Give It Away, Now

“Wow! You did this? Can I have it? What? You’re selling this for a hundred bucks? But you did it in just 15 mins! How about I pay you 25 pesos?”

Just recently, I told people in the interwebs that I am giving away my illustrations for free. And I did. It was a collection of old works redone with a few enhancements, and some new drawings meant to be patterns for coloring.

The obvious question was “Why?”.

And I could answer “Just because.”. But I didn’t. There is a long explanation involved, and so I just shrugged off the question.

Come to think of it, I have always given away my drawings. It started the day someone asked me to draw VoltesV. Or maybe It was because most of my childhood friends know how to draw and it has always been a challenge to one-up the other guy. But I do give away drawings. In high school, classmates often asked me to draw something for them, help out with a project, or a friend who wants to impress a girl.

In college, people offered to pay for my drawings. And I did earn from it.

Most of the time.

People would pay me Php50 to Php150 per piece, depending on what they want me to draw – visual aids for areport, feline anatomy, something for a t-shirt, college stuff. But mostly I get paid peanuts. Specially when it was a beautiful girl.

So I am always giving away my artwork for free.

Even recently, at a mall, I do ink drawings for change. And the guy I’m with insists he is promoting the “industry”, whatever he thinks what industry it is. Turns out that guy’s just living off other artists and surrounding himself with young girls, the perv.

And so I gave away my drawings for free.

Which is the only logical thing to do, since I can dish out new work any time I want. And I want to start fresh. Been giving away stuff as far as I can remember. Heck, I even gave away money to a brother who’s so thick, he thinks I owe him an apology for being pissed off at his non-communicative behavior. My brother and that guy Kit, they are the same kind of leech. And I’m tired of leaving messages and calling numbers that are never available.

I gave away these coloring book illustrations, because they are fit to be given away. And because I am doing something new, more elaborate and worthy of framing, not something cheap like that dreadful noontime show fan art. Or a pattern that people dismiss as secondary to their choise of coloring materials.

My friends may not understand it, but they will, in time. I’m going to register this venture as a business name and I want to start right, by creating new and beautiful illustrations that will go into print and sell so I can earn a living from it. These works will be well researched, better illustrated and well worth the money spent.

Wrong Timing, Bad Timing, (Reprise)

I received this email from Maynilad 11:01 AM (8 hours ago) and opened and read the whole thing  at 7:40pm.

The date on the email is 20 June 2012. I guess things are really slow in their world. Took them more than 24 hours to transmit one email. But I am thankful they took the time to explain their side, although it doesn’t really help.

The slideshow is a trio of screencaps I took of my inbox.

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20 June 2012

 Dear Mr. Paelmo:

 This is in reference to your blog entry published in the http://screamingmango.wordpress.com last June 7, 2012 entitled “Wrong Timing, Bad Timing” regarding the construction projects along Ero St., Novaliches, Quezon City.

 Please note that the photos of road diggings you posted and identified as a “Maynilad project” are actually road and drainage construction projects of the Quezon City government along Eros St. and Bernardino Road.

 Maynilad’s participation in this undertaking is limited to some pipe relocations along Eros St., which we did at the request of the local government to give way to their project. Our contractors began relocating the water mainline and service connections last May 28, 2012 and completed the work by June 6, 2012.

 For questions and reports regarding our projects, we encourage the public to call our Maynilad Hotline 1626.

 Sincerely,

CHERUBIM OCAMPO-MOJICA

Head

Corporate Communications

Wrong Timing, Bad Timing

Most of the time I worry about the mental state of those people elected or appointed by those we voted for with optimism, and hope. We don’t seem to pick the right person for the job. Just like the old adage “always a Bridesmaid but never a Bride.”

There’s just not enough logic to go around, we may have mistakenly put all our marbles in one basket and wished it would stay there forever.

Now those marbles are lost.

Most of it, anyway.

I am not an Engineer. Not an Architect either. Never had the chance to involve myself with the intimacies of building houses, laying pipes nor paving roads. But I think I do possess a certain rationale, that when repairing a road, or what’s underneath these roads, requires dry climate,  a team of skilled workers to systematically dig the street, replace tubes and pipes, prep the dig for setting and cement and enough heat and warmth to cure the concrete pavement.