Here I go again... (All Class 3)

My Dad always said, "Excuses are like assholes, everybody's got one." A lot of dads say "excuses are like elbows...", but my dad didn't mince words. When you think about it, elbows doesn't even make sense. Everybody's got one? No, everybody's got two. Assholes is definitely the correct term.

I've been working something like 60 hours a week lately, and everything else has suffered. It kind of sucks, but this week I got my first 120+ hour paycheck, and I felt a lot better about it. Hopefully, all of the extra moola will be enough to get me to San Diego and Chicago this year.

I think the main thing holding me back from posting more often is that I really don't know what it is I'm trying to do with this thing. I can post my thoughts on the stupid shit I tend to think about, or tell little anecdotal stories, but I don't think anybody really cares. Oh well, until I figure something else out, that's what it'll be. That, and, of course, new "All Class" strips, like this one.


All Class - Episode Three - Online Dating

P1: Hurley sits at dinner in a nice restaurant with Deadman and his longtime girlfriend, Louise.
H: …and the only thing worse than that is online dating.
H: Nothing pisses me off more than somebody saying how in love they are with their online girlfriend.

P2: Hurley keeps up his diatribe, as Deadman begins to look uncomfortable. Louise has crossed her arms, and looks mighty unhappy.
H: I mean, how can you even know what a person’s like when you’ve never met them?
H: Which makes me wonder what the phrase “We met online” means.

P3: Hurley is shocked as Louise jumps from her seat, and screams in his face. Deadman leans back and covers his face in embarassment.
H: You can’t meet a person, unless you see them…
L: WE MET ONLINE YOU ASSHOLE!!!

P4: Hurley still looks shocked. Louise is leaned across the table, giving Hurley the death glare.
H: Really!?
D: Dude, I specifically told you that before we came out tonight.

That's all for now kids,
Later

Now That Is Fucking Teamwork

Greetings all, and welcome to another exciting adventure from my boring, mundane existence.

Today, I'm at work mowing, and bored out of my fucking mind. I'm working a little overtime to help pay some bills, and finance my trip to San Diego for the Comicon. For those of you who don't know, I work maintenance at the local airport, so overtime consists almost solely of mowing grass on the airfield. It's really not that bad, I ride around in a big John Deere tractor, pulling a bushhog around. The tractor's air conditioned, and it has a radio, so comfort isn't a problem, it all comes down to boredom. I drive around in circles for hours, it's like the slowest one-man NASCAR race in history. It's a seemingly endless spiral, round and round the same damn field, with the same damn shit to look at over and over.

Enough bitching though, right? Today, as I'm driving around, there's this hawk that keeps dropping down from his perch and sitting in my damn way. At first I thought he was pissed at me for invading his turf, but he always went back up in the air long before I got to him. Eventually, I realised he was waiting for me to kick up some food for him. We've got a pretty bad mole problem at the airport, and I gotta admit I wouldn't be the least bit sad to see this hawk choke a few of them down. So the next time I came around I made sure to drop a tire right over the top of a mole burrow, and send the little bastards running.

Only one mole came out, and I saw him take off across the field. He only made it about 20 ft. before my boy, the hawk, came swooping down and snatched his ass up. It was awesome. I've never wanted to high five an animal so much in my life.

What I'm doing tonight
Watching: Shaft (It's research, I never realized how incredibly long that opening sequence is, it fuckin' rocks)
Eating: Grilled cheese with pickles and mustard (yes, I really do eat those)
Drinking: McCormack and Coke (McCormack is incredibly cheap whisky{My mom always said, "McCormack isn't whiskey, it's watered down Everclear and food coloring."[Yes, these are the kind of wisdom nuggets my mother dispenses]})

Man, do I love parentheticals.

I'm gonna go get drunk now,
HURLEY

Two weeks!?! (All Class 2)

Yeah, okay, so i'm not real good at this timeliness thing, or this proper grammar thing, but I'm back!

I wish I had more time to post, but my friend Peter just called and told me he'd been bit on the head by a spider. God only knows how that happened, but now I have to go to work early so he can head to the emergency room. The pansy.

The one thing I really wanted to get posted was this


All Class - Episode Two - It Must Be All The Hormones They Feed The Cows

P1: Hurley is talking to an attractive young woman. He leans on the wall next to her, and is obviously putting his mack on.
H: How you doin’?

P2: Deadman walks up with an equally attractive, equally young looking woman.
D: Hey Hurley, I want you to meet my sister Cindy.
D: I see you’ve already met my niece, Brittany.

P3: Cindy talks to her daughter, as Hurley looks on in horror, and Deadman gives him a death glare.
C: Hey sweetie, you got your homework done, right?
B: Yes, mom.

P4: Hurley looks at Deadman, who keeps up his death glare.
H: Mom?
D: Fourteen, asshole, fourteen.

See ya'll on the flipside,
HURLEY

The "All Class" Premiere! (All Class 1)

All I've got for you folks today is the first installment of my previously mentioned webcomic with no pictures, All Class. It's all about the adventures of Hurley, and his best friend Deadman. Some of it's based on real occurrences, most of it's not. Enjoy.

All Class - Strip One - I'm Gonna Be A Big Star

P1: Hurley lays on the bare ground, drunk off of his ass, whiskey bottle still in hand. Deadman stands over him looking down in disgust.
D: Dude, couldn’t you have passed out in the back yard so no one could see you.

P2: Hurley points into the sky.
H: That’s a big fuckin’ star, man!

P3: Deadman looks up to where Hurley is pointing.
NO DIALOG

P4: Deadman looks back down at Hurley, even more disgusted than before.
D: That’s the moon.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thanks for stopping by, we'll see ya next time.
HURLEY

Mash it, mash it real good

Hurley gets Tromatized!

Here it is folks! The preview I promised yesterday of my first published story!

I wrote a 10 page story for the new Troma Anthology coming out soon from Devil's Due, based on their movie Redneck Zombies. The story will be illustrated by my close personal friend, Jeremy Haun. It's got everything you could possibly want in a comic (particularly a Troma comic) boobs, slapstick, and the walking dead!

What the hell is that blog title all about?

Today I found a thread on Matt Fraction's Image Comics Message Board about music, and happened upon a link to The Best of Bootie 2006. It's a collection of some of the best Mash-Ups of the year. In case you've been living under a rock (or in a backward ass country like Australia) and don't know what a mash up is, it's pretty simply two songs mashed together. Generally it's the lyrics of one song laid over the beats of another, but sometimes it's a crazy medley of tons of stuff.
I have a serious love for mash-ups, and I'll download just about anything that has even one artist I've heard of in it. There's some really good stuff on the Bootie collection, and their page contains links to the pages of all the participating DJs.

I think I might watch too much TV
I watched the first season of The Wire this past week, and I must say, it didn't thrill me. It's an interesting show, and I really like the concept, but it's slow. Really slow. I know that if I had seen the first episode on TV, I wouldn't have tuned in the next week. Since I had it on DVD though, I watched the whole season, but I don't think I'll be sitting through season 2.
The question, really, is "Is TV on DVD a good thing or a bad thing?". I wouldn't have watched this show on TV, but I watched a whole season on DVD. I liked it, but I thought it was overall pretty "blah", and the end of the season wrapped everything up so nicely, I don't feel any need to return to the show.

Whatever. I'm gone.

Seriously this time, seriously.

Here we are again... Me, trying to start blogging on a regular basis. You, still not reading this at all or giving a damn what I say. Damn, it's good to be back.

The exercise part of the blog
So, lately I've been trying to get some exercise. Normally, this wouldn't be anything to make light of, but I am a fat, lazy fucker, who's never made a concerted effort toward getting in shape before. Thus far, I haven't had a whole lot of progress, but I did reach one of my low level goals this week. This past Friday, I ran a mile (on the treadmill), one whole mile without stopping. Once again, probably not something most people would bother mentioning, but it's the first time I've ever done it, and I must admit, I'm quite proud of me.

On to other things
I've got some projects coming up that I'm very excited about, mostly because I can honestly say that I have things "in the pipeline" for the first time. I'll give you some particulars, and even a preview image in my next entry!

I'm not sure if it's a rip off, but...
Within the next week I'm going to start an online strip in the style of Benito Cereno's Benito Cereno, Hug Salesman. Basically, it's the script of a webcomic without pictures. My little diddy will be called "All Class". People ask me all the time (but not really), "What does the A in Jason A. Hurley stand for?". This comic is my answer, it's all about the goofy situations I've gotten myself into over the years, and th enormous amount of class I've shown in them. Should be fun.

That's all for now, hopefully I'll get back to this thing in a reasonable amount of time, and post something super cool.

Peace out, Hurley.

Bitching about the weather, please ignore

How's everybody doin' today? Good, good, glad to here it. Me? I'm cold and miserable, thanks for asking. It's been sleeting for the last three days, and now it's freezing rain. God damned ridiculous. Just gimme some snow. Snow I can deal with. You can scrape snow off of roads, what the fuck can you do with ice? Nothin', that's what. God damned ridiculous.

My Weekend Adventure Part 5

Tuesday, January 9, 11:10 pm

Here we are two days later, and I think I’m finally going to finish this damned thing. Where were we? Ah, yes, Sunday afternoon.
Jeremy dropped me off at Aunt Patty and Uncle Barry’s (not my aunt and uncle, Tony’s [and a big shout out to them, for letting us crash]) where I met up with Tony and Josh. After I regaled them with stories from the most awesome strip club ever, we headed up stairs for a fine home cooked meal, and as much booze as we could pack in before the show. Dinner consisted of spaghetti, with turkey sausage and marinara sauce, and a portabella mushroom lasagna. The lasagna, I didn’t try due to my extreme dislike of mushrooms, but that turkey sausage was killer.
We drank until our cab showed up (we is safe drinkers), and then got on our way to New Year’s Revolution. Our cabbie was hella cool, he really liked wrestling, and he even agreed to meet us after the show so we didn’t have to try and get somebody else. Once we got in the show we bought some more beers, and jumped in our seats, which just happened to be fucking great. We were about mid way up the first section off the floor, just opposite hard camera (the main camera angle), which means we were probably on TV quite a bit (I haven‘t checked yet), and we had a great view. The show was awesome, it featured a couple of really great matches, including my first live cage match. By the end of the first match, I could already feel my voice slipping from all of the screaming I was doing. I talked to Josh just this morning, and he can barely speak he’s still so hoarse. We started some great chants that seemed to entertain all the people around us, but none of them would join in. At one point Josh and I (Tony was getting more beer) were bowing down to the awesomeness that is Ric Flair, and he pointed into the stands, right at us. All in all it was a great time. A really good show, from the best seats we’ve ever had. After the ride home, we started to watch Idiocracy, but I couldn’t stay awake for it. The next morning Josh and Tony got up, I would follow shortly after noon, and we headed home. I spent most of the car ride typing up Part 4 of this beast, and then we were finally back home. My weekend adventure had ended, but thankfully I have a couple of days to recover from it before I have to head back to work.

My Weekend Adventure Part 4

Monday, January 8, 12:20 pm
Obviously the blog I was trying to keep up completely fell apart. I gotta tell you, I’m not surprised. Most of the time I’m just not that good at keeping up with these things. Despite all that, I’m going to update you on the last couple of days, or at least what I remember of it. Friday wasn’t a terribly exciting day, mostly just hanging out. Jeremy and I had lunch at an Indian buffet and stuffed ourselves silly. After that we hit up a couple of local comic shops, including Pop Culture Comix, and B-Bop Comics. Clint’s Comics is right across the street from B-Bop, and even though it looked like the better shop from what little I saw, we ran short of time and didn’t have time to check it out fully. As we were leaving Pop Culture, I saw the funniest thing I would see all weekend, and probably one of the top ten funniest things I’ve seen in my whole life.
There was an Airsoft BB gun store right next to the comic shop that Jeremy wanted to check out. He ended up talking with the guy that ran for a bout twenty minjutes about all things guns, and purchased a ”Lara Croft Gun” for his photo reference purposes. The front door of the store was a little weird, it actually shared a door to the street, and small vestibule with the store next door, The door to the vestibule had a big plate glass window right next to it, and through said window, the door to the street was plainly visible. As we were leaving, Jeremy was checking the contents of his bag, and walked into the window harder than I’ve ever seen before first person. You know how usually a persons foot hit’s the window first and they realize what they’re about to do and pull back at least a little? Well that didn’t happen at all. Jeremy was bent over a little looking in his bag, and took the full force of his momentum right in the face. I started laughing hysterically, and couldn’t even ask if he was alright. I could see the glass shaking from the impact, and once the vibrations quelled I could make out an oily imprint of Jer’s entire face on the window. He backed up, dazed, and groggily muttered “I’m allright, I’m all right”, which sent me laughing even harder, and we raced out the door. By the time we made it to the car I was laughing so hard I could barely breath, and I was crying quite a bit. Even as I sit here typing, I keep breaking out in fits of laughter, and the other guys in the car keep looking at me weird. Once we were in the car Jeremy told me that he could feel the whole impact in slow mation, as each of his facial features hit the glass. First his eyebrow, which took the brunt of the impact (and ended up with a visible welt), then his glasses being shoved crooked as his nose was crushed sideways, and finaly his mouth and chin making impact just before his reflexes kicked in and he pulled back. I told every single person we ran into for the rest of the weekend about the incident, and could barely contain my laughter with each subsequent retelling.
After all that excitement we went to the Glenwood Arts Theatre to see Perfume, after which my folks took us to Jack Stack for some friggin awesome barbeque. We ended the night by heading to Seth’s house and palying some poker with him, Clay and Tony. Not the most exciting day, but we ate tons, and generally had a good time.
Saturday started early (comparatively), as we hit the road on our way to Astro Kitty in Lawrence, for the big Atomic Revolver coming out party and signing. Atomic Revolver is a loose studio consisting of three writers (Jason Aaron, B. Clay Moore, and Seth Peck), and three artists (Jeremy Haun, Jason Latour, and Tony Moore). Only Latour wasn’t able to make it to the signing (his nomadic ways had led him elsewhere), everyone else was there, pimping their books, and havin’ a good ol’ time. Astro Kitty is a pretty sweet little store. Despite it’s small size it is packed full of stuff, and run by a cool and knowledgeable staff. I dropped Joel (the owner/operator) a few copies of Abe and G-Dub, so if you’re in the Lawrence area, stop by and tell the folks hey, and pick up a copy of my book!
After the signing, we all went out to dinner, before splitting into two distinct groups. Those who wanted to go to a strip club, and those who did not. I, of course, was a member of the former. Five of us ended up going to the club, after the long and arduous task of actually finding it. Our hunt, however, was well worth it. The club we ended up at is called The Outhouse, and it’s not nearly as bad as it’s name might imply. It is, in fact, the coolest strip club that I’ve ever been to. First, it’s a B.Y.O.B. club, that means bring your own booze for the uninitiated. Despite the fact that it’s merely a juice bar, you can literally walk in to the club with a bottle of whiskey in your hand, which I did. The dancers get fully nude on stage, and $20 will get you a topless full touch lap dance, $30 gets a full nude full touch private dance in the back. You might expect, as we did, to find a lot of skanky, ugly chicks at the little club in the middle of nowhere, but just like us, you would be wrong. In fact, most of the girls there had previously worked at the big “classy” joint in Kansas City, before moving it out to the country for the big bucks that full nude brings in. One of the girls in particular was literally the best pole dancer in the state. Seriously, apparently they have statewide competitions for such things, and she won. I honestly have no desire to go to any other strip club again. There’s just no need. After the experience of the Outhouse, no other club will ever measure up.
I woke up Sunday with a little bit of a hangover, but knocked it out quickly with a couple of Redbulls and a cappuccino. Jeremy and I headed over to Clay’s house to pick up a couple of things, and say our goodbyes. Afterward, we headed by PF Chang’s for lunch, and I got some of the strongest ginger beer I’ve ever had. I like ginger, and ginger beer, but this stuff was STRONG. I drank about half of it with no problem, but it got to the point where I had to take a bite of food inbetween swigs, just to give my taste buds a rest. After lunch, we went on another driving quest, this time to find my friend Tony’s aunt and Uncle’s house. It took us about an hour, and at one point we actually ended up on the completely opposite side of town. Eventually we got there (and here’s a big public thank you to Jeremy for running me around all weekend) Jeremy and I parted ways and the second half of my adventure began, but that’s a story for another time.

My Weekend Adventure Part 3

Friday, January 5, 12:15 pm
Last night we watched Berry Gordy’s The Last Dragon, and it was bad. I mean really bad. If you don’t already know, it stars a pair of one-named-no-current-career-havin’ folks. Taimak, and former Prince protégé Vanity. Taimak’s acting, even if intentionally wooden, is beyond bad, but his kung-fu is strong. The only redeeming part of the whole thing was “Sho’nuff, The Shogun of Harlem”, the guy was very charismatic, and had some awesome entrances. He and his entourage hadsome of the best costumes in the flick, even his painted football pads.
We don’t particularly have any plans for today, but it looks like we’re heading to an Indian buffet for lunch, and a movie afterward. Apparently Pan’s Labyrinth isn’t playing in town, so we’re going to see Perfume instead, I think it looks really cool, and I’m excited to see it on the big screen, since I’m almost certain it will never come to Joplin. This evening I’m sure we’ll hang out with Clay, Jason, and Seth, I don’t know what the plan is there, but there was talk of poker last night.
I awoke this morning to the knocking of the maid, and from there Jeremy immediately jumped online to seek out the latest celebrity gossip. Here it is. WARNING!!! This is probably the only time, ever, that you’ll find such things on this blog. Apparently, K-Fed has been trying to hook up with Lindsay Lohan since the break up with Britney. Good old Lindsay though, she’s havin’ none of it. Yes, this is seriously the mind expanding information I started my day with. I hope you feel enlightened.

My Weekend Adventure Part 2

Thursday, January 4, 6:45 pm
Here we are at the hotel, and even though I was hoping to post this blog in somewhat real time, ‘tis not meant to be. The only way to get internet access here is to pay for it, and I’m not paying $10 a day for it here, when I only pay $15 at home for the whole damn month. Regardless, I’ll keep on with the writing, and if I get a chance to post it, I will.
We just left Elite, where Jason Aaron was signing his new book, Scalped. It totally rocks, and you should go out and buy it immediately. Seriously, it’s about a dude on an Indian reservation (The Rez), who starts kicking the local gangster’s asses with his nunchuks. Yeah, nunchuks. Totally fucking awesome.
Now we head to the bar for the after party.

My Weekend Adventure Part 1

Thursday, January 4, 11:55 am
I’ve just arrived at Jeremy’s house, and he’s still upstairs in the shower. I let myself in to the house, hopefully I don’t scare him too bad when he finally gets down here and finds me. We were supposed to meet at noon by the way. I thought about going upstairs after he was done, but then I remembered what happened to Seth, and I decided it would be better to just stay down here.
I thought about doing a 24 hour comic today. Not the kind you do on 24 Hour Comic Day, the other kind. If you don’t know what it is, it’s doing a quick one panel strip every hour in a 24 hour period. I was introduced to the concept by one of the fellas at Stumblebum Studios. It can be put together into a nice little 24 page mini comic. Anyway, I decided not to do it because a) I really don’t think I’m going to be awake for 24 hours, and b) The first hour strip would have just been me looking up internet porn, and nobody wants to see that. Regardless, I’m going to try and do a couple of strips each day American Elf style. I won’t be able to scan and post anything ‘til I get home, but hey, that’s better than nothing, right?
I see that confused look in your eye (I am big brother). “What the hell is this whole Weekend Adventure thing about anyway?” your asking. Well I’ll tell ya. Jeremy Haun and I are heading to Kansas City for a few days. We’ll be hitting Elite Comics in Overland Park today for Jason Aaron’s Scalped signing. Afterward I think there’s some sort of party or something. Friday we don’t have any particular plans, but we’ll probably see some friends, and catch a movie or something (probably Pan’s Labyrinth). Saturday is the big signing that is the main focus of the trip (at least the part where I’m with Jer), a big signing at Astro Kitty Comics in Lawrence Kansas. Jeremy and the aforementioned Jason Aaron will be there, alongside B. Clay Moore, Seth Peck, and Tony Moore. It’s gonna be sweet. On Sunday, Jeremy will be heading home, but I’ll be sticking around KC, and meeting up with my boys Josh and Tony (not Moore) to head to the WWE pay per view New Year’s Revolution. Last I heard we were going to stay in KC Sunday night and come home sometime on Monday.
More later as the mood strikes me.

Dance Dance Revolution and the Battle Haiku

My friend Peter and I have been playing a lot of Dance Dance Revolution lately (we have SuperNova for PS2). It's a lot of fun and a really good aerobic workout. The only problem we had with the game was that it didn't keep track of high scores. I take that back, it does keep the score, it just doesn't let you put in your initials next to it. What's the point of keeping high scores if you can't tell whose is whose, and lord your superior skills over your friends, right? So being insanely competitive, as far as video games go at least, we made a notebook full of blank spreadsheets so that we could keep track of our scores, and mock eachothers poor dance skills. Here's a little example of what I'm talkin' about.


That's the sheet for the song "Funkytown", you'll notice my initials (JAH) by the highest scores, while Peter (PJK) lags behind me. This is true on every song on the Basic level, and all but a couple on the difficult setting. In celebration of this, and in blatant mockery of Peter's dancing skills I left a battle haiku on the front of the score book, which I thought I 'd share with everyone.



A Haiku for Peter

by Jason A. Hurley



Hurley rules Dance Dance

PJK is but a slave

To Hurley's rythm



Tomorrow I'm heading out to the thrift stores. Maybe I'll drop in here and give you all a few pics of the swag I pick up.



-HURLEY

My First Entry!

Welcome one and all to the brand spankin' new blog of Jason A. Hurley.





Yep, here it is, and I'm only about 4 years behind everybody else (kinda like Canada). I'm still working out exactly what it is I want to do with this thing, but in the mean time let me throw a little art at ya.





Later Folks

-HURLEY