Number Sixty-Eight

It’s funny, not so ha-ha but weird, how one can become so consumed by ennui, flattened by it, unwilling to twitch a muscle while there are still so many strange things in this place. It is a world that exhausts the definition of miscellany beyond imagination. It is the mentally retarded to volcanos to Bingo (the song about the dog or the game) to maniacs in castles or building castles or removing castles from ever having existed or who knows? Fish? Time? The heart on the outside of the boy’s body today? And avoid the idea of a traditional bathroom, supported by thousands of miles of perfect plumbing running behind it. Oh no.

It’s funny, not so ha-ha at all, how a world of so many curiosities can leave so many stricken lame, parked in front of drying tar without a second thought toward the tar itself. Not even the contemplation of feathers.

Now I am wondering, what is the difference between ‘too tedious’ and ‘not tedious enough.’

Number Sixty-Seven

Got this cool email from my mom:

no good news.  Lucy has lymphoma.  the next step is to get an ultrasound to see if there’s cancer anywhere else.  that’s $320, not to mention the $670 I paid yesterday for all the other tests and xrays.  but still I need to know how bad it is so I can decide what to do.  more than likely she will get a chemo treatment of sorts, which is cortisone and prednisone w/ lucoren (pills).  more aggressive treatment would involve injections which the vet said were very expensive, or take her to the oncologist in Concord which I won’t do.  I’d rather work w/ the internist here and see if something can be done to shrink any tumors and keep her happy for as long as possible.  the vet said depending on what they find and how bad it is, many dogs w/ lymphoma can stay fairly healthy and have a good life for another year, so that’s what I’m hoping for.

but I’m so very sad . . .

And I’m so busy working for money that strangers just keep taking anyway, I don’t even have time to go see her…

Number Six(ty)-Six (6)

Okay, so I picked out my summer reading for this year. My goals are pretty lofty (like 12 books) but the following list is what I actually think I might finish in the two and a half  months left:

- Moravagine by Blaise Cendrars
- Pan by Knut Hamsun
- Ask the Dust by John Fante
- The Dirty Havana Trilogy by Pedro Juan Gutierrez
-  Men and Cartoons by Jonathan Lethem
- Atmospheric Disturbances by Rivka Galchen

I’m just about done trudging through Norwegian Wood. I love Murakami but I have to say that this book is my least favorite read by him so far. Maybe it’s too “normal” or something. Although the love story is totally sad and relatable I’m definitely attracted to his more surreal work. A good moment here and there but I feel like I could talk to a lot of my friends about their shitty, weird relationships and get the same thing from it. Henceforth I am really looking forward to “Moravagine” (translates to ‘Death to the Vagina’). It’s a departure from what I normally read I think, and possibly the perfect follow up to a dry love story just might be some totally fucked tale of a misogynist mass murderer- “a stinking, crawling hunk of fantasty.” Woah. Here’s Henry Miller on the book:

“There were times when reading Cendrars — and this is something which happens to me rarely — that I put the book down in order to wring my hands with joy or despair, with anguish or with desperation.”

This Wednesday I’ll finally be meeting with Fred to get the keys to Thrillhouse Records. I’ll be volunteering there every Friday 4 – X until I get sick of it or something comes up. I am hoping the forced hours alone with a notepad and sketchbook (it’s real slow there) will get me rolling on the eight million ideas that I’ve had over the last month or so. Maybe I will even finish Lafa. Funny that I plan on volunteering at a business for alone time. Hah. I am stoked on this.[..]

…And on the topic of stoked. I’m looking for a new style to be stoked on. The Mickey Mouse thing is still pretty awesome but after I buy this one gross yellow on white Mikey sweatshirt that I have my eye on (that’s right, Mickey’s skin is yellow on it) then I think I’ll have done all that I can do. I’m thinking golf style maybe? If you think about it it’s really not too far off from Tintin’s digs. Just ditch the goofball hat.

I think that would be a good weekday look, while on the weekends I could wear shitty golf dad shirts with stupid golf dad jokes like:

1. Back straight, knees bent, feet shoulder width apart.
2. Form a loose grip.
3. Keep your head down.
4. Avoid a quick back swing.
5. Stay out of the water.
6. Try not to hit anyone.
7. If you are taking too long, please let others go ahead of you.
8. Don’t stand directly in front of others.
9. Quiet please … while others are preparing to go.
10. Don’t take extra strokes.

Now, that’s very good. Flush the urinal, go outside, and tee off.

Yes I Googled “GOLF DAD JOKE” for that.

Okay, I’m tired and really should fight my nightmares and try to get some sleep for work tomorrow. I’ll drop out with a quick note on Enki Bilal’s artwork though. It’s not my thing at all, but aside from the Sci-Fi comics he did that don’t pique my interest he’s the talent behind this picture of Tintin that I stumbled across. I would have been mad about it when I was ten. Childhood love of gritty adventure. Feel it with me.

Number Sixty-Five

Number Sixty-Four

Sammy Harkham (Poor Sailor, Crickets, editor of Kramer’s Ergot) has created a gold mine of good work, and I mean that almost literally ’cause it seems like I really gotta’ dig to find this shit. I hate ordering stuff online, but it looks like that’s what it’s going to come down to to get his books. The stories are pretty simple for the most part, elegantly told and just downright fun to read. You almost get a children’s book sort of feel from his work. I rarely have aspirations to make comics anymore (I just wanna’ illustrate junk), but Harkham is way inspiring and my mind wanders to old comic ideas a little every time I stumble across something of his. Here’s a little more:

I finished Arthur Rimbaud’s A Season in Hell today. Bleak stuff, but I’m addicted to that shit. It kind of shined a little light on where the dadaist & surrealist movements got so much inspiration, which was nice. I hate feeling like these amazing movements are just a whip crack out of nowhere and I’m not in the right place or time period. After I finished I had an urge to go back and read some of the Alfred Jarry stuff that I was so obsessed with back in ‘06. Too bad I left those books in Texas.

Wikipedia tells me that Henry Miller once attempted to translate Rimbaud’s work, which reminds me that I want to pick up this:

I figure if Miller has something good to say about it it’ll be hard to go wrong.

Unrelated to things that inspire me to create (well maybe not totally unrelated), more or less on a sad note- Keiko will probably have to go back to Japan in a couple of months. Could somebody just tackle me and crush my heart with a big mallet please? This sucks.

Images-
First 3, Sammy Harkham’s work.
4th, Henry Miller’s book on books (if you couldn’t tell).
5th, some goofy picture I found while looking for old photos of Arthur Rimbaud.
6th, Duchamps ‘Fountain.’
7th & 8th, my feet and Keiko’s feet and Keiko’s hands.

All right. Everyone have fun. Needles @ The Eagle on the 4th, okay?

Number Sixty-Three

The weather is getting right where I want it at least one day a week.

Do
1- Get yourself a Son of Crab Pleaser and make some trading tapes.
2- Track down a Snuggle Sack (by Tuffo) and take it to the sun.
3. Spend more time with dogs.

Don’t
1. Smash your bike in a fit of rage. You’re gonna’ need that.
2. Think too much about The Rat Room, even though Kris took some pretty good photos of your winter imprisonment there.

Number Sixty-Two

Good friends have moved away, a couple of my favorite bands broke up (Cut Loose, Vitamin Piss). I love the West Coast but it is time to think about leaving it again. Less interested in NOLA as I was last year. Now east of the Mississippi and south of the Mason Dixon sounds like the place to be for sure. All the signs are pointing to Athens. Save $$ & see more of this dumb country. Follow my map. Yes that is me with Biz Markie.

Number Sixty-One

My trip to Chicago was pretty wild. Most of the birds are on the ground there, and the fat people are impossibly so. Rather than prattle on about every detail though I’ll only mention a few highlights. Nick lost his hair drunk. Myopic Books is one of the finer bookstores I’ve ever entered. Deep dish pizza kind of sucks. Goodmaster is hilarious. The architecture is awesome. I would never live there for fear of a -10 winter day. I am from California.

It’s been hard to find time to read or write of late (especially last month in the wake of a thousand visitors), but stealing away moments in transit have allowed me to put away some shorter reads aside my slow plod through The Rosy Crucifixion, which I really only crack during rare spells home alone.

HUNGER- Is a masterpiece of fiction. I’ll admit that I’m a total sucker for humiliating tales of the downtrodden, but seriously, this is one of the best. Scarier and more psychological than most.

THE HOT BREATH OF WAR- I met the author of this comic at a Denny’s in Santa Rosa back in ‘02. We talked comic for a minute and he gave me a zine. Over the years I’ve periodically ‘rediscovered’ him (I believe I mention him in an earlier post) by stumbling across his work somewhere. I found this book in Chicago and I have to say that I think it’s the best piece he’s put out to date. Surreal themes of war and social interaction.

BIG HANDS #7- Big Hands is one of those zines that I read and think “man, I could do this.” The thing is is that I don’t (that is to say, at least not with any regularity) so I pick up Big Hands instead. It’s a great short travel read, and I have to agree with a lot of his opinions on American commodity. Also he lives in a part of the country that I want to visit, so I take what I can get.

More messes to come. Hope to finish another zine before Keiko gets sent back to Japan (two months left – sad?). Remind me to develop my film, pick up my pens and sit down at the keyboard a bit more often.

Top to bottom:
- A bird, Chicago IL.
- Nick’s haircut and my reaction.
- Myopic Books, Chicago IL.
- A lesbian couple that kept making out in front of me at the most recent Vitamin Piss Show (only when I would put my camera down of course).
- Me lounging on Arguello (AeRi took it).

Number Sixty

I leave for Chicago in a couple of days. Trying to plan summer trips- Seattle WA & Athens GA. Black Rainbow tonight. Vitamin Piss tomorrow. Skate Witches on Sunday. Should buy some film for all this…

Top- Visiting Napa
Bottom- Thomas//PLANETS

Number Fifty-Nine

Cut Loose @ Old School – August ‘08

Hopefully if I can  get the Vitamin Piss & Bow + Arrow videos working sometime soon-ish. I am sick of dealing with crappy computers.