells Him His Ears Are Big 4.  Creepy Temp With Receding Chin Among Other Problems 5. Kid Who Gets Bullied Frequently And Experts Don't Understand Why 6. Guy Who Would Be Wearing A Leisure Suit If This Were The 1970s
Third row: 7. Unfinished 8. Man Whose Windswept Combover Only Temporarily Distracts People From His Grossly Asymmetrical Eyes
Fourth row: 9. Cat You Feel Guilty About Neglecting 10. Man Waking Up From Brain Surgery Slightly Stupider Than Before 11. Guy Who Believes In Gay Marriage In Theory But Is Still Perceptibly Uncomfortable Around Homosexuals
Clockwise from top: 1. Quadrapus 2. Adorable Kitten Who Idolizes Quadrapus 3. Intelligent Dog With Stupid Face 4. Boy 5. A spaceship 6. Neopolitan Man
And here are a couple extras below. Click the thumbnails to see the full images if you want.



Flying back to Chicago tomorrow for law school. It's going to be really nice to be back home, which is what I consider Chicago now.


Sunday, July 22, 2012

Monday, July 16, 2012

Will Romney Pick Pawlenty for VP? I'm Hoping So Because Of A Couple Domains I Own

Still shot from a campaign video featuring Tim Pawlenty, me, and a Black Person at CPAC 2011.
News sources are saying that there's a decent chance that Romney will pick Tim Pawlenty to be his VP candidate. While I was never able to get my hands on RomneyPawlenty.com, I did buy RomneyPALenty.com and RomneyPawlenty.net roughly two years ago.

Plus I was briefly in a Pawlenty campaign video last year! 

Unfortunately I don't think he's going to pick Pawlenty. Romney is the clear underdog and needs several lucky breaks to beat Obama this year. Even if the economy tanks, the Republicans have left their destructive fingerprints on so many programs in the last couple years that I don't think that will sway things toward Romney.

Pawlenty is a "safe" choice, which means he has very little upside. While it's possible that Romney will be so deterred by McCain's choice of Palin that he'll want to avoid any possible loose cannons, I don't think he's going to choose such a boring candidate. If he's going to pick a boring candidate, he might as well pick one from a crucial swing state, like Bob McDonnell of Virginia.

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

I Bought SEIZESEPUEDE.COM





.COM Domain Name Registration - 1 Year (recurring)


$8.17
Quantity:1 domain(s)
SEIZESEPUEDE.COM


I was talking to friends about stuff and something prompted me to joke about developing an app that makes it easier for workers and government leaders in developing countries to seize land and assets from wealthy European companies and redistribute them. I decided that it would be called "Seize Se Puede". Then I liked that name so much that I immediately bought the domain.

It comes from "Si Se Puede", the famous inspirational line from legendary labor leader Cesar Chavez, which was of course translated and adapted by Obama for his presidential campaign. The name of this domain might not actually be that marketable though because "Seize Se Puede" sounds almost exactly the same as "Si Se Puede" when said out loud. But maybe that's a good thing for a wealth redistribution application.


Also Godaddy tells me I have 75 domains expiring. Great.

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

How To Make A Political Cartoon Bearable


Turn it into a Kelly. 

What's a Kelly? It's a parody cartoon by The Onion's talented in-house cartoonist, Kelly. Staples of these cartoons include the crying Statue of Liberty, the grim reaper, excessive labeling on people's clothing, and a little representation of Kelly saying something clever in the bottom right-hand corner. Here's a good example of one:


The cartoon below is reprehensible:

Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled fetuses...

It's cheesy, heavy-handed, the viewpoint is disgusting, and there's an unexplained speech bubble in the lower right hand corner. Who's talking? Somebody on the Staten Island Ferry?

But turn it into a satirical Kelly cartoon and now it's hilarious!


Haha! Another brilliant cartoon by Kelly. It's so horrible and over-the-top that there's no way a real cartoonist could have made it. Relax, folks, it's just The Onion. You didn't actually fall for it, did you?

Here's another cartoon, by J.R. Rose! The exclamation point is actually part of his signature. J.R. Rose is a cartoonist who's so cheesy and inept that you can't dislike him. Even though he's a moderate conservative, he doesn't have a malicious bone in his body; he's just adorable.


Pretty cheesy cartoon. Here it is after I Kellified it:


It's amazing how your opinion of a cartoon can completely depend on what cartoonist you think drew it. The real editorial cartoons out there really are as bad as Kelly's seemingly exaggerated parodies.