Heather and I started dating in February. She’s not at all into punk rock, but she does like to do normal human activities like go to baseball games with other normal humans. In May, I went along with them to see the Rays play some other team that I forget. While I was sitting there, I drew a silly comic about my experience on the back of two tickets.
“If You Watch Sports, You’re Not Punk.” 5/8/13. Marker, pen, duct tape. 8×10″.
While this was really well-received by my friends and others that follow me online, I was surprised that half of the people to see it through Reddit got really pissed off and defensive.
I like to think I’m open-minded though so I’m going to take this opportunity to change my position on the matter. Watching sports is totally punk (but having a sense of humor is absolutely not).
Should I discover otherwise, I’ll definitely keep you posted.
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On an unrelated note, someone online bought my copy of Henry Rollins’ “Get in the Van” today. It’s been at least seven years since I read it, so I took a look before packing it up to ship it out. The thing that stood out most to me… the guy’s talking about some people that let him and his band stay with them (not for a night, but for a while) and he’s talking about how much he hated them. He says he keeps to himself and never really interacts with them – yet he hates them. Because they’re “stoner-hippie-punks” and he thinks they’re “full of shit.” My kneejerk response is, “how terribly unhappy do you have to be to hate someone that you barely know?” I’ve never really understood why anyone has held Rollins up as any kind of an idol or hero, but – reading this stuff – I’m really reminded of the huge ideological differences that exist between different “sects” of punk rock. This book’s all about fighting and violence and self-righteousness. It’s all “I know what’s right, you’re wrong, and I’m gonna kick the shit out of you for having ideas that aren’t exactly like my own.” Basically – it’s got a lot in common with everything to come out of hardcore (which has pretty much nothing in common with what punk means to me).
Sometime in April, I found two baby birds that had fallen out of a nest and were clearly dying. I’m embarrassed to say so (which strikes me as a pretty strong indication that I should) but that little incident sparked serious thought – about my priorities, my responsibilities, and how I spend my time. I felt stupid since (apparently) I need to be confronted face-to-face with a dying animal in order to consider it. And I felt weak for being affected by the encounter at all.
About an hour before I had planned to start painting this, I was reminded of another incident where I had felt similarly weak. In twelve-step programs, the sixth step is to become ready to have God remove all of one’s character defects (and the seventh is to actually ask God to remove them). For me, step six meant spending a considerable amount of time actually considering and listing my character defects and then really thinking about whether I truly wanted to stop indulging them. Regarding the seventh step… I talk about faith in relation to other pieces and it’s not the crux of this painting so I’ll just say that one of the best things I’ve ever heard in Alcoholics Anonymous (one of very few things that actually stuck with me) was: “If you’re gonna pray for your character defects to go away, you better fucking act like it worked.”
I did those two steps and realized, “Shit – if I just committed to being honest, I can’t really sneak out of rehab tomorrow to meet up with a girl.” (A scheme I had hatched earlier in the week). So I called the girl. “Um… this is going to sound really dopey, but I have to cancel… I just did my seventh step so I can’t be dishonest and sneak out to see you.”
The buildings in this painting are arranged like the ones at Tranquil Shores. The one with the bird at the window was my room. I often contemplated sneaking out by stepping out of that window and onto the roof of the adjacent building. (I never followed through, but only because I had easier means of sneaking out).
I’ll never forget when Kyle’s mom left (or, more specifically, the day she came back), her attitude, and Kyle’s response… We were sitting in his room when she showed up at the house. She was really happy to see him and he was just… blank. Emotionless. He looked bored by it. I’m sure he wasn’t bored, but he was hurt and I guess that’s how he protected himself. Or maybe he was angry and that was his way of getting back at her: acting like he didn’t care. I don’t know why Kyle’s mom left and maybe she didn’t have a choice, but I saw how the way that she left hurt my friend. She loved him, but she fucked up. My parents loved me and they fucked up. Kyle has his own kid now and I have faith in him as a dad, but he’s going to fuck up in some respect somewhere along the way. We all do. It won’t mean he doesn’t love his daughter, it just means that he’s as shitty, selfish, and imperfect as everyone else. I might do tremendously terrible things in some moment, but I never have that intention; I’m just misguided, short-sighted, frustrated, or [whatever].
The mean looking bird is in my window because it’s me. It’s me and it’s my dad – and my mom. It’s Kyle’s parents, it’s Kyle, it’s his girlfriend, and one day it’ll be their daughter.
“Take what you need and leave the rest” is a slogan that gets used a lot in the contexts of substance abuse recovery and mental health treatment. “Take what you need and leave the nest” is a silly, little bird/growing up pun that I came up with for this piece to show everyone how clever I am.
I struck out on my own at a pretty early age. Some people seem to never leave home. It doesn’t matter. When it comes to parents, family, and home (or anything really), get what you can out of it – all the good lessons or experiences available – and then move forward to what’s next. Don’t dwell on the bad. Resentments only hurt one person – the person holding them. Forgiveness can still be tough, but it’s easier to forgive someone when you remember: they mean well, baby bird.
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On an unrelated note, I just fixed a lamp with a soldering iron. If anyone needs the wiring in their house redone, I’m now taking appointments.
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Who says a full-length can’t be 19 minutes long? The first three tracks on this thing are so good, they could have cut it off right there and called it a full-length and I still wouldn’t have argued.
After the show in Valdosta (which was just Rational Anthem and Johnathan Coody of Ninja Gun), I drove the van back to my place in Jacksonville, where we spent the night. The rest of the crew left around noon and I’ve spent the day kind of catching up around here. Did some yardwork, started to replace the blurry images (in all of my posts made from the road) with high-res ones. I should have that done by tomorrow, at which point I’ll also add them all to the Gallery page.
I don’t take a lot of photos, but here’s what I got.
The floor of the van. We are children.This firework had no fuse, but I figured if we enveloped the whole thing in fire, that ought to do the trick. Zack gathered up some junk mail and made it happen.Here’s the aftermath. We set it off underneath an awning in front of a business, rather than in the street. Because we’re real smart guys.Lipstick Homicide’s front porch. I just really like that skateboard.I used to have a different one until it got thrown out while I was away in rehab in December 2011. Evan‘s playing in Tight Bros now though, so I saw him all weekend and he traded me a *new* poster for an “I Can’t Compete With Harry Potter” print.Two rad trades in one night. Brett didn’t have anything with him in Des Moines (where Rational played with The Copyrights), but The Heat Tape were on the bill in Carbondale, so I let him snag my “I Don’t Go Out Much” cartoon in Iowa and he brought me these the next night in Illinois. (Going on tour / punk rock is awesome).Driving into St. Louis.I was down the street from the Triple Rock (not especially dressed) when Mike Cranberry walked up with a ridiculous leather jacket and told me to try it on. Because I didn’t look like enough of a creep to begin with.
I guess that’s it for now. But speaking of Mike…
And if you’re tired of my nonsense, those links in the photo captions will take you to Brett and Evan’s websites, which both have a bunch of their art online.
I started (and finished) this piece in the van, but also worked on it at the Ski Haus in Carbondale, (where Rational Anthem played with The Heat Tape, Future Virgins, and Hate Waves).
My primary purpose in creating art is emotional balance / regulation. Sometimes though, when I don’t like what comes out of me, the process can actually throw me off base a little bit.
I’m pretty fragile. Little things fuck with my head. I sometimes forget that I can write private journals that don’t have to go online immediately. When that happens, I lose one of my tools.
Noelle said this one looks like a warzone. From the beginning, I was pitting the top right and bottom left against each other, alternately considering cropping one or the other out. It took a long time to bring them together in the center in a way that felt right to me. I think the combination of textures (through the layering of the different materials) helped a lot with that. So did journaling (privately) in order to really examine the forces behind my feelings. Taking a suggestion made by a friend a few weeks back, I wrote on the back of the piece. As I wrote on the front of “Iowa,” I don’t need to put my every thought up in lights for public scrutiny.
Noelle works early on Wednesday morning, so we decided that tonight (in Valdosta) is the last show before we head home. We’re running more than a little late, but I’m not stressing it anymore. I don’t know how tonight will shape up, but I’m excited for whatever’s coming next.
Things got a little hectic yesterday morning. I’m going to try to tell this story, which involves other people, while keeping the focus mostly on myself. I’ve never stated so explicitly but there’s a reason I do that and it’s not because I think I’m such a fascinating character. Letting my focus shift to other people would make for better storytelling but less effective mental health exercise. When it comes to my well-being, the things that other people think, say, and do are irrelevant. Really, they have nothing to do with me and are none of my business (or at least none of my concern).
The Lipstick Homicide and Bloated Kat houses are about a block apart, so our crew was split between them for the night. It was about time for us to get on the road from Iowa City to Carbondale when Noelle called me and said she needed my help. “It’s nothing bad or serious, is it?”
“Andrea broke up with me and is driving back to Florida without Jessica.”
Since 2008, Rational Anthem has had an incredibly sensible rule: no girlfriends on tour. Relationship problems are bad enough on their own, but when they come up on tour, they become the whole band’s problem. This trip though wasn’t quite a tour and an exception was made. Noelle’s girlfriend rented a car to drive up to Dave Strait Fest, but also to stop along the way up and back for two of the shows Rational was playing between Florida and Minneapolis. In the car with her was a friend of Noelle’s (and – at one point – possibly of Andrea’s as well).
What happened isn’t important. There was now bad blood and Andrea didn’t want to drive back to Florida with the other girl.
Rational Anthem has three members. Their van has four seats. I was along for the whole trip and Zack’s summer in Minneapolis was over, so he was hitching a ride with us back home to Florida.
I walked over to the house and sat down with Andrea. I offered a couple different ideas/options that might make her more receptive to driving back with Jessica in tow, as planned. She wasn’t having it.
There was a point in my life where I was so desperate to be perceived as a “winner” – as someone capable of pulling any trick or fixing any problem – that I would have pulled whatever emotionally manipulative bullshit was necessary to get those two girls in the car together and back on the road to Florida. But that’s not me anymore. Andrea was hurting and I felt for her. Whatever happened to spark the conflict didn’t really matter to me. Two (or three) people can have radically different versions of a story and neither’s is wrong. Perception *is* reality. If Noelle or Jessica were mean to Andrea, if it was all in Andrea’s head – it didn’t make any difference. Emotions are more powerful than facts. I didn’t care about the problem, only the solution.
The rental car was in Andrea’s name. On paper, the call was hers. Could she have been coaxed into taking Jessica and making life easier for the other people involved? Probably. But I consider Andrea a friend and – it’s a little strange but – my empathy was stronger than my need to be the clever problem-solver. It’s strange because I’m not sure that’s ever happened before. I wasn’t willing to do anything to keep her from doing what she felt she needed to in order to feel okay.
I gave Andrea a hug and told Jessica she’d have to take a bus from Iowa to Florida. Not because she did something wrong (I don’t know or care whether or not she did) but because that was simply the situation we were in. Unfortunate but… things are as they are.
Jessica said she didn’t know what she had done wrong. I said that I didn’t either, but that it didn’t matter. She was upset (and reasonably enough so). Not being the type of itinerant punk rock fuck-up that so many of us are, a bus trip from Iowa to Florida was going to be a new kind of experience for her. I did my best to remain calm, compassionate, and supportive, and to alleviate any fears, but it didn’t go over much better than my initial proposals to Andrea. Jessica asked if she could go in the van with Rational Anthem and someone else could take a bus or ride back with Andrea.
Chris, Noelle, and I walked back to the other house. Chris wanted to keep the group intact as it was. Noelle said she felt bad about the situation Jessica was in so she was okay with Zack or I heading back with Andrea – so long as we were. I didn’t like that option, but was willing to do whatever seemed to make the most sense. Zack was too. I saw Andrea’s hurt, but there was hurt all over the place and I’d do just about anything for Noelle at this point. She’s my friend and – besides – I owe it to her. For all the times when I haven’t been a good friend to her. For all the times when the only thing she could really count on me doing was making trouble myself.
As it turned out, Andrea returned
the car in Iowa and made other plans. The five of us decided to hit the road as initially planned.
“Iowa.” 8/19/13. Watercolor, marker, and pen. 9×12″.
This was finished later that afternoon but drawn mostly the night before, on the way to (and at) the show in Des Moines (which was The Copyrights, Lipstick Homicide, Rational Anthem, Tight Bros, and a few others). The text is basically journaling about the situation and some other stuff that was on my mind at one point or another.
The text that stands out most to me says, “What’s to come is what matters. We roll with the punches. We’ll do whatever it is that we have to do.” It’s kind of about what is as well as what should be. Or maybe just what is when we’re at our best. Human beings, I mean.
I’m really grateful for the fact that – even when I thought it might mean that I’d have to go home early – the thought never occurred to me that I should go back and try to talk Andrea into taking Jessica after all.
And I’m grateful that I’m still here with four of my friends. And grateful that I’m finally able to treat my friends the way a friend should.
Running late on our way to Carbondale. The show tonight is with Future Virgins, The Heat Tape, and Hate Waves. 9 pm at Ski Haus. I think.
Traded art with Evan Wolff last night. I’m afraid to hang his print in my living room ’cause more people will comment on how cool it is than any of my things that hang in there. I might have to put it in the bedroom. Then again, it could be good for me. I can always use a little more humility. I also started a trade with Brett Hunter. He took my “I Don’t Go Out Much” cartoon and is gonna bring me something in trade for it tonight, so i’m really excited for that now too. (Show+trade with Brett+pizza place Zack’s talking about=high hopes for Carbondale). Punk rock is still awesome.
The van is shaky and I’m unusually tired, but I have a new piece to share later. It’s been a strange morning. We almost had to sacrifice a body to the tour monsters and – since the band is kind of necessary to the whole playing shows thing – it would’ve been either Zack or I. We were both willing to do whatever, but things shook out in such a way that we’re both still here.
When I’m not driving, I tend to sit in back, but I’m riding shotgun right now with Chris driving. It’s not too hot out, we’re listening to Ramshackle Glory singing, “I always wanted to die young, now I feel younger every day,” and life is kinda nice.
Says: “I don’t accept what you consider fact, truth, or reality. But I do believe in freedom right now. And I’m gonna do my best to try to be happy. I’ll let you know how it works out.”
It was in response to being told that – what I’m doing / how I’m living – is okay for now but will have to end really soon. That I’ll need to get a real job or learn to draw boardwalk caricatures.
“Whatevermind.” 5/12/13. Pen. 9×10¼”.
I drew this “for” the insert for (Rational Anthem’s) Whatevermind LP, but decided that it didn’t fit and – beyond that – almost seemed antithetical to it.
Actually, I just remembered: this didn’t start out as an expressive piece, I had something in mind, but I made a mistake (and since I was using ink, I couldn’t correct it) so I just worked around it and it turned into this.
We’re en route to Des Moines. Show tonight should be good. Rational, Copyrights, Tight Bros, and Lipstick Homicide. Kind of strange though: doors at 4, show at 5, and it’s 21+.
Found out The Heat Tape got added to the show tomorrow in Carbondale. Their album was my favorite thing on the planet that first week in Sarasota to make “No Real Than You Are.” It was actually when one of those songs came up in my headphones and I didn’t immediately feel great that I knew something was wrong. I wanted the feeling back – the one that I had gotten, riding around town listening to that album just a few days earlier. Raccoon Valley Recordings (and my response to it) were literally my mental health gauge.
