Rumblings Of The World Serpent

2011-06-13T13:18:00.001-05:00

June Tunes: The Girl by City and Colour. I just can't stop loving this song :) These guys have new album out and it is AMAZING
http://ping.fm/k2eeg

2011-06-12T13:36:00.001-05:00

Headed out to the Brewery tonight at 10pm. Anyone joining me or already planning to go?

2010-09-14T23:56:00.001-05:00

New Twitter background! Check it out! @aaronestein

2010-09-14T21:02:00.001-05:00

Oh and I'm always the last to know about this stuff, but ping.fm is AWESOME

2010-09-14T20:50:00.001-05:00

My new portfolio is coming soon! I've been working with a web designer to get it built and he's nearly done!

Come see my new site!

2008-09-08T08:50:00.006-05:00

I am now announcing the launching of my new Portfolio Website www.aestein.com!

This is where prospective employers and lovers of art, comic art, character design, and advertising graphics/logos can come to see the latest of my artistic endeavors! Check it out!

There's something coming...

2007-06-27T07:48:00.000-05:00

My brain has brewed up another fighter for the next FACA tournament... He has yet to be created in the physical world, but his wrath in all its glory will avenge the untimely defeat of the great Farmhand. Stay tuned to the FACA3 battle and vote for your favorites and come back to see my fighters coming reign of terror in FACA4!

The Farmhand has lost in the Battle Royale!

2007-05-30T20:25:00.000-05:00

With a whopping handful of votes the Farmhand was drummed clean outta the Rumble Royale for FACA3 but we haven't seen the last of this palooka! He'll be making a cameo or two in my upcoming webcomic "The Super Generics!" Stay tuned for more info! Meanwhile head on over to the Fist-A-Cuffs blog and vote for your favorite!

Rise of the FARMHAND!

2007-05-30T20:21:00.000-05:00

Newsflash!
Out of the rural heartland comes a fighter (pictured on the left) like no one has ever seen! His uncanny strength seems to defy science itself! When questioned about the young man's strange abilities the people from his hometown of Nowhere, TN simply stated "We grow 'em strong down on the farm."
Last summer this masked man entered Big Daddy Don Bodeen's Wrastlepalooza and went undefeated in 23 bouts with straight knock-outs. He even challenged Big Daddy, the Man Mountain himself (left) to an exhibition fight and won with a TKO.

Nursing a heckofa shiner after the fight, Big Daddy Don Bodeen stated that "The future of fightin' is in that boy. He's stronger than an Ox and sterner than steel. I only had'em on size and even that only kept him from knockin' me straight outta the ring! I ain't never seen a meaner left hook in my career! After the fight I says to the feller, right there in the ring, that I wanna be his manager and he agreed! I'm takin' this boy all the way!"
He's now been invited to enter the FACA3 and it seems the sky's the limit for this young fighter!
Not being much of a talker, and due to the varsity letter "F" crudely stitched to his shirt, people have taken to calling this man "The Farmhand" and his supporters have even started a fan club! Will the Farmhand win the much reknowned FACA3 championship?
Stay tuned to all the FACA3 excitement and see who will come out on top and keep watching the Rumblings here on this blog to find out more about the true identity of this masked avenger!

Heroes and Sprituality

2007-02-21T18:44:00.000-05:00

In ancient times many epics were written across many cultures glorifying the hero archetype. When I say this I am certainly not referring to what one might associate someone like say Superman with but rather to characters the likes of Herakles (Hercules), the Pandava Brothers, Samson and Gilgamesh. All of these characters' stories possessed the most important part of what makes a truly good hero epic: Tragedy. It was only natural for the greatest among us to feel the greatest of pain. Regardless of their deeds the entire world wept with them, felt their sorrow first hand. It is the pain of being so powerful. So beyond the mundane. This pain is the one ingredient from each story that has allowed their stories to survive throughout the ages. We tell these tales over and over in countless different formats, genres, and mediums. They invade our consciousness and occupy our language with metaphor and adjective (i.e. a herculean task).

Why?

I think in part it is that human beings have a natural tendency to glorify the greatest of us. To place the greatest among us on a pedestal. There is also an even more deeply ingrained tendency to believe in more. By this I mean that all of us want to, deep down on some level, believe that there is more to this existence than the everyday. More than meets the eye. When these two desires combine themselves with the very nature of storytelling (and its accompanying embellishments), heroes are born and their tragedies are magnified until the whole world weeps with them.

What I don't know is where today's heroes will come from? Who will embellish their deeds? Who will weep at their tragedies? Is it that the very nature of the world and its increasing lack of communication barriers will prevent any of that from occurring? In the ancient days so many of our heroes gained their fame through their exploits in war, but is the face of war so changed, so shifted towards the anonymity of the kill and the deglorifying of our warriors that heroes will no longer emerge from the ranks of our military? Gone are the days of warriors like the great Bhima Pandava, who sat out of a great battle, not out of cowardice but out of respect for life. (The previous battle he had killed hundreds of thousands of soldiers all by his lonesome.)

Is the world really so different from then? Has the paradigm shifted too far? Will people, in two thousand years still read about Gilgamesh? Will the Bible be the only surviving testimonial of heroism? Will any of it last?

I believe we need a hero (cue music). Someone to believe in again. It doesn't have to be a messiah. It doesn't have to signal the end of days. We just need a rejuvenation. Someone to lead us to glory. Someone who fights for no nation or sovereign rule but for right and wrong, and then just when they are at their greatest, we'll crucify the SOB. Sacrifice him in a pyre and I'll bring the BBQ grill. The world needs to be reminded of the true potential of humanity and then they need it taken away from them one more time.

I'm changing my blog theme...

2007-02-21T17:45:00.000-05:00

Henceforth this blog will no longer be about me and my personal life directly. This will be my place to discuss religion, politics, mythology, comics, books, and other wonders of pop culture. I find that this blog, with its title, would suit those topics better in the long run. I will be making a new blog which will be located at another address and will be about me personally and is more of a diary of self discovery. The address will be given out only to friends as it has come to my attention that I've been writing this blog with the knowledge that anyone I don't know could read it and I believe that has caused me to tailor my writing for the public and I was actually worrying about what other people think when reading it. This defeats the entire purpose of what I had intended this blog to be, which was a personal diary of sorts. It can't really be personal if I'm concerned about what others think.
Yet...
I also find that I really would like to use this blog for the purposes of discussion of the aforementioned topics. So, if you were reading this blog and you are interested in the diary stuff be sure to contact me through gmail or ask me personally about the new locale of the diary-type blog.

And so without further ado...

Realizations...

2007-02-05T21:28:00.000-05:00

I am not doing so bad. I have to keep telling myself that. I realize that I am actually accomplishing things in my life. I have completed several years of college, I have made great steps in my career as an artist, I have run my own business, I have survived almost seven years in a monogomous relationship with a woman I am deeply in love with... I'm not doing so bad. I am actually accomplishing things and I frequently lose sight of that. I beat myself up for all of my mistakes so often that I forget that I have actually done a few things in my life that haven't been complete failures. I feel like I wear failure goggles and all I see is my faults. I'm about to do big things. I'm about to be making some of the biggest decisions of my life and I can't keep berating myself like this. I need to stop listening to the voice in my brain that tells me I can't succeed. I need to start listening to my heart.
What is my personal legend? What does my heart know and what has it been trying to tell me all this time?

I know deep down that I was meant to draw comic books. I was meant to be a story teller. And more than that, I was meant to make a difference with my stories. I was meant to open the eyes of others.

I feel like I am on the right path, but sometimes I'm not so sure. Sometimes I think that I feel a calling to go and put my all into my art and to not stop until I'm a giant success. Sometimes I think that I need to keep doing what I'm doing and keep putting out the art and success will come to me.

Whatever my path is I need to be confident and believe in myself all the way and I need to listen to my heart.

I'm listening.... I can almost hear what it is saying. And I'm gonna keep listening.

what is this pain?

2006-12-20T18:55:00.000-05:00

I feel pain at the loss of my honor. For years I've been wondering where this pain was coming from and for years I have been a dishonest person. I've lied to the people I love and even people I barely know just to maintain this facade I'm just now starting to wrestle off. Underneath I now realize the pain I've been feeling is a mourning at the loss of my honor. The most valuable thing a person can possess is honor. In feudal Japan it was customary to disembowel yourself if you had failed to uphold your honor. If that were true here and now I would have been dead many times over.
So, how do you rebuild honor? How do reconstruct integrity? Where do you start?

I'm trying not to lie. I guess it's a start. I'm trying to catch myself in the lie before I do it. I'm trying (not always on my own) to make myself own up to the truth even when I do lie. I want to be a better person. I want to be my own person. Honest to the core and the kind of guy you wish were your friend. I don't want to be worshipped I just want to be respected. The hardest part is coming by that respect honestly.
I must learn what integrity means.
Here are my affirmations then:
I will do what I say.
I will underpromise and overdeliver.
I will be on time or early
I will be considerate of others.

Everyday I will review my schedule for the next day at the end of the day. i will make sure I take time to consider others and slow down. I will make sure that I do one extra considerate thing everyday with time permitting.

and I'll see how long I can make it last.

What is this about?

2006-12-11T16:39:00.000-05:00

Is this about me? What is this about? Who am I? Where am I inside this mess? How do I pare myself down to something so thin? If there's anything at all. Is that just my fear talking? Am I afraid that what I might find won't be pretty? Is it that I have to just buck up and look inside myself to find the person that I really am? Who am I? I am a person with feelings and passions and perversions and imperfections. I am a human being. Is it that I feel that some of my worst qualities make me undeserving of love? Yes, I feel that way. I have obsessions that I can't handle. I am addicted to pleasure and will take it any chance I can get. The hardest part of this addiction is that the people that surround me are distinctly divided in their opinions about my problem. In one camp they say that wanting to please yourself on your own time is natural and normal and yet the other camp understands that my problem isn't the self pleasure but the addiction to the end result. The unrelenting want for release and irrational willingness to go to any lengths to achieve it. Thus, it becomes an addiction. One I would lie to protect and to hide from people who won't and can't understand. How do I make the changes I need to make in myself when part of me still questions if my addiction should be an acceptable thing?

watch out here comes the preachin'...

2006-12-06T21:48:00.000-05:00

God is inside of people
inside of plants
inside of rocks
inside of the earth
if there is truly something in existence
that created... existence
how can it favor anyone thing over another?
God and the language of the universe
is love
and is accepting and loving of all it's creation
beauty and chaos
love and hate
all is beautiful
in the eyes of god

Finding the truth...

2006-12-04T19:36:00.000-05:00

I haven't been listening.

I've been speaking, talking, preaching, and taking a stance for seven years. Someone once told me you should act proportionally: two ears, one mouth.
Of course it's advice I haven't taken.
I have friends that I listen to. Some of them give me no choice, but there are still others out there that I listen to. I take the time to ask them how they are doing... and I care about what they have to say. For years that was how I made friends and for the longest time I had more friends than I could count. For some reason though I stopped listening to the important people in my life. I stopped listening to the woman I love.

I think I know how it started...
I started defending myself. I started waiting for my turn to speak instead of listening to what was being said. I started arguing my case instead of trying to understand its cause. Today, I was told by someone I admire, that each argument is chance to learn something about a person that you didn't know. I think repeat arguments are caused by not learning those lessons. It's time I learned.

Beginnings

2006-12-04T18:36:00.000-05:00

Who am I?

A Desk Clerk
An Artist
A Writer
A Musician
A Poet
A Thinker
A Philosopher
A Reverend
A Skeptic
A Believer
An Idea Person
A Dreamer
A Lover
A Friend
A Man
A Human
A Kind Person
A Genius
A Fool
A Coward Who Dreams Of Heroes
A Pervert
A Monster
A Liar…
An Illusion
A Long List of Labels and still searching for the truth.

There is a world I live in and I’m sure you live in it too. A world we’ve all constructed out of pretense and lies. Built on a foundation of false hopes and advertising pitches, marketing slogans, and magazine fabrications.
Here in this world I have built for myself a golem. A man molded out of the clay of my imagination. Sculpted out of my ideals and misconceptions. Hollow inside it is the perfect shell. I can step inside and it protects me from the world, a shell of clay protecting me from harm and preventing me from really getting to know anyone and from anyone really getting to know me.

Therein lies the problem… I’ve worn the shell for so long I’m not sure what is inside anymore. Now, I stand before the river and I am wading in. I am letting the water wash away the lies of clay in hopes that some truth still remains and there is some of me still inside.