Memoria

"A good storyteller stabs you right in the heart.  But a great storyteller twists the knife afterwards." A drunken Christmas rant from me that probably steals from some better quote.

I went down to LA for New Years and had a great time.  It is almost heartbreaking to me how different people treat me here.  They are very nice and sweet and women I am attracted to actually tend to like me back.

I hung out with a girl I once was seeing and she said how does it feel to be a small fish in a big pond?  And it was weird because the truth was I barely have my existence acknowledged in my home town, but down in LA girls treat me waaaaay better.  Everyone just seems to want to have fun, which is all I care about anyway.

I went shopping for new clothes because all my old clothes were now too big for me.  And they don't fuck around with the clothes here.  The women are dressed so fucking nice.  They seem to be into asses and legs as much as I am.  I saw jeans and high heels that were the best things ever.  And the shorts, oh the shorts.  They just prove my phrase from this summer about LA: asscrease is the new cleavage.  Seriously.  I have never complained to myself about seeing the underside of a bun in tiny shorts.

Later, I went to a French restaurant and lusted over the late forty year old owner who I declared my future wife would have to be like(French girls, sigh).

Then I hung out with that girl I mentioned, and as always she was entertainingly insane.  Somehow she ended up showing me the most pornographic pictures I have ever seen of anyone I have known.  Which is funny, because I'm just thinking, oh yeah I remember all that.  I could have obviously gotten laid but I wasn't feeling good(hung over) so instead I went home.  I mean, shit, I'm in LA, people don't hate me here, I can wait for someone who is more compatible(I did already go out with this girl, so I know).  But she's cool and fun to hang out with.

On New Years eve me and my buddy were supposed to go to one party but we couldn't find it, so we went to the next one, which was his girl and her mainly gay friends.  And I had a blast.  They were all so fun and two of them were going to the acting school I wanted to go to.  I think one guy, this gay male model was testing out if he could turn me.  I'm thinking the whole time, this is the most open minded do whatever I want portion of my life, and I'm just not feeling it and not because the guy was unattractive, but because men don't attract me at all.  I just knew if I ever wanted to do that this would have been it and I still didn't at all.  Seriously the thought of touching men makes my nose wrinkle involuntarily.  Not in homophobia, but just in I don't like guys touching me.  It was when he started talking about how sensitive his cock is that I was like, this dudes trying to test the waters with me and I can't even help it.  And I'm just straight.  I started to figure it out when his friends kept thinking something was happening because we were outside in the dark(see how fucking dense I am when someone is sending me signals, jeez).   But he was an interesting dude and he was telling me he almost wishes he was straight because sex with women is better(his words).  He had some opinions I had never heard.

So of course I immediately gravitated towards one girl.  She was about 5 foot three, curvy, extremely spanish, almost hot spanish soap actress looking, in a tight red dress with a flower in her hair, and with the sweetest most emotional eyes.  I was texting a girl, and really being hard on myself because I knew I shouldn't.  She's taken and I should move on with my life, but for some reason I just had to.  It was the simplest, most mundane text message but I felt like such an idiot sending it for some reason.  I kept writing happy new year, and then erasing it and closing my phone and saying to myself stop being a fucking idiot and let it go, but eventually I sent it anyway.  I have learned that obeying my gut instinct tends to actually work out with me because I'm not stupid.  Last time I trusted my instincts some crazy awesome coincidences happened(I mean cosmic kind of crazy).  But still.

I looked up, and basically this girl is doing the exact same thing.  We were both looking at our phones like, how stupid are we trying to talk to people who probably will never be in our lives.  So I started talking to her.  She told me about this guy in San Francisco who wasn't treating her good enough.  And I looked at her and said, I'm from there, and if that guy thinks for a second he can ever find a girl like you up there he is a fucking idiot.  Then I went a got myself a drink.  Figured she could ruminate on that for a bit.

Later on my friend mentioned she wanted to find out how to keep in touch.  Nothing happened, but we were into each other, clearly. We got to that party late so she was sobering up and I was like I can talk to this girl as I get progressively stupider and she gets progressively smarter and fuck this whole thing up or be a pussy and sober up just to talk to her, so instead I quietly got drunk  and danced and smoked.   I know I was dancing with her to Material Girl and we were laughing later on.  It was just a great time.

At some point I met this guy who was really shy and had a really funny awkward and subdued sense of humor.  But it worked and I thought he was hilarious.  I'm the kind of guy who is one of the loudest dudes at a party, but I also want everyone to feel welcome and happy, so since he was quiet I tried to kind of loosen him up(mainly because I saw a lot of myself in him).  I think he tried to get with my spanish chick, but luckily she was more into me after we talked a little, because later on I saw the dude was a ripped personal trainer(in the slim sense).  I told him I was moving down and since I already work out three to four days a week I might as well get a trainer and do it right.  He said the only thing is it wouldn't be in a gym.  And I said fine.  And he said it would be on the beach and in the mountains.  I said I am specifically starting my whole life over and my only requirements is that I am by the hills, trees, and the beach.  So I think we're good.

I woke up in a different apartment, on the couch sleeping under my jacket and feeling like I needed to puke.  I took the 45 minute drive home and was trying hard not to. Right now I am writing this from my hotel room where I'm just trying to get over this hang over so I can paint the picture(up above) on Zuma beach today.  I'm just not that much of a drinker anymore.

Memoria

This is one of my favorite memories of 2011.  It was just an awesome day all around, but this one moment I had to draw now.

I was with a girl I really like and we were hanging out drinking a few beers.  She walked into a dark room and me, being alive and all, decided to walk into the dark room with the hot girl, figuring nothing disagreeable was likely to happen.  She sat down at this piano, I found a chair next to it.  She played this devastating sad song in the dark.  I could only see moonlight on her through the window.  It was a quiet moment in the dark with someone I like just feeling the music.  I felt calm like I hadn't in years.  It didn't even occur to me until later that the only time anyone played piano around me and I just sat and listened was when I lived with my sister and she would sporadically play our families piano.  I was raising her and I would always be doing something else, but she would come in and start playing.  And I would never stop her no matter what I was doing. Because it was beautiful.  And it felt like home.  This girl in the dark had no idea any of this would mean anything to me.  But it meant everything.

After a while it was those chords ringing out and the moonlit outline that was left.  My mind never really captured her, not even a portion enough to remember her right the next day.  I draw and I draw but all I can get out is the vague outline my mind can hold.  But, in the dark room, the silver blue light was like seeing a painting. Like she was a living outline of piano chords ringing the music into the dark.

I'm driving back up to the bay area after I look at a few apartments.  I'm pretty sure this is it.

- Adrian

"It's All About Makin' That G.T.A. "

A little less than ten years ago I worked in a comic book store with my friend Taylor. He was still in high school and I was just given up on college. We would write down the inventory and our minds would dull and turn to jelly. For some reason the fact that no one came in and we had to do all this counting was mind numbing but I still have great memories never the less because I made such great friends there so I look back on it all fondly.

Taylor's younger brother Ryan was a freshman in high school or something so I'd meet his friends who were about ten years younger than me. There were these two brothers who would come in on sundays fresh out of church, wearing their sunday best(you can't not say that cliche right there, btw). I guess they hated church because this was their chance to let off some steam. Come to the comic book store where their friend's older brother works and shoot the shit.

Of course these kids were nuts so their stories were about crazy raves and not sleeping and hitching rides and whatever made up sex story they're blowing out of proportion this week. I didn't know them so I ignored them for a while. Then one day I overheard them talking. One said to the other, "Nah, I always get busted when I do that." The other reassured him, "No, bro, you got to go to the park and pick up a ho."

Right about then my ears perked up. Then the second guy continued. "Pick her up and fuck her in the car and you'll feel better."

Now I was staring. What kind of shit were these kids getting into.

The first guy thought about what the second guy said and then gave his informed reply. "I would but I don't want her to take all my money."

Luckily, the second guy had the perfect solution. "When you're done just run her over and take back the money."

The first guy said, dumbfounded by his lack of ingenuity, "Why didn't I think of that."

I decided this might be an opportune moment to interject with: "I...okay..." I waved my hand in front of my face as if swatting flies but in reality trying to somehow unscramble my brain after watching this exchange, but I pushed through. "You guys are talking about...I mean...you didn't...of course you didn't..just what the fuck are you talking about, exactly?"

The second guy realized he was being over heard the whole time. He said, "We're just talking about this new video game that came out. G.T.A. Grand Theft Auto.

I asked for more details. He eagerly came forth with more sordid details. "Yeah, once I was like driving this fuckin hummer and I accidentally hit this fire hydrant and it made me just plow over all these mother fuckers on the sidewalk."

Totally enraptured by this guys enthusiasm at his own violence, I nodded my head and prodded him to go on.

"And then I like ran over this grandma. And the police were pissed. They gave me like a three star rating and the FBI came out in these black SUV's and I tried to book it but they set up this roadblock and so I got out, thinking maybe I could run past them but they just shot the shit out of me with some machine guns."

I asked what happened to him after that. Did he die? Did he go to jail?

"No. They just shot me to death. They didn't get a chance to bust me. So I walked out of the hospital and they took my flamethrower away from me."

"You had a fuckin' flame thrower!" I hastily blurted out.

I tried to play it off. Tried to pretend I was the mature one. I politely asked again what the name of this "game" was. And when he left to get back to church, I wrote down the name of the game.

I didn't have a Playstation. But my single reason to own one was called GTA 3. My friend Keon got a Playstation because he had appeared in a Taco Bell commercial(not fucking with you) and he went straight from the shoot to the midnight sale of the Playstation 2.

I first laid down my grievances with the world. A list I knew by heart. I rattled them off. Then I said I had found the solution to all these problems. GTA 3. Kill cops, bang bitches, and crash cars. Believe me, hunger won't be an issue if you are doing these things. Happiness doesn't exist because there is no unhappiness with which to base it on. Just zen violence.

That winter I lost my girlfriend of many years for good. But I had the city. I had this cold digital city. It rained. It was violent. It was cold. Some nights the streets were empty. Some nights they were filled with pimps and prostitutes. But none of that mattered now. I could run over any mother fucker who looked at me wrong in GTA.

And so I did. I did it like I was the world's worst bastard ever. We called them rampages.

Basically our strategy was to cause as much fucking destruction as possible until we got to 6 stars. When we got there the whole army was out to kill us. So from there it was trying to survive as long as possible. The trick was to kill as many innocents as possible to get the police on your ass. Then work on them. If you can find a way to blow as much shit up as possible then you are on a good rampage.

Keon and I figured out that the best place in GTA 3 was in front of the hospital. A lot of old people to run down or you could take some pills around the corner and get real fucked up so you're moving in slow motion. That was always fun because you could just lay a kick in to some stupid fucker and send him flying about ten feet in slow motion. And you could tell it was pissing off the cops. So the next step was to get into a vehicle if you didn't want to get shot. Anyone you can manage to run down along the way was good. I always made a point to steal a police car by gunning down the guys inside and then waiting for the ambulances to arrive so I could just cause a massacre. Then if we are still at three stars or something because not enough people have met their gods I would pick up a hooker and get some life back. Then maybe back to the pills, but usually that was a pretty dangerous place to go back to. I remember getting a kick out of going to the top of the parking garage with all the police helicopters circling. And then I would find a ramp and do a sweet jump way over the cops like I was dukes of fucking hazard and land behind them and then get out with a bazooka and blow them the fuck up. Those were the days.

Then we figured out we could make the FBI drive up after us and into our garage. This would save their vehicle which was all souped up so you could really fuck people up. The best was taking the tank. This was only when you've really destroyed everyone livelihood. When the air is filled with pink mist and the smell of gun powder stings your digital nostrils. Fire everywhere. Civilians, the ones alive, running in panic before their screams are abruptly ended with gunfire or even a cop coming to the scene to fast, just running over the innocent because lives just didn't matter anymore in this digital playground. And you, at the center, taking some dumb fuck out of a tank and then driving it over cars and into trucks and blowing shit up. Sometimes you could get up a real good speed by shooting your cannon behind you as you drove forward. It was like a rocket ship when you did that.

Anyway, the guy who told me to play GTA was at this party I went to the other night. I think he was there with Ryan. We all went to see Mister Loveless. I almost didn't because I had seen them so much this year, but I was bored so I went. And it was one of their best shows. We went to some party in the oakland hills afterwards with them and one of the bands they played with. It was fun we all got drunk and the guy who got me hooked on GTA told me a story where he made this aside: "You know, it's like when you fuck a chick and it's like poking a dead body with a stick." I stopped him there and asked him if he just heard what he said. He said "I guess thats kind of weird."

At about five everyone passed out and I had sobered up so I wanted to go home. I left with Ryan and we got lost in these hills for about fifteen minutes. Then we got out. Then somehow we got lost again. Somehow I got us both home.

Then on saturday I went with my friend Tommy to my friend's birthday party(Rob and since he was in the band it was most of the same people from the previous night). I didn't get home till five again that night. It was too entertaining watching these two drunk chicks argue for like an hour.

Then sunday I went to my friends Kristina's and J.T.'s because my friend Elayne was back from New Orleans. By then, though, I was just perpetually tired. I managed to scarf down all this great food they made for this barbecue but afterwards I was practically nodding off. I managed to drop off Taylor and get home before almost passing out at twelve.

It was a good weekend.

~ A

P.S.: That painting above is one of the better likenesses I've done. I think it looks just like her. The hairs right and the face is right and somehow she got even thinner so this looks like her a lot. It was funny because in the earlier phases I thought her skin might be the wrong color since she is very fair, but once I added the darker colors it turned out perfect.

My Blue Sky

When I was about 11 or 12 my parents divorced. My dad moved out. Eventually since he worked with American Airline, he moved to their main airport, Dallas/Fort Worth. For quite a while I flew there every other weekend. I got to know Fort Worth really well. After a few years he moved to Miami. I was there the week that Hurricane Andrew hit. It didn't seem so bad until the next day. All the trees over ten feet high were on their sides. I forgot the name of the little island we used to go to all the time. I think it was called Boca Raton(I might be getting it confused with another island). I loved it there. A beautiful island just off south beach with a cool lighthouse and a quiet beach. After the hurricane that beautiful island was practically decimated. Today it doesn't look so bad. But I remember thinking how fragile nature could be. A whole island. Beautiful one day, completely destroyed the next. Before that day it had withstood decades of storms.

But Dallas was first. I remember it was around '88 and I would stay up late and watch Saturday Night Live which was live because it came on at 10:30(because of the time zone). I remember how it felt staying up in bed listening to my walkman and seeing the strange town lights outside. Feeling a city I didn't know. The way the world felt. The clothes we wore and the styles. The kind of music that was out(B-52's, Salt And Peppa, Tears For Fears, the last hurrah of hair metal, the cool indie music of the time). It had a feeling. Almost a taste. I have no idea even how to share that. Maybe if I ever make a movie in that time I can do something to get that feeling.

Then, just as now, I had feelings for girls. I had one in particular that I liked. I remember thinking as the airplane left the tarmac that every second is taking me farther away from her. I remember seeing the san ramon valley where I live and thinking, she is somewhere down there. She is within my vision right now. And I still can't see her.

I would land in Dallas, look to the sky, it's billowing clouds that seem to reach so much farther then the clouds back home. The sunrise(I'd often take the red eye flight saturday morning or friday night). The colors, so many more than at home. Dallas was flat. Later it was Miami. Which was more flat. You could see the sky stretch out in every direction for maybe fifty miles. It was so much bigger in these places.

Those clouds, that sky, it was mine. Everyone I knew(aside from my dad) was living under a different sky. Their clouds looked different. The blue that they saw was a different hue(being thousands of miles away and a different time of day). Everywhere I looked, this all belonged to me. No one else shared it with me. It was my world. My blue sky.

I went away one summer when I was 17. I had a pretty steady girlfriend, but I was in love with this girl who I had seen the last few years. Usually around town or at local concerts. We would always look at each other like two children across an empty school yard. I had finally spoken to her the last few months. She was the hot goth chick and I was the lead singer in a band. And there wasn't a lot of those around at the time(now there's plenty). We were nothing alike but perfect together. I was just obsessed with her(I'm that kind of guy I guess). But I still had my girlfriend and I was going on vacation for like three weeks. I came back to find my goth chick had kind of dated my good friend and my girlfriend had broken up with me. Both of these turned out to not be a big deal and with my new cache as lead singer to a band I had psuedo groupies. I went out with one of them and then unceremoniously dropped her(and I'm not proud of that) the moment I started hanging out with the goth girl. We started going out and that lasted for many years, till about after college. But that was the happiest years of my life. I did the impossible. I got the girl I wanted above all others. These things happen.

All my time living my different life in Miami and Puerto Rico that summer had left me with nothing when I came back. Luckily I was able to pick things up again. But it did solidify my fear of having my own place, alone, with no one to share in the highs and lows. Just my own blue sky. Ever since I have a really hard time being alone and single.

I went on a cruise the summer 2003 with my mom and my sister. One day it was completely clear out. I went out on deck to draw. I looked out. The ocean was one uniform navy blue color. The sky was it's deep blue reflection. Everywhere I looked, it touched the ocean. No land. A desert of water. It was my sky. I had a hard time believing even fishes and sharks would be out this far. Just a bunch of people on a boat. And I only knew two of them. I felt alone. I felt like all this space was crushing me. I looked away and decided not to see the emptiness.

I started watching Roxanne with Steve Martin on Netflix on Christmas. I thought about how this was the movie to watch if you've ever had a muse or some one who inspired you. And I liked it. I loved it when I was a kid. But it really put in my face that this whole thing was kind of a little bit too Cyrano de Bergerac for my taste. All this stuff I wrote in this comic and blog. And I got mad at myself. I didn't want to talk anymore. I didn't want anyone to know my inner thoughts anymore. People don't share those things because other people hurt them. And I got hurt. I obviously didn't want to. Cyrano doesn't win the girl in real life. But we all know I lost whatever this was. We all know I didn't get the girl. Or any girl that would satisfy me. Whenever I met any girl I liked recently, I mean really liked, she was taken. I became a friend. And I think, I can't talk about this girl, or having a broken heart because one will never talk to me again. Wouldn't I feel better if my failures were only known to me? Maybe.

The movie I watched the next day was Breakfast Club and Alley Sheedy says something like "When you grow up your heart dies." I didn't want my heart to die. I didn't want to lose hope. I didn't want to give up on one of the only three things I want in life(to do a comic and to do a film would be the other two and I've done both independently and pretty soon for real). I'm the kind of guy who makes things happen. Who can do the impossible. Weeeeell, except get a girl I like to like me back. That is harder than anything else. Maybe it's impossible for me. So I give up. I let my heart die. I disappear into nothing.

I look at the sky. I look at the vistas around me. I see nothing. I want that beauty back. I want that person who brings it back. Who brings the color to the flowers. Who makes the sound of waves a symphony. Whose simple gaze at me is like an x-ray blessing. Who makes me smile uncontrollably.

I have a lot of great things happening in my life. The friends I hold close are the best ever. I have a publishing contract, interest in my movie, interest in my other very big project. But...I just DON"T CARE. Right now I am looking at the very real possibility of having lots of money, versus being broke. It's literally a roll of the dice. And I do not care either way. I share all this with no one. I go to sleep alone. Every once in a while I'll wake up from a dream or maybe just have a certain mood and I imagine there is someone next to me. I don't know who. Just someone I would love. And my arm goes over there, and the bed is empty. My life is empty.

I told my sister that I might pull an Ambrose Bierce(look him up, at least I'm not planning on doing a Hemingway) and if I did I would keep in contact with only her. I can't look my friends in the eyes and pretend like I like another minute of this shithole place. I have potential jobs that would take me away from here. I can just disappear and never be heard from again and still do what I want somewhere where no one I know will ever see me again. That is where I'd have my own blue sky to make my place in and maybe find happiness. But...I don't know.

My heart is what fuels me. Not money, not attention, not compliments. Just expressing my heart. I'm not looking for sympathy. To me, sympathy is like excuses. It don't change shit. I know my friends care. I'm looking for something that friends can't provide me.

Right now, I am sitting at home on a wednesday afternoon writing this. There is no one I like. No one I love. Not for many thousands of miles. Her sky is not my sky. Her clouds are her own. I can look and look and I won't see what she's seeing. I see my own blue sky. She sees hers. She shares it with someone else.

I have my lonely little view. The hills wedging me in. It looks like the end of a tunnel. Uncertain, indistinct light blinding me. Filling me with nothing. Empty. Dead. No joy. I'm still driving towards that emptiness.

But I am longing for the sky I used to share. The one I want to share again.

Our blue sky.



I'm finished.




Adrian

The Muse

"The muse in her purest aspect is the feminine part of the male artist, with which he must have intercourse if he is to bring into being a new work. She is the anima to his animus, the yin to his yang, except that, in a reversal of gender roles, she penetrates or inspires him and he gestates and brings forth, from the womb of the mind."

"Andrea del Sarto, an Italian painter born in 1486, was famously married to his muse, Lucrezia, whose features so closely approached his ideal that he made all his female figures in her likeness"

This article seems to paint the muse as manipulative. http://litlove.wordpress.com/2006/07/27/the-artists-muse/ I'd like to mention unlike these examples there are plenty where the artist and muse never spoke at all. Salvador Dali got a sexual thrill from showing audiences his sexually charged pictures of his muse, his wife Gala. It's pretty clear he never even had sex with her.

At first it was all about her beauty. Then it became all about how special she is. Then it became about what she meant to me and how she inadvertently helped me out of one bad situation and then directly helped me out of another one six months later that no one could give me any real advice on but her. That was when I was hooked. That was the point she wasn't just an ideal but something more. My muse. Thats why I think of that Beatles song "She Said, She Said". Like there is a wisdom in her that was ethereal.

I thought it was funny when I realized recently that my feelings are kind of split. The part of me madly in love(I know, I know, I already covered this) with the actual person. And the part that wants to keep a distance. The part that wants to just see her as this angelic form of light. It's crazy. And I'm crazy. Then I had the realization. I started calling her a muse for a reason.

Because these things happen(to paraphrase Magnolia). They happen to artists. We specialize on some specifics in our art and those specifics can be embodied by someone. Mine are a mix of the sexual person I am and my personal fetishs. Razor like, seductive eyes, thin but shapely bodies, brown hair, sharp features. It didn't have to be like that, I've liked plenty of girls with big round eyes. I've liked plenty of girls who were not super thin(not that I even have anything against girls with some weight I just haven't dated a girl like that yet but I've been really attracted to a few) but I obsess over my fetishes which is different.

An artist need to be driven to be doing art that very well might not make money for a long while. You need to be obsessive. You need to have a will to never give up. All of these traits lend well to mad love. To just gouts and gouts of passion. It is the only way to survive as an inspired artist instead of a guy who just draws well.

I had a muse once. And we were madley in love. We only cared about one thing. Us. And when that ended I was so lost. My life went down the tubes. And then after a few years I met my current muse. She was a friendly girl and in retrospect I am sure she knew I liked her at first sight. I vaguely remember walking into the coffee shop, her asking what I'd like and that moment of just frozenness where I just looked at her with no intelligence. I saw her and my mind was frozen. And I think I smiled, acted like a human for a fucking second and snapped out of it. I told her my order but I must have lingered in that small subtle and indefinable way because she kind of had that knowing smile like she knew she blew me away and was flattered. After that I was in everyday. And we did kind of share that weird smile like we wanted to know what was up with each other. It was all friendly and my art stepped into high gear. I found out she had a boyfriend and it just fucking burned. Like a mental burn. Just stinging and sizzling. Fuck, I'm still mad about that dude. Don't even know why.

It was funny this one guy at this barbecue asked me about the origins of my comic and I told him how much I liked her and how unreasonable I was about my feelings and not giving them up no matter what anyone said. Then I mentioned how I never really hung out with her other than once. She was single. And I had a girlfriend. And truthfully, even if I didn't, even though I had healed so much, she was still too much for me. My self worth wasn't quite there. Now I think of us as equals. But back then she was still something no one should touch. The guy asked how about when we first met. I said at her work, but she had a boyfriend. And the invectives that came out of my mouth. That mother fucking shit. Fuck that guy. And so the guy was like, oh you knew him. I was like no. But fuck him. He aint me. When we switch places I'll fucking shake his hand. Till then fuck him. Then this dude was laughing. And I lightened up and said, no seriously, I love her and she is so sweet so fuckthatguyIhatehim( I was kidding but method acting is easy when you mean it).

In one of the articles I read the question was asked, if the artist never met this muse, would he ever had been successful? Would he ever reach the heights he did? My answer is no. She made it worth it. And nothing else would have, I might not be here at all. I needed her. The inspiration because of who she was, how she was, all that. It inspired me to go on. And her outside beauty was the closest I could ever get to the person she was inside. I settled for that. And now knowing her better. It is so hard to look at her. She is too bright. All of a sudden real feelings of romance spring.

When I was a kid and just started drawing I realized one day that I could possibly recreate some girl I had seen. This was before the internet, before social networking, before everyone had cellphones. This was when you saw a beautiful woman and that was the the one and only time you would see them. They would fade into memory. But I could draw them. I could make them real in some sense. Real for me.

I brought this up the other day in conversation and my friend said he never heard of that. I said I thought all artists thought about this when they created art work. A song could sound like the feeling a woman gave you. A painting can feel like the moment you saw her. Words could recreate the way she bit her lip and smiled modestly. Maybe other artists think like this. Maybe it's just me.

I try to recreate her on paper. If I can get the slightest feeling it is her, the slightest true line, I would be happy.


I cannot kiss her. I cannot hug her. I cannot hold her hand and look her in the eyes. All I can do is sit at my drawing board and try to capture one true thing. Just one.

And maybe for a second it can almost feel real. Almost feel like she is with me. Almost like she feels the same way I do. Almost feel like it is her eyes looking directly into mine.

That is the power I want. This is the closest I can get.

And it never works. All those hours. All those slow precise brush strokes. Not one was good enough. Not one made her real. Not one equaled the feeling of really looking into her eyes.

Sometimes I think ten years from now, if we never see each other again, we'll think of this graphic novel, these paintings, and we'll be with our significant other, and wonder what could have happened. What the other person really was like. What opportunities we might have missed. Did they mean what they said? Do they still remember me? Does it after all this time still mean something? If it ever did?

And other times I think of what an idiot I am. How presumptuous. How there is no way I'll ever know what she thinks. How maybe she is just a girl. Maybe she never felt that deep connection I felt. Maybe I am nothing. And will always be nothing.

What do I even want? A relationship? I don't know. To get married? Definitely not. To have kids? No. All of those things in the future, maybe. But not right now.

The only answer I can come up with is Passion. That's what I want. I want burning fucking passion. Is that love? I don't know but it sure feels good. I have passion looking at her, hearing her, everything. Just seeing her be so painfully shy and so fucking cute when last we hung out. I was so awkward and not myself and she couldn't barely look up. It took me forever to realize she was being so shy. At some point we were talking and she brightened up. Part of me saw a cute kid who was guarded and scarred but still innocent(in the same way as me). That was the part of her I loved. But also the part I wanted to heal. Probably because that was all I had done for so many years. The other part saw the incredibly sexy woman she was and how much power she could have over me with the slightest look.

I have the kind of passion that could meet those eyes now. I'm 100% again. In my art work. In my words. And lately those words I have written, those stories have finally payed off. In order to become a writer or artist you have to have more passion than anyone else. Any amount of surrender will stop you forever. So you have to have a passion so strong that nothing can stop you. And even then I have so much more passion in my heart, that it eclipses my passion for art and writing. It wins over the other two. It burns like cities on fire. I have that for her.

I know I'll someday fall in love again. Maybe this new girl will be my new muse. Maybe it will all go away. The graphic novel. The girl from my comic. My feelings. Just gone from years of never seeing her again. From being with this new woman. And this whole thing, this whole house of cards I built will just collapse in on itself and be forgotten.

That makes me deeply sad. To think that this means nothing. People say I won't let anyone into my heart, but the truth is I want to. I want to badly. If only to lose myself and spend time away from this situation I cannot change. My greatest asset is that I know exactly what I want but it is a curse also. Because sometimes you cannot have what you want. I do feel better because we are friends now, but...on the other hand I may never see her again. So yes, I wish I met some person who was nice and smart and liked me and maybe I could forget. But then again some people are irreplaceable.

Maybe I do see her again. And the truth is, it will be my guard that is up. Sure, I'll be friendly, I'll chat. It will be friendly and normal. I'll make jokes like I always do. Be the little clown I always am. And just like the stereotype, I'll be hiding my sorrow. Playing through it. As long as she's laughing she'll never know I'm crying inside. Thats why when people who know me see this blog they always can't reconcile that I am this way in my writing but the opposite in person. That is my defense. My facade. The outside me. The inside me is this comic. This blog. But I would still do it. Put up the comedy act. And honestly it would all be worth it just to see her smile again.

I think of all the stories of Davinci and Mona Lisa. How that one painting, those subtle paint strokes, how that amounted to centuries of meaning for billions of people. When I die this might be the one true thing that lasts. The one true thing that I ever did. And yeah, it may just mean something to only me for now. But this is all of me.

So...she remains my muse.

Adrian

Halloween (A Year Ago)

Before the story: I have no plans for Halloween. I was invited to a few house parties but I wanted to be more social and meet new people. So if anyone knows of anything to do especially with new people or even if you don't know me give me a heads up. Castro is shut down this year(but I'd like to go to San Francisco) and I don't want to go to some ones house(although one of the house parties I was invited to was the place I went to where they had strippers oil wrestling while my friends band played so that isn't the worst place to end up, I wrote a post about it two years ago). But that's with old high school friends and people that knew me when I was in a band so it's weird. I'm friendly and polite...or mean and nasty if thats what you want. I prefer friendly and loud personally.

As for the story: I'm not in this place anymore, so I don't know if I would do this today. But at the time I definitely wouldn't have done anything differently. Not that I will never take a girl home I just met and fuck the shit out of her again. I'm just not as much in a rush to. The end of last year was all about hooking up for me. Now I still like to, but I am not in a bad place and actually want to know a girl a little better before gettin' down (insert swanky music).

I didn't have a great time on Halloween last year. I dressed as Two Face and went out to a few places with Elayne, Taylor, Sabrina, and another girl(I forgot). It was a little fun but I took it easy with the drinking and I think we ended up going to some boring places so I actually took off early and then went to a party where Taylor's brother was at(a local skateboarder guy's house). It was a little too chill for me so I stayed for like an hour and then took off.

But november 1st I promised myself I'd make up for Halloween. I said fuck the make up and decided to just make some random costume. I wore a suit, a tie, an eye patch, and my sword. I figured that pretty much said everything you needed to know. And last night there was no way I could get laid with half my face covered in make up. No one could kiss me. So no make up this night. I was determined to meet some half naked Halloween girl. I then went with Taylor and the girls from last night to some random dudes party in concord. It was super super sketchy with a bunch of meth heads and dangerous looking dudes. Plus we were in like the only neighborhood in this whole area that you'd get shot by gangs(they were all over the place, I passed them several times, maybe it was the sword that kept them off my back).

So we get to this place and guess what? We are the only people in costume. And I am the only person who knows anyone there(the host invited me at college). So I figure, I might as well be the life of the party and I just pretended that I was super cool and talked to everyone and tried to make everyone comfortable. The only really nice non dangerous person there was a girl. She brought a costume but wasn't wearing it because no one else was. We got her to put it on. It was the chick from Nightmare Before Christmas.

She was friendly so I started talking to her half blind from the eye patch. I offered her the booze we brought because no one wanted it(remember they were all on some sordid shit). We started drinking together. Somewhere along the way we noticed we're through half a bottle of whiskey(and it was big). She showed me a naked picture of her(and her friends for extra points). So I figured fuck it, go in. I moved in close and started trying to crack her up and just get in there right next to her. I conned her into looking at some picture on my phone and made her lean in and then I fucking went for it. About half an hour into making out in the backyard at three in the morning I realized I can't walk and can barely see. I finally figure out I need to take off the eye patch because I have no equilibrium.

The girls I came with took off after seeing my display of affection all over the back patio. So now I was at some strangers house with some girl I didn't know. Luckily Taylor could drive so I brought Nightmare Before Christmas home with me and at some point Taylor, me, and the girl were all on the couch watching Hanzo The Razor(a weird blacksploitation type samurai movie with massive amounts of weird sex and of course chopping of limbs and fountains of blood, it is a samurai movie after all).

After a while I smiled, grabbed the girls hand and said it was time to go to bed. I led her to my room and left Taylor with the fucked up japanese movie. I closed my bedroom door and just started stripping. She didn't hesitate and did the same. I made out a little more with her and then took the rest off and went down and after a while we got into it. Forty minutes later it was over(I think I have more endurance now than I did when I was younger, I guess I learned something from all that porn) and afterwards we went outside while she smoked. I showed her a rock garden about ten feet long in between some trees in my dark ass front yard and told her it was a creek(I guess I was still drunk, it looked like a creek but I live there so I know it's not).

For some reason I thought this was a great time to start fucking with her. Then I pointed at the main road(it was the main road that went through my town, Alamo). I told her about all the women who went missing and that they never found the killer. She got all freaked out and then I told her it could be anyone really. The only thing they know for sure were that all the women were hacked to pieces by a sword. She looked at me all fucked up and I totally started laughing. Probably shouldn't say fucked up shit like that to girls you just met.

I remember another time with that same girl a few months later. She was really stoned(funny story, she was smoking some stuff one of my sisters friends dropped and I "confiscated" what a great parent, huh, look at the stories I can tell now that I'm not legally a parent anymore) and we were in my bed and I don't know why but I remembered the serial killer story and got on top of her and started joking about it. I thought it was a great idea to follow up on that joke I made months back. But she was messed up so she totally believed me and thought I was going to kill her. I could see it in her eyes. I said I was joking and tried to make her feel better but nothing worked . She just decided I was a murderer and accepted her inevitable death. Anyway, she's not with us anymore so I guess it doesn't matter.

Only girl I ever met who was a more sexual than me. I need to meet more like that.

A

Rivero's Indepence Day

How appropriate that I turn over Graphic Apparatus over to Adrian completely on the Fourth of July. He's now finally free of a blog contributor who rarely posts and who rarely says anything more than "This was drawn in pencil. Please tell me you like it because my ego needs the boost." So why are we parting ways on this blog when we were pretty much changing the art world with every post here? Turns out it's nothing that exciting. It boils down to me being unable to post on two blogs regularly. So keep reading all of Adrian's interesting life moments here, and you can always go over to mine if you are so inclined. It really has nothing to do with that garbage can that Adrian threw at my car's windshield during an argument last Tuesday. Just ask him.

More 4th of July news: My whole family didn't get to celebrate together today, but my nephew and oldest brother did come over while I was working on this design for Threadless T-Shirts. After working a little more in Photoshop, it was time to throw the Nerf football around in the backyard, play some Wii boxing which is extremely tiring, and eat some dinner. No need to get into much else over the day's less than patriotic activities.

So that's that.

Remember to check out Adrian's design here, and the one I just put up a few minutes ago here. Thanks for checking out our work.

-cm

Time to start posting again, Rivero.

I remember wanting to give up on this blog a few months ago...or was it late last year? Not important, but this team blog needs Detective Rivero to report back to duty. I feel an ulcer growing in my stomach just thinking about what he's been doing with the gun and badge that we forgot to confiscate the last time he was at his desk.

Is it just me or are we all imagining him hunched over a bar stool in a smokey dive bar where all the livers of its patrons can't be combined to make even one good one? Maybe he's carving one out of the first trouble-maker who makes the mistake of touching his leather jacket. He'd be doing it straight-faced for sure, like he was going through a stack of junk mail full of local coupons and catalogs for home accessories.

Well, I guess it serves me right for leaving him to do all the work here for days/weeks at a time.

The above is another pass at another portrait. Trying to do something a little bit more controlled with the skin tones and application of the paint.

How can it be June already?

Started Another

Finished a quick self-portrait (posted on my other blog here) and then started this one because...well, I just need to paint a lot more and there were a lot of things that I would have changed with the first portrait of my niece had I given myself more time.

Another Portrait Finished

Again, there would be some things that I would change in the face, but I'm calling this done, so that I can move on to the next painting. I think that the painting is showing what my nephew will look like in the next couple of years and not exactly how he looks now. Let's just say that I did that on purpose, and that's the way I approach painting now. With these canvases, you see into the future ! ! ! It's strange how the thumbnail of the whole canvas makes him look even older whereas the detail to the right shows that it's not that bad.

It felt good to paint with a palette knife again which I did on a lot of the canvas' surface except for the face. Actually, maybe one more hour on certain areas could really bring the piece together, but we'll see how things go. I'd still like to make some changes to the first portrait (of my older niece) that I finished a few weeks ago...

We're really working on getting a show together in the next 4-8 weeks, and Rivero knows two people (can't say yet because everyone likes surprises) that may be down for a group show of paintings and drawings which would be great! More on that as the space and details become more finalized.

-cm

Gareth Says

Yes, it is late, but I just had to draw Gareth Keenan's face while watching the first episode of The Office again on Netflix.

Rivero's taking a few days off from all his usual posts here, so your stuck with me. He went to Lauren's graduation party today (congrats, Lauren! Sorry I couldn't make it), and was about to enjoy a 14" chorizo the last time I spoke with him on the phone. C'mon people. Keep it clean.

note: According to IMDB, Mackenzie Cook did a movie called Sex Lives of the Potato Men.

I need to wake up early and continue working on the painting below. I also need to rework that t-shirt design or just start a new one.

-cm

First t-shirt design

Please check out this Threadless page to critique a design I put up. Is it not clear enough? I almost put the drawing on a white t-shirt, so please leave a comment and check one of those boxes to let me know what you think.

I've never had a cat myself, but the ones my friends and family members have are hilarious and really interesting.

Now, if I can just avoid sitting in front of a computer for 24 hours, I'll be a happy person.

-cm

update: 6-13-2008: Design removed. Awwwww...

Underpainting

Didn't have a drawing on the canvas before putting down the first paint, so I've been struggling a little with the face as you can see from the photo of the canvas on the easel. Thinking back to a few stages before the one you see, my nephew's face wasn't turning out that bad, but I didn't want to half-ass any of this series of portraits.

Sometimes Rivero asks me about color choices, and I think it's best not to worry about it too much especially this early in the process. I looked at my palette and basically went with colors that were neglected when I painted a portrait of my niece recently. Of course, it's great to know color theory and be adept at mixing paint, but if the structure isn't there, then you get something like what we have here. I'm confident that the next pass will result in a better likeness, so I'm just enjoying painting.

I'm definitely going to do a full body of the next person--probably my other niece--to change it up. It would be nice to find a nice spot in one of our houses, so I can incorporate some furniture and and perspective elements in the next composition.

I know it's the third post today, and I'm not trying to hog the blog (sounds dirtier than it should), but some of you subscribe, so we don't want to wait too long in between posts. And yes, that's a cut water bottle sitting on the easel. I couldn't find a big plastic cup anywhere to hold some water. Have to keep those brushes clean...

-cm

Trying to salvage this month of few posts

A few pages from a sketchbook. Clockwise from top left: display at Peet's. Back of girl at Borders. People who will soon be abducted by aliens. Feel sorry for them because aliens like probing humans from behind.

Scroll down for Adrian's post from earlier today. Forgot to check if he had posted something. Don't worry, Rivero. Our readers are savvy enough to scroll down...
-cm

Something Faster

This time with a bamboo brush and sumi ink, not too concerned with likeness. Just wanted something looser and less labored than the charcoal study.

-cm

Nephew's Turn

Here is a charcoal study of my nephew for an oil painting I started today. I was happy with the likeness considering I just had a stick of charcoal. After some fixative, I added some white pencil. Sorry for the bad photos from my digital camera; the paper was propped up on an easel instead of of using my scanner...

-Chris

FCBD Photos

My niece took this group shot.

The Spock doll lives.
Just a couple because I was too lazy to get up and take them myself.

'Sorry to break up this party.'

This is a loose quote from a manager at a chocolate cafe that Rivero and I were patronizing. Rivero wanted to visit his friend, so they talked, and I ordered the chocolate au lait after the young guy behind the counter assumed I was a moron who couldn't figure out the meaning of some names on the menu. I had only asked a couple of questions just to make friendly conversation, but he mistook my kindness for illiteracy. Then three of us talked about Adrian's behavior, drinks they had the day before, etc. More chit chat, and no other customers were coming in when this guy comes out from the back room and rudely interupts the conversation with his red face. Now, I fully understand that most bosses don't want their employees to enjoy themselves especially when it comes to food service, but this was a bit much. He barked his orders and told them to dust the cafe, even getting up on a chair to wipe the top of a picture frame to prove his point. The guy will probably continue his stressful ways and drop dead at the age of 41 if we're lucky.

So now on to more important things. After that lovely experience, Rivero and I go to see Forgetting Sarah Marshall which ends up being a great movie. Mila Kunis is in it along with Kristen Bell and Jason Segel. I've been calling him "the drummer guy from Freaks and Geeks," but no longer. They're all great in it, and it's nice to know that we're not 100% bitter when it comes to relationships and life that we can't enjoy a comedy like this. Hell, the 85-year-olds down the row from us probably liked it, too, except for the parts where Seagle gave the audience a view of his dong [on two occasions].

Below are a couple of early stages of the digital drawing. Check my other blog in the next day or two for the finished piece.

See? No boring bloggers here, Lauren. -cm


note: This is an exercise based on a photo from complex.com. Photograph by Brian Bowen Smith.

There was more. Honest.

So I checked out the Drawing Board's drawing jam for March and started to draw a portrait with my tablet. I flipped the canvas horizontally in PS and noticed it was very lopsided. I redrew the the mouth and nose. Then I redrew the jaw line. And then I repeated that when it was still not looking right. Finally, looking at the clock, I decided enough was enough and just started dropping a lot of black into the sketch with various brushes.

I can still see what's off, but here's a version that I wasn't going to post anywhere. Just imagine it's really cold (which it was today here in the Bay Area), and this girl is wearing a big turtleneck to stay warm. Maybe she's a ninja.

Time to sleep.

-cm

4:05am: Forgot that I saved the first marks in PS. I can already see where it was going to go wrong. I was going to save more of the steps but forgot.

People Doing Stuff

It was bothering me that most of my drawings didn''t have people interacting, just standing around.

The third panel is supposed to take place near train tracks. That's not nice.

I actually like the idea of a dad being dumb enough to give a kid boots with spurs on them, and then giving him horsey rides around the house. Poor dad's going to bleed.

I don't think the lesbian in the last panel is cute, but the guy has been waiting for it all night, so just let him.

-cm

No Joke

Will try to post more often this month. Who cares if the posts don't make sense?

-CM

Rivero Probably Wanted to Write This

But I was too happy for the pervert. Check out this post on March MODOK Madness for his submission! Congrats, Rivero. You can have your gun and badge back.

-Commissioner

A Few Scans

Here's stuff from the comic story we worked on together. Rivero really came through on the inks and washes. I remember thinking that I was going to be really slow illustrating a 1920s baseball story all by myself and was surprised that Rivero agreed to work on it with me without any hesitation. There are three other pages, but you'll just have to see them in the comic that will be published this Spring along with two other stories. More news on that to come.

I wanted to write something in response to Rivero spilling his guts here on the blog, but now I can't remember the gist of what I was so anxious to reveal. It was clear to me during the Mallory/Alba (places here in the Bay Area) Maneuver from last Friday and Saturday. That was then, and now it's approaching 3am Wednesday morning, my mind foggy from work and from another phone meeting with Adrian. Sounds like we're really conducting some serious business that way. Nothing else for now...

-cm

Ms. M.

My humble attempt at coloring Rivero's female MODOK. I sent this to him last night five minutes after he sent me an email, but he didn't respond. I guess he hates it and doesn't want to hurt my feelings. It's okay, Rivero. I can take critiques better now than I could at art school. You're probably just going to sucker-punch me in the stomach when we meet up next.

If this MODOK showed up at my door asking for a portrait, I'd do it. The portrait, I mean. The face reminds me of the Witch of the Waste from Howl's Moving Castle just because it's blobby. She needs to sweat more though. Realizing what that propulsion unit would do to my carpet/flooring, I'd only let her in the garage or backyard.

Regarding the quote from the last post... It was a joke, so don't think anyone here is delusional enough to believe he will get anywhere near Kirby.

-cm


Update: 2:01pm.

Very few changes, but here it is.

I'd better get something done for this March MODOK Madness over at the Drawing Board!

Here's a link to the blog--March MODOK Madness.

-Chris

Not the Red Skull

Should have gone to sleep, but I was still thinking of the 1920s car reference that surfaced for the story that Rivero and I are working on.

This character kind of has a pink skull, and he's in desperate need of a driver. Maybe the car is driving itself, thinking it's part of a Fourth of July parade.

This my only post this month. Rivero wins again.

-cm

Still A Mess

Found this while throwing away a bunch of useless stuff in my closet. I borrowed a book on Sargent from the library a while ago and felt the need to copy a painting. This is gouache on watercolor paper, but I don't remember what John Singer Sargent used in the original.

I'm sure I uploaded this somewhere before...maybe it was on my first blog where I lost a bunch of stuff in an upgrade.

I need to start doing this again just as a routine exercise to try out new approaches to painting. I don't think I even own a Sargent book. Do any of the Bay Area museums have a decent collection of his stuff?

-cm

2 0 0 8 !

Wanted our first post for the New Year to be a little more polished and exciting than this, but here it is anyway.

Drew this at Rivero's Starbuck's the other night. Looked across the street, started drawing the car lot, got bored, and then added monsters.

Actually tried to do a more finished version than this in Photoshop, but it was horrible, so Ctrl-W took care of that.

Wonton's the first one to post comments for this blog for the new year, so Adrian will have to figure out an appropriate prize.

I'm going to read the latest issue of Acme Novelty Library now.

-cm

Post-Game Show

This is not a good bye, it's a see you soon. I am going to stop drawing pictures for myself for a little while. Only comics and commissions for at least a month. I do have a few sketches I'll be adding to this post(because none of them are new). Those will just take a while so they won't all be up tonight. Half of this post details some pathetic and funny and sad and happy shit through the last year. I just decided to not edit it too much(except miss spellings and revealing identities). It's all true, at least so far as my perceptions.


So... out of the shit I've gone through this year I need to sum up the highs and lows. I spoke to Elaine(have no idea how to spell it right because she never corrected me, but besides she was super hot on her Biker Party day, like so hot that when she fell I refused to touch her on grounds that we were friends and it wouldn't be right even though I was talking about helping her from falling down drunk, eat that shit up lady) about letting it all hang out and the truth is more compelling than half assed shit like the stuff we are all in the middle of. As we lead to the end of this year and it all becomes tears in the rain(yeah I'll still quote that shit even ask me 20 years later and I'll still be talking about Blade Runner) I will spill the beans so to speak about almost all the shit in the form of lists. This will be really revealing, partially because I am drunk and partially because I don't give half a shit and I don't think anyone else does.

Top 10 favorite movies of the year:

1. No Country For Old Men: I loved the book, and the movie was even better. The performances perfect. The sound, maybe the best ever. And the direction is just veteran mature work from masters.

2. There Will Be Blood: The best performance of the year by Daniel Day Lewis. An epic about one man. the people around him don't even seem to matter. Just him. Paul Thomas Anderson shows what a once a decade movie looks like.

3. Knocked Up: Very fun, heart warming, and true to a certain kind of person. It just felt like home to me.

4. Super Bad: It made me laugh more than any other movie this year.

5. Death Proof: The definition of having fun while making a movie that comes across on the screen. It's not trying to be great, just fun.

6. Eastern Promises: Cronenberg shows how to make a completely different gangster movie. Viggo Mortensen shows once again that great acting he had in Carlito's Way.

7. Zodiac: Just a great story about a case and the characters involved in solving it.

8. Juno: A cute, sweet, and at some points painfully realistic look at a pregnancy. Jason Bateman had my feelings all over the map. And the kids were spectacular in it.

9. American Gangster: Another master (Ridley Scott who directed my favorite movie Blade Runner, remember) comes and shows yet another way of doing a gangster movie.

10. The Lookout: One of my favorite actors currently does an original heist movie. Almost perfect(except the music).

11. Into The Wild: An inspiring look at someone who would never give up and had only one mission in life. I don't care about the politics of his mission, it was his tenacity that was inspiring. This should probably be higher on the list if only for Hal Holbrook very nearly bringing me to tears. I took a girl on a date to see this and she was making fun of me for like an hour.

I just realized how many damn movies I saw this year. I actually excluded a lot.

And Last American Virgin stands out as a great rental(if you can even find it). Starts out as a straight Porky's riff and goes somewhere very dark. Seemingly explored in another movie that same year, here it is punctuated by the truest most painful ending, way meaner than the other movie I'm referring to here(but won't say it's name or I'll give away a key plot point). A stupid eighties movie that somehow shapes up way into it. Also there is a donkey dick dork in it that is so fucking funny. They mercilessly tease the dude any fucking chance they get. If there was a drinking game about this movie it would be every time they bully this dude for no discernible reason.

Favorite Comics this year:

1. Punisher: Strange to find this one dimensional character actually written not only well, but great. The best ruminations on vigilantism and violence I have ever read. Plus Barricuda has got to be one of the all time best villains(up there with some other Garth Ennis greats like Herr Starr). Garth Ennis is one of my all time favorite comic writers and here he forgoes traditional characterization(which he is the BEST at, think Jesse Custer, Cassidy, Tommy Monahan, and most any other thing he writes) and faces the pure violence of life and pure story. He knows he can't kill Punisher so what would in anyone else hands become pure looping episodic shit turns into something so much more.

2. Acme Novelty: Consistently great. Consistently perfect. Chris Ware will go down in history as one of the greatest story tellers of all. He can combine just a few lines and explain the meaning of life. Who else can do that?

3. Blade Of The Immortal: In issue form this comic has just bid farewell. But as books they are the most action packed long form comics ever made. Not like any of the Manga that surrounds it on the shelves. The villains are many times just as fascinating as the heroes.

Top 8 girls I've been devastated by this year who I have consummated nothing with:

(in order of appearance, not intensity and hey maybe this will hurt feelings but a)I doubt it and b) you should have taken the initiative I would have at least got you back)

(listening to Heart Of Mine by Bobby Caldwell, also done by a bunch of others)

1. Laura: Super hot half asian girl (I'm talking super out of my league and half naked like the whole night) who I stopped myself from kissing even though she asked why I wouldn't because she was super drunk. She had a long term boyfriend. Probably the worst decision of all. No one was around she was rubbing up against me, and I could have done anything I wanted to, but instead I was a limp dick loser and refused because she was so drunk it would be super wrong(although the limp thing is just a fabrication). She even slept in my house and I nursed her to health. Fucking idiot. She is killing me just thinking about her. What the fuck was I thinking. She makes me hungry. She could have been my "Last American Virgin" moment. You'd have to watch that fucking great movie in sheeps clothing, to mixed metaphors, to get what that means. Although I didn't in this case, I'd sum up that movie, and some choice painful moments in my own life, in the desert, years ago, as "driving and crying".

2. Sawako: Super hot Japanese girl who is probably the only girl who I could call a tease on this list. I got her number but decided not to call her because she made me jump through hoops for it. Very cute, and I had a rep for falling for asian chicks because of these first two but after that I basically gave up on the ones around me and accepted them as friends.

(now I'm listenig to "Feel Like Making Love" by D'Angelo)

3. K: I won't say her full name but I felt something deep and real with her and she worked at a "common" place that I frequented(yes, Starbucks, and yes, I was a fool). This was the first one I liked who was ten years younger than me. I totally was head over heals for her and she seemed to actually pick up on it and maybe like it on some level even though she had a long term boyfriend(the rapist who started me and Mendoza's term of Lee, based on the character in the british version of the Office). You can look at least to Spring when my whole Barista fetish began. I have never seen her since she quit and I don't think I will again. She is in love with someone and I am not. The lines do not cross. We could have been something really good. Fuck.....

4. Tu-Ahn: I may or may not have spelled that correctly. She is the girl with the most in common with me. If you like comics you will like to know I met her while stocking shit for Image Comics in Berkeley which my good friend set me up with. She was his friend and I had no idea she had a long time boyfriend from high school and my chances were next to nothing. I still talk to her every few months. She was ridiculous rad. She was fine and cool and just right like goldilocks.

(listening to "Desert Island" by Magnetic Fields)

5. D: She reads this. She was the Barista in my painting earlier this summer who e-mailed me back that she read my blog. I think we connected on an intellectual level(although she was hot to the point I painted that one picture of her and made a post about it). We loved art and she was interesting. I knew there was more to her than she revealed and I think she saw the same in me. More than ten years younger she left to college and I thought I'd never see her again. Then she came back. Just as hot but with a new boyfriend(she had one when she left which was the only thing that kept my crush from blowing the fuck up). I am trying to avoid her but I literally bump in to her all the time(the fact she works at a place I frequent all the time only has like 100% to do with it you subconscious motherfuckers). She has the guy and I don't think she likes me in any other way than in the fact we have interesting lives. To give you an example I don't think I've even said anything funny to her ever. I mean fucking ever. And that is the only thing anyone has ever liked about me. Shit, I shouldn't write so much about her. If she wasn't taken I'd eat her up like cookies...

(Listening to "New York Groove" by Ace Frehley, yeah, THAT Ace Frehley)


6. Michelle: Cute, fun, and just a great time. I met her in New Orleans during like a rain storm I thought might be the next Katrina. Seriously. They shouldn't have been showing reruns of the weather channel in the fucking bar we were stranded in. Very terrifying. Anyway, the next two days were dedicated to drinking and partying and living our last days in what clearly were not our last days. Taylor and I were depressed for days after that. Our fun level was raised to impossible levels because of her and her friends. Everything after that was a huge letdown. But it's still good to know life can be that good. Thanks!

Drought

7. M: Holy shit could you not find girl more suited for my tastes. I went out with her. I was on her so fast it was an Adrian revelation. She really didn't seem to dig me though. It was kind of sad and led to my very sad art posts of the later year. I basically thought that all women must hate me. She has a tattoo that I will not go into because I talked to her tonight and felt wrong even mentioning how hot it was. I see her all the time and hang out with her but she never reciprocated so I basically gave up on her. Still super cool and I should have gotten the fucking hair cut from her. Goddammit!

8. L: I see her all the fucking time and one night I had sparks like crazy with her. I took her on a date and nothing. I was into her but the moment I made a move the electricity was gone. So it's over.

(listening to "Wouldn't It Be Good" by Nik Kershaw)

I'm still seeing some of these girls(not in the dating sense but in a literal sense). But for the most part it is totally over with them and I think I won't actually have anything romantically to do with them. Right now I have an every other day hang over of D. at her place of work. Need to avoid. What good can come out of it?

There were actually enough repeats to make it to ten but I'm not going to go into how they repeated. Although I guess I have.

I'm gonna check my Itunes for embarrassing lists of music. Lets see what I listen to the most regardless of what people think.

These actually say a lot of my piece of mind. I can't believe looking back on it haow much, actually.

1. Magnetic Fields - In My Secret Place: About, literally what it sounds like. And most likely about how I feel alone where I live, yet sheltered and safe. Everything I do is so for myself it's an artists dream. Yet it is scary on so many levels. It leads to highs that most don't get yet it also leads to lows.

2. Elliott Smith - A Question Mark: Shit, this is really getting personal. This song explains a lot in it's lyrics about how you can feel confused , destroyed, and powerful. And yeah, he killed himself. No, I have a lot to live for so I would never do the same. But the whole album is on the edge.

3. Magnetic Fields - Strange Powers: Probably the only positive song I listened to. It treats women as a mystery(although I'm sure he's talking about a man since he is gay). "I can't sleep, 'cause you got strange powers". Pretty much my year.

4. Magnetic Fields - The Trouble I've Been Looking For: Same album as the other two. Again about meeting someone who will tear you up yet make you feel good for a short time. Dammit, I really thought my song choices would be more random and not so telling.

5. Gary Numan - Metal: A song about the disconnection between people. He basically makes the Blade Runner paradigm about some people are more human and sometimes a connection can be made anyway.

6. Dubstar - Everyday I Die: Actually a Gary Numan song, but the cover is so fucking immaculate and rad I listened to it a lot. About a crush on someone far away. Through celluloid or on the pages of a magazine. My crushes were distant and fascinating in their complexities.

7. Sugar - Helpless: About being helpless to the powers of another(again I thin I heard the dude was gay, so maybe that says something, although I am crazy straight). A great song about the confusing feeling that another can give you.

8. Sineade O' Connor - Mandinka: I guess this is a very positive song also(like Strange Powers). About love and making a connection. I somehow see it as light and heat and summer. Maybe something to do with my youth and when I first heard it. A great song.

9. Magnetic Fields - The Things We Did And Didn't Do: A song about the name and all the possible permutations. What relationships feel like and what they should and should not. Great lyrics and a great sentiment about the things that should and shouldn't be. Again, the lyrics say it all.

10. Lush - De-luxe: A song about sex and feeling. Very sensuous and just plain sexy. I love it and it reminds me of actually doing something. It reminds me about living. I guess I have. But sometimes I forget anyway.

(Listening to "Magnet And Steel" by Walter Egan via the Boogie Nights soundtrack)

I guess there is a note of possible happiness in these songs.

Favorite Porno Titles I can remember right now:

1. Somebody's Daughter: So fucking cruel and perfect. No I've never seen it. Just the commercial(huh).

2. Dirtpipe Milkshake: Not as bad as it sounds, but never the less I have never seen it. I know better, come on give me some fucking credit.

3. 7 The Hard Way: Reminds me of that great Rodney Dangerfield moment from Caddy Shack("How would you like to earn five dollars the hard way"). I actually had to sit down and think about this title.

R.I.P. Haley Paige. Long Live Jenni Lee. If you don't know you probably wouldn't care anyway.

I can make lists forever like High Fidelity or I can stop typing and live life. I think I'll do that. Live life. Draw the stories I said I would. Love the way I want. Live. Live.


One from the heart, the whole heart, yes it lives it breathes and it will abide, like the Dude, like everyone else,

Adrian Rivero