Citation Needed

The above photo has nothing to do with this newsletter. I just like it. I’m a monthly donator to the Wolf Conservation Center, which does good work in caring for and rehabilitating wolves. But because I’m now unemployed, I have to halt my regular donations, and this really bums me out. Once I’m employed again, I plan to resume donations. It’s something I care about, and I’m happy to have a way to support this cause.

I mentioned this on Twitter, but I don’t know if I’ve said it here. Once this newsletter goes out, it leaves my head entirely. But the other day I realized that LinkedIn isn’t just a platform for making connections, it’s also a social media feed. So I’ve begun posting there about writing and unemployment, in the hopes that it will humanize me to someone in the position to hire me. Reading my posts should give people an idea of who I am, and that goes a long way toward deciding whether or not I’m worth taking a chance on. It’s better than a dumb application, anyway.

And it seems to be working. I’m getting a lot of impressions and likes, and seeing that people are looking at my profile. It’s still early days, but please wish me luck.

In other news, my son plays lacrosse for University of California Santa Cruz. Well, not explicitly FOR them, because for some reason there is no official UCSC lacrosse team. But if you didn’t know, the banana slug is their mascot. And I wanted to give my son’s team something cooler and slightly more aggressive than what they currently have. Thus, the above.

It’s been interesting getting back into illustration, after an absence of decades. The last time I thought of myself as any kind of artist, I was working at Atari, during the days of the Jaguar console. I’ve shown Twitter a bunch of artwork from those days, and revisiting it was a journey.

The only reason I’m doing art again is at the behest of my partner and our son, to whom I gave hand-drawn Christmas cards last year. They both kept telling me to return to illustration, so now I’m doing it. Who knows where it’ll lead? I’ll keep Twitter updated.

What I’m reading

I’m up to the latest episode of “True Detective: Night Country” and it’s right the hell up my alley. It’s a spiritual successor to the very first season, and it’s got the same kind of dark, slightly mystical bent that drew me to it in the first place.

The soundtrack is incredible, and it’s helping me with my own tv show idea, which is similarly moody and eldritch. I really hope I get this thing to air someday. I’m not a huge believer in the power of manifestation, but it never hurts to tell the universe what you want, so there we go. Now it’s official.

Not too much to talk about this week. Hold to your own, chilluns, and hope against hope that the tech industry settles down for people to stop being laid off. Thank you for reading this newsletter; I’m lucky to have you. And now, your reality check: The Mysterious Geographic Explorations Of Jasper Morello