Dear Wizards of the Coast. I would love a job designing or developing magic cards. It is the most beautiful, fun and challenging game I have ever played. I think about it too much. Thank you for the many years of enjoyment it has given me, and the friendships I have made through your game. If you want to hire me, send me an email or call.
– Isaac Paris
Green gets a wrath of God?
Well, what do you think? Post comments!
I am excited to announce I’m going on a short tour!
August 11, Usibelli Pavilion, Tanana Valley Fair- 12 pm 10$ to get into the fair.
August 15- Marlin with Craig Brookes of Paper Scissors and many special guests!
9pm, free (donations accepted)
August 17 Panorama Pizza between Denali and Cantwell, 11pm Free ( donations for gas accepted) with Sabe Flores on Cello and playing her originals
August 18 unknown time- unknown price. Trapper Creek Music fest. with Sabe!
My show lately has had my original comics and stand up comedy, as well as my jazzy piano originals and old timey banjo tunes. I have been playing covers from Tom Waits, the Decemberists, the Beatles, the Kinks, Leonard Cohen, Weezer and more!
Sabe brings a real touch of class to my songs, and she’s a super star who has honed her chops playing in numerous local bands including The Bacuntry Bruthers.
The talented, delightful Naked Men! featuring members of Not enough Flannel and Eating For Two. I think I’m getting better at drawing faces that are on the chubby side in a cute and flattering way. Someday I’ll draw a sax right. 
Here is the wonderfully zany anarchistic PJ Franco and the Burnouts. They are raising money via kickstarter, to fund their lower 48 tour. They are playing on the warped tour! They are amazingly fun and funny.
Here is Barney McClure combo with the fantastic Greta Metassa.(vocals) Clipper Anderson, (bass) Brad Boal, (drums) Brad Dutz, (percussion) Keith Karns (trumpet). Greta did lot sof fun vocalese and improvisational hula hoops with her voice. It was especially delightful when she sang along with her husband Clipper. Clipper is one of the best bass players I have ever seen. Brad Dutz got many chuckles from the audience with his creative percussion. Fantastic band-
And here is Larry and his Flask. This was a difficult drawing because the performers were moving about so much and so fast, and the audience was the sweatiest, wildest, nakedest, moshiest group in the smallest space I’ve ever seen- but some of the drawings are ok. They played amazing rock and roll on banjo and guitars. wit ha stand up bass. The mics didn’t work sometimes, but it didn’t matter because the room was so small, we could hear everyone anyway. When they picked up a trumpet and trombone and played tight- almost mariachi style melodies it was a glorious moment indeed! I can’t imagine this band being any better. What a show! Like Avett Brothers or Old Crow Medicine Show- turned up to 11- catchy, not too harsh, they can definitely play their instruments well, and sing in key, truly a high energy show for all ages to enjoy (except for a few “fuck cancer!” lyrics)
A couple years ago I watched one of my favorite recording bands play in a warehouse in Brooklyn. SCOTS put on a fantastic live show still, though they have been going strong for 28 years. Rick Miller, Dave Hartman, Mary Huff, and Tim Barnes had a guest play theremin. They did not hand out fried chicken.
More drawings coming soon.
I’m going to see Larry and his Flask tonight, so expect a new drawing of them soon. Here are some drawings from past years, Rasputina, Anatomy of Frank, and Young Fangs. Enjoy.
We fondly remember wonderful music and memories, Angry YOung and Poor has come to an end again. Though disappointing that Work and Sauy Yoda both canceled, amazing performances from Zingaro, Radioactivists, Netherfriends, Kizmet and the Phineas Gage more than made up for it.
Kizmet was really wonderful. Folk minimalism, two part harmonies and beat boxing. Reminds me of one of my favorite bands Coco Rosie.
Dante is a furiously talented Ukulele Player who tours Alaska. I saw him at Trapper Creek and at the Pub in Fairbanks. He plays swing and jazzy originals. he wasn’t at AYP, i just happened to find a drawing I made of him.
Pretty Birds that Kill: also didn’t play, but here is a drawing of them. 🙂
Hannah Corral: my hero, here she is rocking a guitar at Ivory Jacks with the Ba’Cuntry Bruthers
Jackie Chan!! a reunion of Three Chord Ho! Kendra, Jody and Amanda. they played a three song set, I don’t think any of them were old 3 Chord Ho! songs.
Unsupervised played rock covers, they are playing the fair too 8:30 August 8.
Netherfriends: now just one member Shawn Rosenblatt. Awesome new material, guitar scales sound vaguely Asian. He was once such a sweet, sentimental pop act, the new stuff is darker but highly enjoyable.
Freddie Fingas played a face melting set early in the day including “the star spangled Banner”
Radioactivists are super amazing! Delightful pop rock with a very talented lead guitarist named Dhani. He doesn’t play like a teenage kid, he plays like an experienced old blues guy. Eli their bass player sang two songs he had written, both were impassioned and fantastic!
It was truly inspiring to see young musicians playing so well! I thoroughly enjoyed them. They are playing again (and for the last time? as members are leaving to college) on July 20 at College Coffee house, and then as a three piece at the fair Friday August 10 at noon.
Here are drawings I made last summer of Kirtan Choir. It was fun to open for them and they played a very cool set of improvisational music inspired by classical music and experimental styles. Below are drawings of Ba’cuntry Bruthers, one of my favorite bands of all time, and the subject of many a drawing by me. They don’t play often enough, but last week Fairbanks got two wonderful shows in Ester at the Malemute Saloon and Ivory Jacks.
This weekend is AYP so I”ll be posting many more new drawings, also my friends Feeding Frenzy are going on tour with Netherfriends all over Alaska. They play the Pub Friday with Work, and The Marlin on Saturday. Also I just booked Lenka Dusilova (August 3) and Broombox (august 12) for the fair. Busy weeks coming up, lots more drawings on the way.
Kirtan Choir
CJ Boyd of Kirtan Choir
Kirtan Choir
Chris’ mural is finally up! I got to help paint it and it was fun. While I was filing in greens and reds I remember thinking, why am i 29 years old and this is the first time I have worked on a mural?
Thanks so much to Chris Green for hosting this wonderful day in appreciation of comics, and for Brady and Rebecca File for bringing up Jeffrey Lewis. I have been a fan since I heard his album “the last time I did acid I went insane and other Favorites” back in 2001. I played his songs on KSUA while I was a DJ there. It was so nice of them to feel I was an appropriate opener. I played two “Damn you Damn you Damn you,” “Sometimes it all reminds you of a story” and “Dancing in the street” as well as old favorites “anthropic principle lullaby” “Homonculus Reductio Ad Absurdum” and Ileah even requested “William H Macy.” It was nice to get a request, though I hadn’t done that song in five or six years, I tried to remember it; I did an a cappella version and forgot the ending. Ah well.
I enjoyed Jeff’s set immensely and he played my request: “Broken Broken Heart.” In that song there is a line “thank you pain for teaching me, thanks but its been more than enough.” This line reminds me that every aspect of humanity/psychology is there for an evolutionary reason, those who felt what we know of as heartbreak” had an evolutionary advantage over those who didn’t. The concept is kinda buddhist, and just one of many amazingly clever lines in Jeff’s songs. He also played an old favorite “Back When I was Four.” He even played a song from his first album and nailed it, “The last time I did acid I went Insane,” with a very weird poem at the end, long and rambling , psychedelic and strange recited by his brother and him in unison. It was nice to hear “Seattle” and these other old tunes. Sometimes touring musicians don’t play songs from their early career, wanting only to promote the new material. He played one Crass song as a request “punk is dead” and one that was maybe by Jack Lewis (I assumed as he sang the lead) about a band of teenagers on tour getting into fights, drinking too much and trashing hotel rooms.
I found it especially inspirational to see pages of his notebooks that included Rom, robot knight. The character has been an obsession for Jeffrey, and he has traditionally started each notebook over the years with a drawing of him. He redrew pages of Watchmen with Rom replacing characters and also pages of Daniel Clowes “Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron.” Sometimes Jeff and Rom were teammates, other times mortal enemies, with Jeff blaming Rom for his comics addiction, and cursing him to a life of loneliness. Jeff is seen throwing the robot knight out of a helicopter, and as he falls he shouts “Jesus Fucking Christ!”
Jeff and I also discussed some aspects of the phenomenon of traveling book presenting. He commented that there was a certain justice in traveling with books, as they inevitably get damaged and this forces the performer to continually create new material. It was great to get to see him play in my home town.
For more info on Jeff Lewis, thejeffreylewissite.com
For more info on WallofBalloons and Chris Green http://www.wallofballoons.com/boglog/
On sunday I got to catch “The Glass Bead Game” a band that played in Fairbanks at the Howling Dog back in 1972 and 1973. Riff Rafson plays bass, he and I would talk music and economics back when I was friends with his daughter. Pat Fitzgerald plays drums, and he was the sound engineer for the first and third Paper Scissors albums. Bill Black was playing Harmonica and he was my 2nd grade teacher. He always just nods at me and politely says hello, even if he’s in the audience to one of my weird shows at CCH.
Glass Bead game were a very fun 9 piece band playing blues and 70s covers. Their horn section really was the icing on the cake, with harmonica, and two flute players, Al green on sax would sometimes play two trumpets, providing a delightful chorus effect, or would play a midi synthesizer breath controller. It was pure prog! Phil on keyboards always added something pleasant to the song, but I’m a sucker for blues piano and b3 organs. Donna on flutes sounded amazing, etherial, psychedelic and joyful. Props to Josh Bennet doing sound for mixing all those instruments live into something coherent.
http://www.srsalaska.com/srs/Home.html
For more info on Glass Bead Game:
newsminer.com/pages/full_story/push?blog-entry–Just+like+in+the+days+of+old-+Glass+Bead+Game+provides+rich+sound &id=19139969&instance=blogs_editors_desk
Here we have a preview of a new Planeswalker, I’ll throw in my two cents on her.
Black has had tutors before, but never a card that specifically gets swamps
It can be used with Spellshaper effects, like an Urborg Syphon mage, though that effect seems only good in EDH. So… yeah, after turn 4 you wont miss land drops, but what a shame if you draw a land, then you’ll feel silly. It can be used to shuffle a deck for Senseis Divining top or ponder. Combo with Landfall such as Ob Nixilis? An underused card called Savor the Moment could ensure land drops.
Ability two: here we have sorcery speed removal or pump, and though it is flexible, it is expensive. She makes any creature a shade? Well, you better hope you have trample or flying because you can’t choose the creature after blockers are declared. It will kill creatures sometimes, but if their best creature has toughness higher than the number of swamps you control you’ll feel pretty frustrated.
The way they design plansewalkers, you read the first two and then get all pumped for the final effect. If you are like me, you were thinking, Ok, those effects are synergistic and slightly interesting, the “ult” will surely be amazing… ok … what is it?
Lake of the Dead? I’m all for nostalgia, but… was anybody really missing this card?
That’s disappointing. I mean, it doesn’t only “not” win the game, it “can’t” win the game. Many other ults on planeswalkers can win the game on their own, but this one just sets you up to do something else. What are you going to do? Cast a Drain life effect? Cast a huge flying demon? Cast a Bonfire of the Damned for some number large enough to win? Too bad that requires a few mountains too, and another mythic card… and Chandra had that effect “built in.” Chandra! The “unplayable” bastard redhead stepdaughter planeswalker. How underwhelming. In modern or EDH it could fuel out an Eldrazi in Mono Black control… on about turn… six… if your opponent doesn’t interact or damage her. If you are playing nothing but swamps, (and that of course can include fetch lands and shock lands) you can get 20 mana on turn 6… or 24 and keep her around on turn 7 but why would you ever want to? Its not like she’s going to do anything. Maybe you could use her second ability to pump your demon or eldrazi… on like turn 20 or so. Maybe the Ravnica block will give us something to do with 20 black or colorless mana.
So what else could it have been?
Well, Hecatomb comes to mind, and would have been synergistic with the other two effects. They may have thought of it and shot it down as being too similar to Koth of the Hammer. The effect makes more sense in red these days. Maybe it could have been “remove a card in your graveyard from the game to do 1 damage to any creature or player.” I
t could have been infect damage. I’d like to see a planeswalker really abuse the graveyard like Psychatog. He or she could go well with Tibalt the fiend-blooded. He could have a self mill effect for a loyalty counter adding ability, removing cards to deal damage as a loyalty removing ability and then what 
would be logical for an ultimate…. hmmm. well, Yawgmoth’s Will of course! A man can dream.
Hooka the Opium Addled
2UB Loyalty 3
+1: target player puts the top two cards of his or her library into the graveyard . If that graveyard has 15 or more cards in it, put 5 cards instead.
-2: remove x cards from your graveyard from the game, Hooka does x damage to target creature.
-6: you get an emblem with “you may play cards from your graveyard as if they were in your hand. If an instant or sorcery would be put in your graveyard, remove it from the game.
Isaac and the Awkward Situations 