The Day The Elk Stood Still

This morning after waking up hung-over and watching a two-hour block of The Family Feud while laying in bed with a hooded sweatshirt cinched tight around my head, I received a knock on my door. A lovely gentleman from UPS Freight had delivered a "package" to me, and he informed me that it was sitting out on the sidewalk waiting for me.

- Upon realizing that there was no way for me to get this "package" through my front gate even I called upon the help of fellow c-founder of The Logan Square League of The Unemployed, Rachel 'Lil' Mac' Adams.

- I was very pleased when we unveiled that the box was not in fact a wooden crate. None the less, it was made out of some serious ass cardboard.

- The contents of the box were very mysteriously packaged.

- And even more mysteriously shaped.

- The contents of the box were surprisingly light, but obviously a bit awkward to carry around.

- I don't know why I uploaded this picture.

- Here, Rachel 'Lil' Mac' Adams questions her roll as a member of The Logan Square League of The Unemployed.

- There was only one place in my entire apartment that the Elk would fit, other than above my bed (sorry Luby, it wasn't going to happen). The thing basically dwarfs everything else in my apartment.

- A size comparison shot here, mind you I am about 6'3". I believe that I was at this point impersonating the Elk, though I can't be positive. I think for the most part I am going to hold off on taxidermy for at least half a year...this has gotten a little out of control.

So take that naked girl across the courtyard! I have spent the last month being distracted by you, and now I am going to leave my lights on all night so this mother fucker can stare you down!

In other news if any of you happen to at some point find yourself on my team in a friendly game of The Family Feud, expect me to be highly fucking irritated with you when you respond to "Name a flightless bird" with "Flamingo". And yes, while 12 people agreed with you...you're still a fucking idiot.

East vs. West

This magic life of paranoia I live, is really in fact not all that magical. Petrifying is probably a more appropriate term for it. Probably the majority of my fears circle around the possible injury of my dominant right hand. And while fleeting thoughts of bodily insurance and such has crossed my path, I always felt like it wouldn't be enough. Sure, any insurance thing would pay me a chunk of money for the rest of my life if I destroyed my right hand....but the money isn't the problem. It's the fear or really never being able to do anything again.

At the age of 15 after the violent tearing and straining of my Scaphotrapezium ligament and the dislocation of my 5th metacarpal on my left hand, quickly followed by a cast, physical therapy, and maybe the most awkward date I have ever been on (sorry Becky McKillip, yeah I thought Blade was terrible too)....I have never really been able to do a whole lot my left hand. But the time for change has come.

I have been training my left hand...to be, well my dominant hand if anything happens to ole' righty. This started when I realized that I need to learn how to smoke left handed while driving (this took a long time to get used to). Now my left handed abilities have branched into smoking, turning book pages, writing (thank god my handwriting is terrible right-handed, you really cant tell that much of a difference left-handed), using my mouse, etc. Basically, I am doing everything I can left handed except for drawing...which I figure is really the final stage. Drawing is the M. Bison to my left hand's world of Street Fighter. I assume drawing is going to be A LOT easier than using a brush left handed...but only time will tell. Then last night, a miracle of left handedness happened:

- This Mii whom I lovingly refer to as "Cromag", is my left handed Wii sports Mii. Left-handed tennis, left-handed bowling, left-handed golf....etc. I have even been known to play two player games, where one player is my right hand and one is my left. Then last night the left-handed baby jesus came down and blessed me with a left-handed miracle; a perfect left-handed game of bowling.

This is officially the lamest blog entry I have ever posted.

This Stopped Being Funny A Long Time Ago

i had a dream last night:

that i walked my ex-girlfriend to work. it didn't really make sense where she worked...it was like an amalgam of st louis and bloomington, and i was confused...but she seemed to know where she was going. on the way there we stopped at osco and she bought shampoo. as we walked further she explained why things didn't go well with us, and how if it was her choice we would start over...and be happy. i didn't completely agree, but certainly it got my hopes up a bit. after dropping her off at work, i got in my car (yeah, my car was at her job) and drove to Borders to apparently buy a book on mending broken relationships.
the trip to Borders was through the country (via 28 Weeks Later), and at one point i noticed two gang banger kids off to my right in the field. basically as soon as my eyes focused on them, i noticed they were pointing a gun at me. i was shot at at least 5 times, and hit in the stomach twice. i stopped the car and got out and laid on the side of the road (i think there was an angry dog there too, i cant remember). i laid there and laid there, forever...blood soaking through my shirt and pooling in my cupped hands. The bleeding didn't last for long (for some unknown reason), and i crawled to my car and changed my shirt so i hadn't obviously been shot. the pain was absolutely terrible, and every time i moved i could feel the chunks of metal in my gut. I realized that i was late to pick my ex girlfriend of from work, so made my way back to where we were before (which was in a totally different location then where i dropped her off by the way).
we drove home. i didn't say a word, just clutched my left arm over my stomach the whole time trying to hold in the searing pain. the only notice she made was that i wasn't smoking while driving and how much she appreciated it. When we got home, i sat on the couch...clenching my stomach, i could feel the bullets slowly moving through me making their way out my back. my ex-girlfriend sat about 2 feet away from me, on the other couch looking at her laptop. i sat there dying, and couldn't say a word to her about it.

- after being woken up out of this dream thankfully by the lovely miss katie gibson (many many thanks), i immediately went into the bathroom and threw up. the dream made me so fucking uncomfortable and nauseous that the first thing i did upon waking up was vomit. sure, taco bell from yesterday could have played a part.....but jesus fucking christ, i am so tired of this shit.

I Don't Mind Treadin' Water Pt. II

So, there are two firsts here: A. I am responding to a blog comment, and B. I am changing something on my website without waiting a few months and tearing the whole thing to shit.

Thanks to a comment by a reader, i realized that my earlier assumption of being able to jump from one image to the next in lightbox (like how the comics are laid out) was not in fact tacky, and actually made a lot of sense. So you can now browse every image in the illustration section without closing the window every fucking time.

I Don't Mind Treadin' Water

Unless otherwise gone unnoticed, Ghostco has been completely redesigned with a small handful of new work. It has been a long time coming. So now I brace myself for complaint emails.

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- After inking this i realized that the time for new brushes has come. i battled with my inks for over 3 hours. I was a little iffy on the mask, but figured what the hell. I should mention though that this is heavily inspired by the awkwardly beautiful positions that Autumn Whitehurst is able to put her figures into.


- The pink represents the template i set up for myself with ink on another piece of paper. this has become kind of second nature for me these days....though, i do need to up the anty on the dry brushing to have a little more texture in my separations.

- I have been using "dry texture" brushes in photoshop a lot recently. it really takes away from that slick photoshop look a little bit, and while they are a bit of a bitch to control they really get the job done. I would also like to mention that i hate drawing women's shoes (so does Brendan Larsen) and i also hate red shoes...and maybe just the color red in general.


- I went in a little more and added freckles and makeup (which you really cant see in the long run). The tattoos were actually one of the main reason i started drawing this in the first place, but i have to admit they didn't really work out very well.

- Gradient washes, about 7 colors in total with about 12 layers. I have been mixing my reds and blues a lot recently, seems to give the skin tone a more natural look then just some eyedropper cream.

- I wanted to pull some things forward, and push some other things back. ended up actually using the ink template i had done in the beginning as a layer in the final image, saturating it red and laying it over everything. I also went in and pushed some spots back with a multiplied dark blue.

- Some texture and a background and its done. After looking at some older work, my main goal in doing this piece was to not use the final de-saturation of colors as a crutch. Very very slowly i am coming the realization that i love color. Too bad everything i do still looks grey in the end.

And A Roof That Never Leaks

- So yes, I am definitely using this for the next webpage layout. I don't know what has happened, but since this whole bachlordom thing I have yet to be disappointed in anything I do. I will admit that i\I thought the drawing itself was just all right. But these colors are by far my favorite I have ever done. The skeleton was an afterthought, but ended up working well. Thank god for rosy hands and pale bones.

The tranquility of my new life is quickly being thrashed by the destruction/rebuilding of the deck next door. It wouldn't be so bad if the workers didn't whistle the entire fucking time.

Honey, Sometimes Love Dont Solve Them.

- Something I have been working on for a few days here. My obsession with folds in fabric seem to have gone overboard the last few weeks. This may or may not be for the whole site overhaul.

Life is good. No I take that back, life is excellent. After years and years of seeking my own ideal, I have stumbled across this simple “European cartoonist” style life. It is wonderful…and greatly needed, and deserved.

I spend the days reading in the sun, or drawing…thinking about ex lovers and beautiful women, but not in the melodramatic self-deprecating ruts of the past. I have had will Oldham records on constant repeat for nearly 2 weeks now…and while I once loved his music for it’s dark imagery, I am now relishing in all ways he portrays beauty.

My evenings are spent catching up and drinking with old friends. Long walks and movies. Glad to be back in a city I love, with people that love me. All my previous angers and anxieties gone.

My nights are spent catching up with work work, and laying on my back wrong ways in my bed, smoking hand rolled cigarettes and waiting for pre-dawn light.

My only distractions are a slue of terrifying dream sequences, and the constant deconstruction of my neighbor’s deck at 8 in the morning. But these things are easily drowned out by the tranquilities of the day.

Speaking of ex lovers and beautiful women, I may in fact be having a schedule run in this weekend with someone I have not seen in a long long time. I am nervous and anxious and excited and exhilarated…it should be wonderful.

Elk Skin

And no, I'm not kidding you. Unfortunately, not felted...but i really have no room to complain at this point.

next time i post, i will post work. i promise

The Slowness Of A Life, The Quickness Of A Liftetime

while living with someone for years, one loses the interest to make mix cds. it seems silly when for the most part you share the same music collection, and he/she is going to hear what you are listening to anyway. i haven't made an honest to god mix cd in nearly three years, and it has been one of the things i have missed the most.

for the last three years i have been dragging selected songs into a folder on iTunes. i basically hear 2-5 new albums a week, most of these i take one song from and put them in this folder. this went on and on for years, the folder unchecked. while separating cds out with Rachel i happened to open this folder, and to my amazement found almost 20 or so gigs worth of an unsorted playlist. after nearly a month of spare time, i minimized the playlist into four cds...all of which have a pretty specific theme, inspired by the last three years of my life and especially the last month or so.

but really when it comes down to it, it's the cd packaging that i love the most. i took most of the day to lay this all together; high gloss photo stock, rubber cement, a good deal of swearing, remembering why i hate Illustrator, and the good part of a set of ink cartridges later i ended up with this:

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

At the request of a few people I decided to put the track-list in. Now, this is kind of hard to explain....since the mix cd isn't for me, the tracks aren't for me either. Some of these songs i hate in fact, and some are old old jokes that i barely even understand anymore. I guess really all in all it is the first cd i have ever made for anyone that wasn't just to show off a music collection, but was actually FOR that person.

Part I:

1. Dntel - This Is The Dream Of Evan And Chan
2. The Zombies - What More Can I Do?
3. The Mountain Goats - This Year
4. Belle & Sebastian - Don't Leave The Light On Baby
5. T. Rex - Jeepster
6. Jolie Holland - Goodbye California
7. Smog - Rock Bottom Riser
8. Silversun Pickups - Common Reactor
9. Badly Drawn Boy - Silent Sigh
10. The Eels - Electro-Shock Blues
11. Pernice Brothers - One Foot In The Grave
12. MC5 - I Don't Mind
13. The Aluminum Group - Pretty Mouth And Green My Eyes
14. Air - Mer Du Japon
15. Wolf Parade - Shine A Light
16. Wilco - Jesus, Etc.
17. Tom Waits - San Diego Serenade

Part II:

1. Grandaddy - A.M. 180
2. Iron & Wine - Each Coming Night
3. Smog - Morality
4. The Shins - Call To Apathy
5. Dar Williams - You Won't See Me
6. The Weakerthans - Please From A Cat Named Virtue
7. Radiohead - Everything In It's Right Place
8. Broken Social Scene - KC Accidental
9. Weezer - Tired Of Sex
10. Tom Waits - Baby Gonna Leave Me
11. Sun Kil Moon - Dramamine
12. Bruce Springsteen - All I'm Thinkin' About
13. Mojave 3 - Any Day Will Be Fine
14. Old 97's - Singular Girl
15. The Broken Family Band - Kissing In The Rain
16. Bonnie "Prince" Billy - Hard Life
17. Cat Power - Sea Of Love

Part III:

1. ELO - Mr. Blue Sky
2. Feist - Gatekeeper
3. Midlake - Young Bride
4. Wilco - Outtasite (Outta Mind)
5. John Mayall - What'd I Day?
6. Sufjan Stevens - To Be Alone With You
7. CocoRosie - Bear Hides And Buffalo
8. My Morning Jacket - Wordless Chorus
9. Neutral Milk Hotel - Gardenhead / Leave Me Alone
10. The Shins - We Will Become Silhouettes
11. Bob Dylan - If You See Her Say Hello
12. Old 97's - Lonely Holiday
13. The Mountain Goats - Dance Music
14. The Beach Boys - Wild Honey
15. Al Green - What Am I Gonna Do With Myself?
16. Kings Of Convenience - Homesick

Part IV

1. The Billy Nayer Show - The Baby In The Jar
2. Junior Brown - Venom Wearin' Denim
3. Ette James - Next Door To The Blues
4. Michael Andrews - Signs
5. The Byrds - You Don't Miss Your Water
6. Pernice Brothers - The Weakest Shade Of Blue
7. Teitur - Great Balls Of Fire
8. The Velvet Underground - Sweet Jane
9. Ted Leo - Since You Been Gone
10. Lionel Belasco - Iris
11. Pedro The Lion - Bad Diary Days
12. Rhett Miller - Wave Of Mutilation
13. Death Cab For Cutie - I Will Follow You Into The Dark
14. The Flamin' Groovies - Scratch My Back
15. The Gossip - Gone
16. The Arcade Fire - My Body Is A Cage

House Of M

i have been asked to share some pictures of my new place (admittedly mainly by my mother), and since today was the final day of unpacking, i figured i would take some pictures.



The pictures really don't do this place justice at all. the amount of light is ridiculous, and the architectural details are enough to make a sucker like me weep.

i have been contemplating since i moved in whether i want to make some curtains for myself...im half way enjoying the constant brightness, and it certainly is a good alarm clock. chances are i will give in a make them...it would be nice to have black out curtains in my "studio" for light box use and enlarger use. we will see though.

the only things left to do are upholsterer the two green chairs, and re-dye the brown Eames lounger which shouldn't be too much of a task. i am also on an endless search for a felted elk skin rug, which may end fruitlessly and i might just have to settle with a caribou skin rug.

Kate and i have been in an ongoing debate since i moved in about what sort of taxidermy should be in my bedroom. I figured the opposite sex's opinion is what i should be listening to when it comes to my bachelor bedroom. She had been arguing that all i should put in there is the black bear, to show masculinity and sexual prowess or some crap like that....i thought about this for a while, and realized if the taxidermy in my room was going to represent my sex life i should just stick with a frightened looking whitetail deer. this of course got laughs all around, and i settled on the bear and the deer.....some sort of natural drama unfolding forever in my bedroom. i guess the ladies can choose which animal fits in best.

and yes, my apartment will always look this clean. i have become that OCD.

DIEALONE

- the last time i posted here was mid April. it's now the first week of June, and i don't really have all that much to say. well no, i take that back...i have a book of things to say, this is just not the place to say them.

At the end of April, after a heartbreaking three years Rachel and i decided to separate (or rather, i was dumped and eventually came around to realizing it was for the best). After a tedious month of living together as an "un-couple", i spent that time trying to just work everything out. I learned how to be alive from Rachel, and without her i was afraid i was going to lose everything that i had been working on for so long. So, i spent that month selling off the majority of our furniture, our car, my scooter, old artwork, an old computer, packed up my life and moved back to Chicago with the help of the unbreakable Luby Kelley.

Things have been good though. My apartment is ridiculous, and Mingus is one happy cat. The complexities of taxidermy vs. mid-century furniture works well here. I've been reconnecting with old friends, and making up for lost time. I forgot how nice it was to live alone, and live by my own hours in a city that seems to work 24 hours a day. I've stayed up until the morning almost every night, listening to records and drawing....nice isn't even the word for it. and i had totally forgotten what a pleasure it was to just sit on your couch and read a book. things are good. i am happier than i have ever been.

I had a dream last night that i asked an old friend to marry me, she said she couldn't because she was dying of cancer. this may be a result of too little sleep, or too much RC cola before bed...or quite frankly too much LOST. But either way i woke up terrified....i havent had a dream like that in years.