Dave's Bio

(Bio last updated 4/2/2009)

Curious about my personal life, eh? Luckily for you I'm an attention whore. There's nothing I love better than to talk about myself endlessly: my stupid, narrow-niche interests, my quasi-fame on and offline, my strengths, my shortcomings, and even the pants I'm wearing. All these things and more are laid bare here for your anxious, sweaty eyemeats to peruse. Let's start with the basics and then tackle all the various "big things" in my ridiculous life. Or, preferably, let's not.

THE BASICS:
I was born 2:05 AM on January 9th, 1970. I missed having the same birthday as Elvis by one day, only to have Richard Nixon's instead. I've had a hunger-free childhood growing up in suburban neghborhoods in outlying areas of North Carolina, Ohio, Illinois, and most often and recently, Connecticut. I'm a non-eligible bachelor living near Hartford. For a career I work 9-5 as a freelance artist & animator of one kind or another in Photoshop and Flash, meeting deadlines, making my premier clients happy, hanging out after hours watching my girlfriend sing in four different bands, putting food on the table and gas in the hot rod. Even with all my weird hobbies, I'm just another boring capitalist dipstick, probably even more boring than you!
The pic to the left here was taken back in 2006, taken with two vintage Roland Jupiter-8 keyboards. A very basic tidbit of personal information about me is my obsession for collecting things. I'm like a friggin' crow when it comes to shiny stuff. Especially old things like this that I wanted so badly growing up and can somehow afford, now that I'm all old and stuff.
Another interesting/horrifying nugget of Dave fun is that I used to have long hair but had to cut it in August of 2004 due to the logistics surrounding a near-fatal car accident. I'm pretty sure I'm going to grow it back someday though, further adding to the complex complexity of my ever-complexifying hair history.

BIG THING #1: FLASH ANIMATOR
This is the most likely reason you're here, I'm sure. Since 2000 I've been making Flash animations as free entertainment online, the most recent offering ("Retarded Animal Babies," started up in April, 2003) being quite an underground claim to fame, for which I'll never quite appreciate enough and definitely never fully understand or comprehend. These animations allow me to be very immature and downright gross, which means I'll usually tend to behave better in public now having siphoned off all the nastiness elsewhere. They've also accumulated so much over the years that I've been able to put them all on a couple of DVDs. There was also a little matter of a video I made for "Weird Al" Yankovic (for a song called "Virus Alert") back in 2006 which got me a little more notoriety, not to mention a gold record!

BIG THING #2: MUSICIAN
Check out my GEAR LIST!
Ever since 1984 I've been an avid keyboard player, both on my own as Parallax and in local bands, '80s band Plastica being the latest & greatest. As the image to the right indicates (click on it for a large view), I am a bit of a gear addict when it comes to synths, but believe me, there are still quite a few vintage keyboards out there I wish I had!

BIG THING #3: CARTOONING
Any amount of time spent on my Comics page will probably tell you I've been at it a while, with my first comic strip being drawn in the '70s based on Ace Frehley of KISS (hey, I was only 7), and eventually becoming even more insipid in the '80s with Barfman. This is my first brush with pseudo-fame...it appeared in UCONN's Daily Campus in 1988-1989, and every year or so someone who had gone to UCONN will sputter, "that was YOU?!?" when I would stupidly volunteer Barfman-related information. Both Barfman and another toon called Z are also seen in wall paintings and murals at the popular bar Eli Cannon's in Middletown, CT. A lot of locals have been seeing these paintings and wondered who the heck painted them. OK, three or four locals have wondered this. The rest were far too busy drinking, and rightly so.
These days I make periodic toons for local radio station 106.9 WCCC, and almost as recently, a little toon called "The Packrat" (shown here) made in 2005-2006 for Keyboard Magazine which was an almost-autobiographical offering for the synthy-gear uber-geek niche in which I so definitely belong. My most recent comics appeared on Metasonix products, and also as Dailies that I made for umop.com for a few months; perhaps I'll bring them back someday if I am not too busy with all the other dealios you've just spent way too long reading about.

SUMMARY

I have been, in my life, a radio air talent, a video store owner, a LEGO collector (retired as of January 2005), a TV graphics guy, a keyboardist for at least a dozen bands, a surf drummer for one band, a married guy, a single guy, an ugly guy, and a downright hottie. I've owned no fewer than four Camaros since 1989. I can speak only one language. I have craploads of DVDs, craploads of synthesizers new and vintage, and craploads of booze in the bar. I used to love skiing before I shattered my left leg into smithereens, but at least I can still play golf. I love all kinds of music but very rarely listen to any of it. In my time I've had a dog, a rabbit, and a few cats, but none currently. I don't take nearly enough vacations, but I don't work nearly hard enough to really deserve one anyway. My favorite drink is my friend Greg's mai tais. I own leather pants, checkered Vans sneakers, and lots of shiny shirts, but never wear any of them any more. I like ice cream. I like lobster. I like YOU, you lucky thing!!