As if I didn’t have enough to do, for some reason tonight on a total whim I decided to strat doing this thing on Twitter that I have dubbed, “#dondoodles”. The deal is, you send me a description of something you’d like me to draw, and tag it with #dondoodles. I drew three tonight,  @nickshearon‘s  ”A penguin Fighting the pope“, @dipod‘s “chuck norris riding a unicorn with mr t + the shake and vac lady waving at them“, and the one you can see above which was for @annamadeline who asked (with encouragingly politeness), “can I have a robot that hasn’t got a mouth please?”

The first two I did in Photoshop, just cos I had it open, and I am experimenting with the new brushes in CS5, but that was a bit annoying so I went back to Manga Studio for Anna’s robot, which was a much more enjoyable experience.

So, yeah. #dondoodles. Keep those coming in – I have a column in Tweetdeck tracking them – and you NEVER KNOW WHICH I MIGHT PICK TO BLESS WITH MY PLASTIC PEN!

In other news, I had a really good bike ride to the gym today. I wrote some ace raps in my HEAD, like Jay-Z, but not about not being a mason, and I named my company. Finally! The correct name has been evading for like, a year, to my constant dismay. Then today, when I wasn’t even thinking about it, with the wind rushing through my hair as I bounced along the tarmac, the thing just presented itself to me. I am really excited about it. My company is going to put out music – mine, and other peoples’ – its gonna make clothes, films, videos, cartoons, toys, books, all sorts of dope shit. It is the start of a new and beautiful chapter. I might talk a little about it on the Doncast later. Or I might not. You never can tell with me cos I am a MAVERICK. Well, that’s what they wrote on my school report when I was 8. And they were CORRECT! I am taking that word back from John McCain right now. MAVERICK! MAVERICK!

Actually, it’s not that good a word. Brillopad is better. Shout out Adam Ice Rink in the C-Section. That’s an ill-ass name right there dude, I have to congratulate you. Or, I should have said, that name is brillopad.

A ha ha ha!

Oh, and shout out Paul Heaton, who kicked off his excellent and funny BBC 6Music show yesterday with Oh! (What A Glorious Thing). Serious! Paul Heaton from The Beautiful South and The Housemartins kicked off his radio show with MY SONG! What a MASSIVE HONOUR! I have been a great big fan of that man and his musics ever since I was 12 and I had a Now! That’s What I Call Musictape with that one they did about a tongue so sharp it burst the bubble on it. When I used to live with Blake Fielder-Civil (actually he was crashing on my sofa and not paying any rent, and he didn’t have surname back then either) in this flat on Camden Road in 2000 we used to put The Beautiful South on the stereo as loud as it would go when we were smearing our hair with Dax and deciding what cowboy hats to wear out and what indie disco to go to. Actually, I put Liars Bar on The Steven Wells Mixtape didn’t I? Damn. I am going to have to track him down and see if he wants to make a song with me. THAT WOULD BE SO ILL.

You know who else I wanna do a song with? Babybird. I fucking love Babybird. And Prince.  Prince is the man. And Leonard Cohen. He’s not dead yet is he? No he isn’t. I bet he lives forever.

Any other amazing ideas?

— Wednesday, July 28th, 2010

Oh my sweet Lord on a pushbike, if this isn’t some wonderful news I don’t know what is. Gfest reports:

SDCC is full of so many surprises that it is hard to remember all the announcements that did not garner the publicity as the premier of AVENGERS Movie cast or footage of the GREEN LANTERN movie.

One revelation that you may have missed in all the hullabaloo is that Warner Bros. Animation officially announced a DC Universe Original Movie based on All Star Superman, the award-winning series by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely.

The direct-to-DVD animated feature, set for release in spring 2011, is written by Dwayne McDuffie, who calls the series “one of the greatest stories in comic book history.”

Damn straight it is. And it could make a flipping beautiful cartoonyfilm. WOW ON STILTS THEMSELVES ON ROLLERSKATES GOING DOWN A BIG FUCK OFF HILL WIT THE OCEAN AT THE BOTTOM! I am HYPED!

Props to Geekus for the heads up.

— By Akira The Don on Tuesday, July 27th, 2010

Happy Tuesday! It’s 00:40 am here in hot-ass Londinium, and I have just finished drawing a MIND MAP, which was an interesting, if initially deeply frustrating exercise. I was pretty much banging my big ole Polish Heed against the proverbial brick wall for the first few hours, but in the last few I fell into my groove, a thing of beauty was born. I am afraid you cannot see it as it was for a corporate client. And no I am not telling you who either. I need my mystique!

Rest assured, however, they paid me, and that money will be going toward The Budget for The Life Equation. We’re shooting the first video in three weeks. It was supposed to be this weekend but our D.O.P. got a job in L.A. or something, and its raining. So I guess I’ll be in town for Hackney Wicked. Either that or we’ll avoid it again and go to Wales. There’s gonna be 50,000 people in my hood for a flipping art festival all weekend, and art festival goers are noisy fuckers.

I am also a little hurt that no one has asked me to play or anything, to be honest. Fuck these ingrates! A legend lives in their midsts, and do they pay tribute? Do they fuck! Perhaps they snub me because I smile at them all on my way to the Post Office/Gym/shop to buy gas. Some of these skinny-trousered fuckers visiby wince at smiles. Trendy fucktards. Fie on them and their garotted ballsacks! I don’t need them anyway. I have you dear reader, and that is plenty for me.

How are you anyway? It feels as if I haven’t asked that for a while. Please tell me, I am genuinely interested. Have you listened to that Teflon Don yet? I swear to you dear brother, dear sister, it is a fucking masterpiece. I have listened to it at least three times every day since last Wednesday. It’s only 11 tracks long, so I let it play on loop. It is especially good music to cycle to. I bomb through the End Of East en route to one of the two gyms me and Jeres frequent, singing and rapping along at the top of my lungs and scaring the living shit out the tight trousered brigade. They must think I think I’m Big Meech by now, but I don’t.

I think I’m Adam Alpha.

Yes indeed brothers and sisters! And it is a brave new day. I just got complete control and ownership of my back catalogue, so you can say bye bye to that shitty re-released version of When We Were Young, and you can say HELLO to a swathe of new shit, super soon. And that will be global, oh my brothers and sisters. I only found out last week my label hadn’t bothered to release my shit globally. I just assumed they had. What spoons! And what a spoon was I, for not checking. No wonder I keep getting emails like this:

from: Chris Masey

to: Akira The Don
subject: Question about iTunes in U.S?

I’ve been trying to get my hands on your albums for the longest time,

Sad news I saw that we only got I am not dead (Yeah!), (Which I did buy, Listen to, And overplay it.)

I kinda feel left high and dry here in US, You think you could pull some albums down here?

I’d do anything for that shit to happen mate.

Daaaaaamn, huh?  Naturally, I sent Chris in the direction of THE SHOP. And lo, he did proceed to fill his basket to the brim, and for that I must applaud him. I applaud you Chris! You are wise and righteous, and your name will live forever, right here, on akirathedon.com, the Home Of Heroes.

Speaking of heroes, Jeres, Jim, Joey and me are gonna be rehearsing for THE FESTIVAL on Wednesday, If you’re lucky they might jusy hang around for The Doncast and we’ll serenade your fine ass. You think I’ve just been sat around playing with my complimentary X-Box for the past week, dontcha? Ha! How wrong you are! I’ve only done, like, 5 missions in The Ballad Of Gay Tony, dammnit! I haven’t even gone online with the thing yet! I have been doing MANY RIGHTEOUS THINGS, like sussing out setlists with my peoples! HELL YEAH! We have a provisional setlist that reads like an A to Z of THE GREATEST SONGS EVER MADE!

(By me. Obviously. I didn’t write all the great songs. I just dreamed I did.)

Speaking of which, you know I saw Inception last weekend, and the place was rammed with loud rude assholes, and ants crawled all over me, and the manager lady gave us complimentary tickets to the Odeon of our choice? Well, we went to the GREAT BIG IMAX ONE in Greenwich on the weekend and watched Toy Story 3. We sat in a nicely air conditioned massive-ass room FULL OF CHILDREN, and it was a pleasure to be in their company. They laughed in the RIGHT PLACES (ie, the funny ones, not the tender moments), and they didn’t laugh too loud either, and they didn’t over-rustle, and they didn’t throw popcorn around the place or make nasty smells, or summon a plague of ants. They were good as gold, actually, and as I so often do, I remembered Our Lord And Saviour Jesus H Christ’s wise words about being like children, and copying them. Obviously this does not extend to shitting your pants or anything, let us not be too literal here. What ol Jeezy meant was school/society is some rotten bullshit that ruins perfectly good humans and turns them into jabbering assholes, and we should all check ourselves on the regular ‘cos we’ve probably started acting like one of them, and not like dear little Timmy who sees joy and wonder wherever he looks. And shits his pants. Obviously.

Oh yeah, and the other thing is, you know all that stuff they’re saying about Inception being this amazing, awe inspiring, existential modern masterpiece? That’s bollocks. It isn’t.

But Toy Story 3 is.

So there.

Anyway. Here’s a question, gentle reader. And it is an important one… What words and phrases do you think of when you think of Akira The Don? Enquiring Minds, need to know. I realise that my vocabulary shifts – or rather, lurches – off on a slight new tangent every fortnight or so, and has done as long as I can remember, so I would be interested to know what has stuck. I know I used to say “RAH!” a lot. Less so now, but still a little. BROCKWILE! That was years ago. I am considering making a Lexicon of Don. Answers in the comments please. A fabulous PRIZE will go to a random entrant, and I shall read it all out and announce it on Ye Mighty Doncast, tomorrow.

— Tuesday, July 27th, 2010

Fuckin’ Miguel O’Harra! BLAP!

— By Akira The Don on Tuesday, July 27th, 2010

You think Drake invented that whole Don’t-Bother-with-saying-”like”-in-your-raps thing the whole world is rinsing right now on Forever? Figga please?

This is 5 years old. Now, I am not saying this is the first recorded instance of someone not bothering to say “like” in their bar. But it’s the first I know of. If you know one that came earlier, please be a dear and drop it in the C-Section.

— By Akira The Don on Monday, July 26th, 2010