The Artist Formerly Known as
 Eric Kirkland's Newsletter
www.thequestionmarkguy.com

May 2006

(O.K. so my daughter the other day in passing realized I didn't send out an April newsletter)

Most of the information here will also be available on my website. 

There will also be selected entries from my Blog, and updated show schedules.

Let me preface this joke.  About a month or so I was mentioning to my wife that my 9 year old son can beat me in some video games. (Can't believe he actually beat me in Arena Football just yesterday)

 He's seen me working on some of my horribly drawn cartoons so picked up one of those how to draw books from the library and drew this picture.  (So now I know he can draw better than I can)

So I said to her one day, "Well hopefully he doesn't start telling jokes."

He calls her up to his room one night and just had to tell her this joke he made up.  Yes, an ORIGINAL joke.

"What did the bear say when he was about to bend the spoon?"

"I'm going to bend this spoon with my 'bear' hands!"

(Hey, not to bad for a nine year old)

Now if he ever wants to become more of a smart ass than I am the world is in for a lot of trouble!

Upcoming May Shows
(schedule subject to change, visit my website)

Recent Comics I've worked with:

(I'm having a brain fart and can't remember this guys name right now ) from the Holly Hotel

Al Katz and I at the Kingfish in Bay City, this was a fundraiser event we did

Random Crap! O.K. what the hell are we teaching our kids? Look at the picture to the left. For the last time, Spongebob Squarepants is NOT square! He is a rectangle. So I'm driving home the other day and there is a homeless person on the side of the road with one of those signs, "Will work for food."  I would like to know where do homeless people keep getting such good magic markers?  I can never seem to find one around my house when I need one.

Thank you For Smoking

Another excellent movie!  This was another one of those rare occasions where my wife and I got to see a rated R movie.  Usually with a nine year old soon we are held to seeing family movies.

This was an impressive comedy about a lobbyist for the tobacco industry.  I'm about the biggest non-smoker there is and I walked out of this movie wanting to smoke a cigarette.

One of the funniest scenes in this movie is the scene where the lobbyist for the gun industry and the alcohol industry are arguing with the tobacco lobbyist over which of their products kill the most people.

William Macy plays his typical goofy character role as a Vermont Senator.  In my opinion he always does a good job in those types of roles.

This is one of those rare movies where you know the main character is technically the bad guy, but you like him so much you want him to come out as the winner.

My recommendation:

The over 30 crowd will really like this movie.  Since it's an independent film it's not playing in a lot of the main stream theatres.  If you can't see it definitely rent it when it comes out on video. (Damn, caught myself saying video, I mean, catch it when it comes out on DVD.

On the Serious Tip:

I'm proud to say my little website business at www.usageocoins.com has had chance to do some good things lately.

Through the sell of the coins on that site I have been able to raise $800 for the Running Strong for American Indian Youth foundation, $300 for The Nature Conservancy, and will soon be donating $400 to The Humane Society.

Now, before you go thinking I'm a nice guy don't be fooled.  I'm mainly doing this because as anyone that may be self employed knows, we are the friends of the tax man.

Recently a friend of mine that is doing some consulting work asked if I had any advice about taxes when it comes to being self employed.  I told him this.

"When it comes to being self employed and taxes my advice is to bend over, grab your ankles, and take it like a man!"

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