Many of you are scratching some heads right now and asking this puzzling question… “Why did you name this blog ‘Jasimo’s Blog’?” Sounds like a corny cornball name to me, but there’s a bit of a backstory behind ‘Jasimo’.
As the eldest son in the family, Jason — that’s me writing this — my daddy used to nickname me ‘Jasimo’ (pronounced jay-sah-moe) as a kind-hearted greeting, and it’s fitting that I name this in memory of our patriarch. You see, I once worked with my dad in a family-operated landscaping business that ran for 17 years until his passing in the early 2010s. It was after that unfortunate time that I struggled to clinch any new employment related to yard work while facing my own mortality with obesity. Soon enough, I dropped from 350 pounds to a mere 180ish without any pills or surgeries involved. Later on, job offers in a small community of about forty homes began to sprout up. I call that primed for success for one very courageous man,
I didn’t really work a 40-hour week, but only when opportunities arise would I be taking on the weekly lawn mowing and weedeating gigs, or the occasional mulching and weeding of flower beds, or the annual Christmas push to clear away lawns of autumn debris. Stress isn’t the thing I really needed, though. Determination and independence are testaments to my ability to survive on my own terms.
A decade onward and approaching the young age of 50, I needed to find a balance between hard work and free time. This is where our well-being comes into focus as we grow much older. I began cranking out some digital art with a focus on simplicity and minimalism unlike what you’d see in comic books or Japanimation. It was sure enough that a pastime from the old days where I sat in front of the Magnavox console — a prize that was won for making high sales numbers in a previous business my dad operated in the late 70s through 80s — was watching cartoons during that same era. The result was a teenage girl named ‘Melody’, who’s obviously a prototype of every other female character since The Archies came to existence. And now, it appears she’s the official mascot of Jasimo’s Blog…
I consider Melody as a ‘Merrie Melodies’ [sic] inspiration with those giant curvy eyelids and huge lips you’d see in those classic cartoon shorts. (Remember the one called ‘Red Hot Riding Hood’?) Perhaps more so often, she reminds me that living ‘forever young’ is within our hearts and souls no matter how old we are. I know my work isn’t the stuff of pros and graphic designers, and that’s okay because cartoons in any form were meant to have basic two-dimensional designs and colors and not the sort of Disney-on-steroids aesthetic coming from a computer every day now. As would the title of Cyndi Lauper’s iconic 1983 debut record would proclaim, “she’s so unusual”. Which is what I would like for Melody to be… unusually likable, and not your typical American high school kid. Come to think of it, the name ‘Melody’ sounds too perfect that it’s significantly tied into music culture. Big win there!
Why did I want to create this simple little blog for my local community of friends, neighbors, and visitors alike? To be honest, it’s because I wanted more control with more independence and more creative freedom and hopefully more support from visitors like you. This blog isn’t going to dig too deep into the abyss of detailed in-depth research and analysis, because I sure don’t want it to become a book. Doing blogs should really be about fun and productivity, and not some kind of ‘business’ as countless webpages would like to proclaim. That, I believe, is very discouraging for anyone just wanting to make a decent living at content creation while earning a few supporters, but that’s up to you about how far you’re willing to go on your personal blogging journey. The old saying goes… “keep it simple, stupid!” and it just might work.
I struggled badly with social media; it was utterly ecstatic for me and I never could learn how it actually operates in real life, but that’s a topic for a future post. I also want to try not to get overly political about what’s going on in our everyday lives — thank you very much, inflation! — but there’s always bound to be discussions about current events and hot button topics that it’s impossible not to raise our voices. Who knows what topic in pure simple detail I might be writing about? It could be about shopping, road trips, health, entertainment, Melody, and so on. I have many wonderful surprises in store. Keep watching.
One other thing I want to add: I have a personal philosophy of willing to take daring risks and do things differently, and that is to conclude my blog posts with an Instagram-type ‘Melody’ post from the vault that can add a little more spark into the written proceedings. Like I said previously, cartoon creation is one of those things that makes use of my free time. Maybe down the road, it could become a cultural institution. So, without further ado…
Jasimo’s Blog 