I stole this image from the Newspaper!

So, they wanna change the name of DIABLO to JESUS HEIGHTS.  What a dumb thing to do, and quite… QUITE the example for stupid narrow mindness to be expected here in this country.  Some years back, the whole area bordering the actual Panama Canal was controlled by the United States.  Technically, it was like US soil and what not.  Some famous people were born HERE in Panama, but are Americans -and not Panamanians, yada yada O.J. didn’t do it, M. J. was poisoned and if you gently touch the underside of a frog’s penis, it will turn into a prince. WHATEVER!

My point -today- is that, dumb moves like that A) Suck huge baby chunks; B) Most likely wont Stick… and C) No one Gives a flying fuck in the end.

Y’see, there is a Rule of Thumb here in Panama that states that “The more BIBLICAL the name of a community, the more DANGEROUS and HOSTILE it is.” Proof of these are: La 24 de Diciembre, Santa Librada, Concepcion, Samaria, Santa Ana, San Felipe, Santa Marta,  San Miguel, and as an added bonus Pan de Azucar.  Making a BROAD generalization here, all this areas are kinda hostile and have a high crime rate.  It is safe to assume that a large number of thugs, crooks and low-lifes live in these areas amidst the most humble and decent people who dwell there too.

Then there is DIABLO, located right next to the Balboa Port and the Canal Itself.  I’ve been to Diablo a few times.  Hell (no pun intended!), technically, i used to work in Diablo a while back.  It is a quiet place, where nature intertwines with the dwelling areas… where you can hear the birds chirp, the monkeys howl, and the pot heads laugh.  Quite the diametrical opposite of those other communities, and quite the logical progression, if we follow the after mentioned Rule of Thumb.  In Diablo, you will find either old people or pot heads -in it’s vast majority, and once again a BROAD generalization- so you could chalk Diablo up and one of the most quiet and SAFE places to live, in my humble opinion.

But it turns out that, for the last 12 years or so Diablo has no longer been Diablo. They changed it’s name to JESUS HEIGHTS right after the US left the Panama Canal Area, and some of the old people complained that they didn’t want to live in a place named after “THE EVIL ONE”! <-Please note i use quote marks here, thank you.

This was a news story i read in a local Newspaper today, and it befuddled me enough to rant about it as i have.  The funny thing is, as i mentioned before, NO ONE CARES and still call it DIABLO, and most likely will still call it DIABLO for years to come.  Proof of this, is our “Parque Hector Gallegos” and the Avenida de los Martires.  The former is popularly known as “Parque OMAR” (in honor to Omar Torrijos) and the next is known as the 4 de Julio Avenue: a good place to get Tranny Prostitutes, if that is your cup of Tea.

I like Diablo.  It has that mix of old American Colonialism, enough green areas, and it’s quiet. Too Quiet.  In fact, aside from the Annual Cayuco Race, the only cool thing that has ever happened there is a ZOMBIE INFESTATION back when the canal was being built. I shit you not! Read the Story HERE.

Diablo was. Diablo is and Diablo will be. ‘Nuff Said!

Last night, we had our first Drink & Draw night.  Some of us gathered at the local water hole, The ‘Buck, and amidst laughs and weird ass conversation we developed the two topics we had for the night.

Now, before “gettin’ it own” with the topics and what we did, let me elaborate a bit about the dynamics of the night.  The idea behind this is to flex your creative muscle, oftentimes bound by this or that.  It is not a competition at all, more along the lines of a good camaraderie and networking opportunity as well. So, if the topic for the night is, say “The Smurfs”, the idea would be to grab that -deconstruct it- and then work with that. So instead of doodling Papa Smurf or Smurfette or something like that i would do a Short, pot bellied midget… all painted in blue, while wearing white pants.  The main idea is to think outside the box, and push the boundaries of some concepts that are around us on a day to day basis.
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(c) MOPX

“Un olor a drogas y alcohol; un intenso sabor a metal; dejando escapar el alma, le hacemos saber a los dioses del rock que estamos vivos.”  Esto es lo que escribía rápidamente sobre un pedazo de papel.  Al terminar, miró a su alrededor; sonrió y luego de doblar el papel dieztramente, lo guardo en su bolsillo izquierdo.  Volvió a alzar su mirada hacia el escenario.  Dejó escapar otro aullido, que dejaria a los coyotes y lobos bastante impresionados -por su capacidad pulmonar, entre otras cosas- por la euforia y lo visceral del mismo.  Alzando su mano derecha, extiende su anular y su menique, tal como Ronnie James Dio le ensenó ya a cinco generaciones. Los acordes empiezan a fluir por el cuarto, los cuerpos empiezan a menearse, bambolearse, saltar y “head-bangear” mientras ella sigue gritando y aullando… su voz perdida en el clamor de otras diez mil almas. De manera milagrosa logra percatarse de que la estoy llamando, y me atiende. Me saluda; siento su euforia.  Me llama la atención, pues sé que no es muy fanática de quienes, en estos momentos, evocan la magnificiencia del Imperio Ruso en el escenario.  La saludo, y ella me pregunta donde estoy. Con dificultad le digo que aun me encuentro a mas de un kilometro de distancia… parado en la fila que se tuerce y envuelve por todo el lugar, para que un sudoroso policia me revise, me quite mi botella de agua y me deje pasar… solo para formar otra fila y entrar justo en el momento en que la banda que queria ver -casualmente los que he mencionado anteriormente, de manera tan casual- estan recogiendo su equipo.  Quedamos en que hablaremos mas tarde. Ambos cerramos.

Una hora despues, me encuentro en medio de un tumulto de individuos que han esperado esta presentacion, al igual que yo, por muchos anos.  Algunos, han esperado deleitarse con el repertorio en vivo de la banda a presentarse casi mas de 3/4 de su vida.  Para otros, es un sueno hecho realidad. Y asi, mientras mi musa grita y aulla en algun lugar de este auditorio, yo alzo mi mano derecha y ofrezco el saludo oficial, en reverencia a los dioses del metal… tal como he aprendido, siguiendo el ejemplo de Dio.  Todos lo hacemos.  Y todos lanzamos un aullido o un grito que se mezcla, y llega a ser un clamor de magnitudes inmesurables.

La muerte asechante es la que nos da la bienvenida. Saltamos.  Me pregunto si la estructura del local aguantara tal jaloneo.  El piso tiembla.  Menos mal que es bastante elastico.  Me pregunto si ellos, alla arriba pueden sentirlo como lo siento yo debajo de mis pies.  Me pregunto si ella lo siente… y ese pensamiento se evapora a medida que las notas siguen escapando los masivos amplificadores que hacen que, incluso ahora, me chillen los oidos.

Ya sin camisa, pues el calor es increible, continuo coreando las canciones que me acompanaron en esas largas noches, sentado en mi escritorio copiando el estilo de los grandes… aprendiendo arduamente y puliendo mi talento, mientras mis companeros estaban en fiestas, quinceanos y siendo populares.  Ja! Quien rie ahora, infelices? es el pensamiento que viene a la vanguardia de mi percepcion mientras la bestia que esta parada al lado mio atesta un certero golpe con su manaza en mi cara.  Inmediatamente, contra ataco con un codazo a su costado y un golpe a su hombro.  Sigo moviendome y me pierdo en el vaivén del Pozo… una experiencia viseral, primal, y liberante. Se que mis companeros toman fotos.  Otros me acompanan en este ritual de estamina, emocion, sudor, dolor, destreza y hermandad.  Todos gritamos.

Horas despues… sentado en el trafico de salida, mi musa llama.  Le atiendo y hablamos como lo hemos hecho por los utlimos dos o tres meses.  “Un bano no te caeria mal”, le sugiero.  Ella acepta mi sugerencia y me dice que deberia hacer lo mismo.  Estoy de acuerdo completamente.  No es comodo cargar rastros del genoma humano por ahi. Le deso que pase una buena noche, ella hace lo mismo y nos despedimos.  Mis amigos me miran. Uno me dice, a modo de jodedera, que soy un mamon. El otro, sugiere una parada tecnica en un restaurante de la localidad: hace hambre.  Al unisono, los cuatro tripulantes accedemos en tomar la parada antes de regresar a casa y asearnos.  Es tarde ya. Manana hay que trabajar.

Lo que nadie puede negar, es que fuimos participes de uno de los mejores shows existentes en el planeta.  Y fuimos participes de ello, en el patio de nuestra casa.  Y si tomasemos un censo, y corroboraramos que mas de la mayoria hoy tiene un cuello tieso y adolorido… que muchos tengamos mas de dos o tres moretones que no estaban ahi ayer, todos… TODOS tenemos una gran sonrisa dibujada en nuestras caras.

Long Live The Metal!

It’s Monday night, I’m making a line… and i hear they are giving away pop corn and soft drinks at the counter.  I leave the line and head towards the free movie theater goodness cornucopia.  On my way there, I’m stopped by a few people and get asked a few questions… apparently more people value my opinion than i thought. Nice!

I get my a Coke… and return to my line, as we are going in to the room.

As i walk in, the fog machine starts up and i get doused by the fake CO2 fog, as the strobe lights are bound to make some epileptic start jumping like a cod outta water any time.  I walk up the stairs and sit down on the last row of the Theater.  The show starts, and they have us watching some trailers on the huge Movie Theater screen.  The game looks amazing. The animation is flawless… as is the conceptualization.  Then we get some music from the game… and then we get Kratos! (more…)

*I Found the Mythical BUCKET of METAL!*

I’m gonna go on a limb here and state that to me, the definition of a weekend, is when you stay up past your bedtime and/or sleep more than you usually do. By proxy i can assure you that last week, my weekend started on Monday.

Monday was the world release of God of War 3, and we had the chance to go and score a seat at the event. We hung out, got bloody popcorn, free soft drinks and took a shitload of pics. I ended up hitting the sack circa 2:00 AM.

Tuesday is the night we have our Dungeons & Dragons sessions. Somehow, Tuesdays have become the high point of my week. These statement alone must tell you tons more than what you need to know about my social life… or lack of. Anyhow, a group of us gather at my place and we play late into the night. I really enjoy this sessions; not only is the party well balanced, we as players each bring something unique and different to the table… and we drink like motherfuckers. If it is not a few bottles of wine, it is a case of “Heinies” and a few Energy Drinks to keep the creative and nerd levels high. Too bad they don’t sell Mountain Dew here anymore. If they did, it would be a DORK-A-THON of unheard proportions.

Last Tuesday we did a bit of Role Reversion and instead of being a player, I took the reins of the story and DM’ed the session. the rest of the Guild (Did i mention we also have a Guild?) seemed to like it, and enjoyed the session as much as I did. Here i sit, at work… itching for it to be Tuesday already so we can complete the session, as we had to cut it in half: It was already 2.45 when they reached the “save point”. Time i ended up hitting the hay? 3:30 AM.

Wednesday dawns upon me, and like the previous days, i wake up at 6.45 to get ready to work. Being a corporate monkey has a serious drawback to all these fun and games: you have to wake up early, and that sucks -regardless of the fact you just went to bed like 20 mins ago. After work, i hung out with a friend from work and ended up in the movies. By this point i was so sleep deprived that i dozed off a few times during the movie; the good thing is that i had seen it already, and i was just hanging out with my friend. She liked the movie, and i didn’t snore: it was a win-win situation. I ended up going to bed around 2:00 AM.

Thursday came and went without making even a tiny little bleep on the radar… cause i died. I woke up to come to work on time, and went home as usual. I got home, sat on the bed, took off my shirt and passed out. It was around 7:00 PM.

I woke up Friday, at 7:30 and came to work. After work I was trying to make my way to this Mexican Wrestling event they had going on… but since getting a cab here in PTY has become an epic adventure of insurmountable proportions, i decided against it. I went home and took a shower, and made my way instead to our local Shenanigans branch. I ended up having stale -and warm!- green beer in honor of it being St. Patrick’s somehwen during the week along with my spicy wings. After that, those of us who didn’t wanna call it a night went to the Isthmus Brewery and had us some REAL beer while GRENDEL played in the background. I am not too sure about this, but it seems i dozed off in the table at some point -nothing as hardcore as when i died during Chinese breakfast on new years, mind you!- and we called it a night circa 3:00 AM. I went to bed Circa 3:40 AM.

Saturday reared it’s sunny head and i came to work. Normal human interaction was possible thanks to the left over energy drink i found in my fridge that morning. As i went out i took a detour through the park, and ran into my old friend The Morinoko, and ended up getting hooked on slack-line. Let me tell you, it fucking rocks my socks off and then some! It was the first time i did this. Hell, it was the first time i SAW what slack line was! I thought it was something related to rock climbing. The truth is something altogether different. The sad news is that we had to cut that session short due to the rain. I made my way to the mall, and had some lunch and then headed over to the City’s Old Quarters, to check out the MACRO festival.

*Caution: When Fashion, you MUST look like the guy on the right.*

Now, the MACRO festival promised a few expos and what not’s… so we decided to make it over there early -circa 4:00 PM. As we got to the place, we got stuck in the most fucked up traffic jam i’ve been in in recent months, so we did a U turn and parked a GAJILLION miles away from the event and walked there. When we got to the actual place, there was no expos. The only “expo” was a bunch of pics hanging from a tree. That was it! to top it off beers were at $3.00 a can… i wanted to shoot myself in the eye with a wooden spoon.

After a while of walking around the Old Quarters with my friend, and running into Tepuy at the Festival Caribe -the Panamanian version of the Advertising world Oscars, or something like that- we made it back in time to see the start of the fashion runway.

“Let the Fagotry begin!” i shouted out loud, gathering irked looks from the nearby onlookers, as i was under-dressed from the fashion point of view. fuck, i think my friend and i were the only two people on that Plaza that were not “FASHION” that afternoon.

A few hours later, i ran into another friend, who supplied the info that in the other corner f the plaza they were selling $0.65 beers a can. So i proceeded to get wasted while the Dj spun some records and i hung out with the people that had gathered for the Sr. Loop gig later that night.

A shit load of beers later, and after mingling about the gig started and got stopped by the police. Apparently the whole thing should’ve blown off by 11 pm, and the band started playing @ 10.45 more or less. After realizing that they would have a RIOT in their hands, they let the band play a while longer… and we had a very cool gig. I went home and died circa 2 AM.

I was supposed to wake up early Sunday to do some laundry and meet my friends for some more Slackline. Like i stated before, i got hooked on it just the day before… but i was so sleep deprived, and tired that i was dead to the world untill about 2 pm, when i woke up and made my way to a friends house to get my NERD on, playing Mutants and Masterminds.

Closing off the night, i ended up at the movies, saw Shutter Island… liked it a lot and then stopped for some late night nom noms before hitting the hay at… circa 2:00 AM as well.

So i have been corrinchando way to much this last week. Have not done too much work on the greatly overdue comic -don’t worry… i am RETCONING it- and i am in serious need of some R&R.

So, how was YOUR weekend? Mine was fucking EXCELLENT.

*Thank you for playing! Come again!*

A few years back i decided i wanted to be an animator.  This was a step up from my previous ambition of being a sequential artist.  After much toil and trouble, and quite a truckload of frustration i was able to complete my education in the Animation field, thanks to the Animation & Design Superior Institute (I.S.A.D. in spanish!), here at home.  The easy part was accomplished.  Now the tough part began: let’s go get a job.

The Animation industry, as such, was nonexistent down here a few years back.  But a struck of luck came my way and “The Studio” got hired to animate a Panamanian Cartoon.  I was happy as a pig in shit, because i was gonna work as an animator at last.  Granted, this is not the first cartoon produced locally… but it is certainly one of the best.  I could not say much at the time… because of the nondisclosure agreement and what not, but now the cat is out of the bag and i want to share with you what have i been up to these last few years, animation wise.

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Last night, as i was getting ready to go home and work on the comic, after a long day of Corporate Monkeying, it started to rain.

It rained really, REALLY hard. Almost as hard as a Tropical Typhoon, which is to say it rained as usual here. I was stuck here at work… when my good friend The Astro Lander rescued me, like a good well timed Deus Ex Machina! (more…)

I am not a big fan of wrestling. Hell, I am not a wrestling fan at all. When I was a wee lad, I would watch the WWF dubbed re-runs they showed on national TV. I would even watch G.L.O.W., fer Christ-Sake! But as i grew up, my love for staged and choreographed fights lost it’s appeal, and I moved on to better things: Comics.

A good friend of mine is still, at his 30+ years of age, a big wrestling fan, and he would tell me the stories of what went on the then brand new Panamanian EXTREME League. I was unimpressed, and quite uninterested… until one day, out of boredom i decided to go to this LXN event called The Festival of Chairs.

That was a year ago… and although I am still not a big fan of wrestling I can say that if i have missed one or two LXN events since then, I would be lying. I was hooked! (more…)

Help me bring Scott Pilgrim vs The World to Panamanian Theaters!

There is a HUGE chance Scott Pilgrim vs The World will not be shown in theaters here in Panama City, Panama.

Years might pass, and we might have to buy a pirate copy outta street vendor in a stoplight, or download it from the web, and experience this ODE to our generation in a small computer screen, in a shitty hand-held cam definition on a cold Sunday afternoon.

Please join our FACEBOOK group and become one of the voices that would like to experience SCOTT PILGRIM vs The World as it should be: in the movie theater!

Rawk on!