Minneapolis has been on my list of cities to hit. Cleveland Bound Death Sentence reuniting to play Extreme Noise’s 20th anniversary seemed like a good excuse to be impulsive, bail on Asheville, and spontaneously trek halfway ‘cross the country.
We overnighted in Lexington and Chicago along the way since CBDS doesn’t play ’til tomorrow afternoon. We’re just pulling out of Chicago and making our way north now. 11 PM is a little later than I’d like to be heading out but we don’t operate on a schedule and it’s hard to walk out of Dave and Mike’s place. I just have too much fun with those kids. They definitely come across as jaded, grumbly, curmudgeonly old men (who are actually five years younger than me) but that’s also definitely part of their charm, since they’re secretly some of the warmest, funniest kids around.
I met Dave in the Baltimore punk scene – mostly around Charm City Art Space – back when we both lived out that way. And he met Spillane when I recruited both of them to come on tour with me and Rational Anthem back in 2009. Neither of them had even been on tour before and this one was TEN WEEKS long. (They’re both fucking warriorsafter surviving that thing).
I met Mike that same year. His band had just recorded their first demo and a friend in Ohio tipped me off, thinking I might be interested in them for Traffic Street. Their first tour included a house show somewhere in Maryland. I went out to meet/see them and brought ’em back to DC for a day or two after. We’ve been friends ever since.
So the plan was to hit the road earlier in the day but we stuck around ’til now, doing mostly nothing, just joking around, having fun. We did go out to Logan Square for a few hours though and I got to finish my latest painting (“Something to Cry About,” which I’ll post later in the month). Anyway, one joke led to another and I wound up giving Dave his first tattoo. It’s on the front of his right thigh, just a couple inches up from the knee. The caption comes from something Mike said this morning in a sleepy haze: “Where do rats go when they die? I don’t mean, like, in a spiritual sense…”
I’m looking forward to coming back to Chicago real soon.
Weston took some pictures of me, drawing under the waterfall at Moore Cove.
The other waterfall we hit today was Sliding Rock, which doubles as a “natural waterslide.” The water was so cold it hurt and I’m grimy as fuck (after laying around at Moore Cove, all wet, to work on that drawing) but it was totally worth it.
I think Chris and I are riding into Asheville tonight for some punk show.
It’s been a while since I’ve updated the site ’cause we’ve been staying out in Hendersonville at some cabin Weston rented and it doesn’t have electricity or wifi and I don’t like to post updates from my phone. Especially the updates with my new art so I’ll hold off on that for now.
Not a lot of news lately and the only set-up Chris and I have really done since we got here was for Studio Stroll in the River Arts District. Here are some photos from the last week though. If you follow me on Facebook or Instagram, you’ve probably already seen a lot of ’em…
Just got to Asheville from Atlanta. The plan for tomorrow is pretty geographically unspecific: I gotta make the insert for the new Rational Anthem LP that I’ve been putting off forever. That – plus a bunch of practical/non-art related errands – should soak up most of the day.
Atlanta: Chris and I set up at Summerfest in Virginia Highland over the weekend and made some money selling prints. Leading up to that, I went around to a bunch of galleries but didn’t really pitch myself to any of them – having decided that the better approach might be to just send portfolios to each one, rather than stopping by unannounced and hoping for the best.
I’m not sure if that decision is more the result of insecurity or of wanting to be considerate / play by the rules. Even if it’s the latter, I’m not necessarily sure it’s a good move. Either way, the consequence is that it’s no longer incredibly necessary for me to be living on the road and traveling to all these different cities. Still, I don’t think it’s a bad thing either. If I were stationary in one city, I might be more productive in terms of actual painting but it’s just as likely that I’d get caught up in and distracted by a relationship (or friendships or [whatever]). For now, I think that living this way still makes sense. (Plus, I enjoy it – stressful as it might be at times). But I’m not totally certain that I won’t decide to simply post up for a good while, somewhere along the way , at least until summer’s over and I can move around the east coast without feeling like I need a shower every time I step outside. I’ve sold enough these last few months that I could hide out and do nothing but work on new paintings for the rest of the year. As much as I might like that though, I know I gotta keep putting myself out there and selling myself in some sense. I’ve got too much ambition to do otherwise. And I’m energized by all the feedback (monetary and otherwise) that I get when I do. I can’t exist in isolation.
My thinking right now is Asheville for about two weeks, finishing my current painting (which you can see pictures of on my Instagram and Facebook pages), waiting for the mailman to bring my digital portfolio CDs so I can mail out a hundred of them to galleries around the country, (at the very least) scoping out the galleries here in Asheville, and setting up a table somewhere downtown a few days each week to meet people and share/sell my prints and statements.
Here are a couple things I made for Rational Anthem last month. The first is a poster, the second is a koozie design.
“Adventures Per Minute.” 5/5/14. Acrylic paint, spray paint, and ink. 36×48″.
“Adventures Per Minute” is how I felt in early April. From the moment I woke up until I crawled into bed each night, I was busy. Traveling back and forth between Jacksonville, Delray, and Sarasota; givinginterviews and being photographed; attending the premiere of the movie I starred in; directing a music video; setting up exhibits; making and distributing fliers and meeting people; selling prints at One Spark and Spring Fest; fucking; designing albumcovers and merchandise for some of my favorite bands; making more money than I’ve ever made in my life; and (of course) painting – at parks, at friends’ houses, on the streets, at punk shows, on rooftops, and at galleries.
It was just outside one of those galleries that I started this painting. Passers-by would stop, compliment my work, and ask how I was doing. That sparked the first small caption: “HOW AM I? I’m standing on a stool, paintin’ funny faces outside the gallery that sells my paintings for all the moneys. So – yeah – I’m okay.”
At the other end of the canvas, I elaborated: “I have everything.” And I really do. I’m not super rich just yet but all of my needs are met and then some.
I went back to Sarasota with the intention of trading in my van for a bigger one; it was my last stop before I finally took my show on the road outside of Florida. I changed my mind about the van but had quite a time back in that city where I (sort of) grew up. Things were messy – not only with friends in Sarasota but in my “adoptive” family’s house up the road in Bradenton. Drugs, lying, screaming, stealing… it was all around me and it was starting to fuck with my head. I don’t often feel “triggered” and – for the most part – think it’s sort of a bullshit concept. One afternoon in particular became an exception. I was on the back porch painting when the weather started acting up but there was no way I was walking back into the house. I took to the top corner of my canvas and started journaling:
It's been ten days [since I last wrote on this painting]. I'm on the porch in Bradenton. There's a tornado warning. I don't care. That'd be cooler if I actually thought it might hit. I would totally shoot up right now if I had drugs in front of me. BUT I HAVE THE MONEY THESE DAYS.
My best friend (the one that used to shoot heroin) - he started shooting heroin again. And smoking [and shooting] crack. I had him Marchman Acted soon as I got back to Sarasota. Everyone's pretty happy about that - and I've been buying into it too. But let's get real. Nothing has changed. This is just getting started. And it's gonna get a lot worse. I kind of think he's gonna die soon. What should I do? Drag him around the country with me? That's a lot of responsibility. And what would he do all day everyday?
And I love Abby too but her situation is even tougher, more hopeless.
I was talking to Heather about some of this and she asked me if I'll "ever get to live for myself." But I'm more independent, disconnected, and uninvolved than anyone. I do "me" constantly. But I grew up a fuck-up with other fuck-ups and what little I'm able to do these days when this shit goes on - I need to. Sometimes I'm the only one that can. I can't live without people anyway. It's all part of the package.
It's all worth it, I think. Even when it hurts a lot. And makes me wanna put a needle back in my arm. I don't think I will but, for the second time since I stopped, I really want to. This shit is dangerous.
And I haven't even gotten into the other shit that's eating me right now… My phone is ringing. What kinds of decisions am I gonna make today?
I feel safer in this house with drugs, screaming, CPS, threats, lies, theft, etc. than at Morgan's ('cause she's got roommates) and this [house] is the only place I don't feel like an intruder.
I paused and thought about all the good things that had happened lately – and the specifics of some of the bad… I brought the pen back to the canvas.
Life is sad and tragic and funny and beautiful. I'm usually having a pretty good time. I laugh and smile a lot. I don't want the people I care about to die. Or to live without knowing happiness.
Up to this point, I hadn’t given any thought to what I was writing or how it might be received. I just let it come out, even when it occurred to me that I might need or want to remove Abby’s name at some point. But after I finished that long journal down the left side of the canvas, I remembered that I was creating art and that I had intended for this to be a joyful painting – a celebration of the wonderful, exciting things happening in my life. “I need to balance out all this dark with some the light I experienced leading up to this.” But (in my soul, not my brain) I really only felt compelled to write the darker (more recent) stories. I decided to phrase everything in the present tense.
I am standing in an alley while my friend smokes the last of her crack before I take her to the police station, from which she'll be transported to detox, under court order. I picked her up in an empty parking lot.
I am dropping my "sister" off (with everything she owns) at a drug dealer's house. An hour ago, she attempted to transfer custody of her daughter to me. I still live in / operate primarily out of A VAN. We hugged and I told her to not be a fuck-up.
I am back on Adderall [after a month without] and I think the dose is too high now and I'm too in my head and having thoughts like these: [An arrow points at the long, sad, I-wanna-shoot-heroin, my-friends-are-dying journal].
I needed my positive adventures to balance the painting and convey what “adventures per minute” had meant to me initially. But I had already told those nice stories on my blog. Repeating them here felt contrived. I did it anyway but in just four short sentences – covering One Spark, the music video, the film festival, and painting on rooftops. A few days later though, I had another adventure. But one that I didn’t want to be the first thing to pop out at someone. I hid it against a dark blue backdrop. It says: “I just PRETEND (consensually) ‘raped’ a girl that identifies as ‘gay.’ It was pretty awesome. I like her.”
So THAT sort of raises some questions and probably warrants a whole exposition of its own but this statement’s already long enough, I’m writing this in Atlanta, and – you know – I got some more adventures I really ought to be getting up to right about now so…
“Nothing’s Good Enough Because I’m Not.” 4/7/14. Acrylic paint, ink, and modeling paste. 48×36″.
I went quite a while without any emotional freakouts or serious anxiety when I suddenly found myself on a mental illness hot streak. At the root of it all (of course): girls. It’s nothing anyone does to me; it’s the way I interact and get involved and then am unable to handle the reality of the relationships I’ve built. These days, I’m lucky to have a way out of these messes I make that’s a lot more effective than shooting heroin or throwing temper tantrums. The journal I wrote in this painting lays it all out:
The highs this week have been absurd. Three nights ago, I exclaimed, "I'm on drugs!" I felt too good for it to not be some kind of chemical magic. But the next night, I cried out twice; first: "I hate my life!" Then: "I am the worst person in the world!" I felt so bad about myself. Seeing the state this girl was in. "It was wrong for me to trick her into falling in love with me," I thought. But I was in love with her at the time. Or so I thought at least.
The night before, I tried to have sex with this other girl that's gotten to know me pretty well pretty fast. She knows about all the other girls and is pretty enamored with me but is really caught up in not wanting to be "just another" of my "conquests" (as she put it). We got naked but then she wouldn't let me lead 'cause she didn't wanna feel used. But she wasn't taking the lead either. "I DON'T KNOW HOW TO FUCK YOU" was all I could think. It ended uncomfortably. I wasn't pleased with myself. We're supposed to give it another shot when I'm back in her city. But that sort of says it all right there. 'Cause I don't live anywhere, I'm not gonna date anyone anyway, and she likes me way too much for this little casual thing to end well.
Yesterday, I TOOK THE NIGHT OFF.
Tonight, I'm at a friend's house alone 'cause a couple hours ago I left the girl who I THOUGHT I had the best thing going with. I like spending time with her. But she was visibly bothered by my cigarette smoke today. And after I brushed my teeth and tried to kiss her, she still turned her cheek. I tried to play it cool but I'M NOT COOL. An hour later, I packed it in and left with minimal words. Feeling self-conscious, rejected, vulnerable, angry, hurt, and responsible. These girls all read my blog now. They know explicit details of what I'm up to. I can't NOT acknowledge it. I made a couple jokes… Is that what did it? I don't know. But all my finding-validation-through-girls shit is seriously backfiring on me this week.
After I left, I got pizza and listened to punk rock. Suddenly, my suicidal depression was over and everything was okay. "Pizza and punk rock" doesn't strike the ear as especially poetic and it makes me sound like a pretty trivial, simple-minded dweeb.
IS WHAT IT IS!
After I painted my "nothing's good enough" caption, everything was way better than okay. I was in love with myself and my silly doodle art again. And that's my god damn story.
I felt better (temporarily) but I didn’t really learn anything. Within a day, I was back to trying to get my self-esteem from girls, love, sex, etc. It was harder now though. This whole episode had fucked with my head a little bit and the next week – after leaving another girl’s house (not any of the three involved in the above-described antics) – I worried that I had forgotten how to sleep with a girl (even when the girl clearly wanted to sleep with me). I had become too self-conscious and insecure to make any kind of a move. Well that was it… I guess I’m never going to get laid again! (I thought). But then she sent me a text – she wanted me to come back. Which really only meant one thing at that hour. So I did. And all was well in the world.
And when I say that, I’m joking – but when I pause… it’s not really a joke. I absolutely felt validated by sleeping with that girl that night. In a very real, very significant way. Had it not played out like that, I would have sunk even deeper into insecurity and shame. Instead, I was pulled completely out of it and actually regained the confidence that I always seem to have (even when I don’t). A few days later, I met up with another girl who had bought some of my art at One Spark. We went on a “date” (kind of) and she invited me to stay the night. But she didn’t want to sleep with me. My freshly bolstered self-worth was high enough though that I was able to accept that rejection (with a smile even)! I don’t need for EVERYONE to want to fuck me all the time.
Sometimes!
“Wait For It … Wait For It!!” (the song I was listening to when I started to feel better) by Dead to Me.
This painting sold in April 2014. 12×16″ prints are still available.
Riding around in the back of Mikey twoHands’ truck yesterday, trying to find a new tire for the van, having the time of my life, and listening to Sundials’ “Derek Shelton Birthday Party” on endless repeat.
Today is the day I finally bust across the state line to start meeting with galleries and setting up exhibits outside of Florida. I’m not allowed to drive in Georgia but – now that I’ve got Spillane with me – I’m able to make Atlanta the first stop. Cities are cities to me at this point though so priority #1 is to get out of the heat. To that end, we’re gonna try to get everything we wanna get done within the span of a couple days – maybe stick it out through the weekend just on account of gallery hours – and then get heading further north.
Right now, we’re en route to get the transmission on the van serviced but we should be on the road by 6. This stop in Jacksonville was only supposed to be a day or two and turned into ten. I’m happy to be moving on but that’s nothing against this city. I’ve been in and outta Jacksonville for the last few months now but, in that time, it’s started to feel more like home than any other city out there. There are a lot of people that made it that way: Tim, Shanna, and everyone else at Sun-Ray Cinema; Christina and Ian at Rain Dogs; Mandie, Rosaly, and Richard of Wunderground; the whole crew at Burrito Gallery (with a special nod to Julie for getting me in the door); Janet Harper and Folio Weekly; Regina and The Silver Cow; Pugsley and Ian at Dark Side Tattoo Gallery; (most recently) everyone at On Point Ink and Ryan Rummel at Club TSI; Heather Pierce; Alex Zalo; and all the friends I’ve made and supporters I’ve found here, who are so many in number that (as much as I wanna) I won’t call out by name ’cause I’d hate to leave somebody out. You’ve all been so excellent to me and I’m not gonna forget it anytime soon.
And that goes double for Mikey “twoHands” Kelly, who’s been the best fast friend I could have ever asked for. Half the shit I’ve done here would have never happened had it not been for you, buddy. I’ll miss Jacksonville and I’ll miss you.
“Corporations are Cool; Your Community is Dumb.” 4/22/14. Acrylic and spray paints, ink, and modeling paste. 36×36″.
Immediately after completing “Nothing’s Good Enough Because I’m Not,” I pulled out another canvas and got to work. I set out to do something a little different: a landscape. Not a traditional landscape but, still, a landscape of sorts. Pretty quickly that idea fell apart and I found myself working on another painting not radically unlike all of my other paintings. Which is cool – I mean, my paintings look like my paintings for a reason… (’cause they totally are!) But you can still kinda make out what was (supposed to be) my orange sun, pink ocean, and blue sky (with purple clouds)…
I left Sarasota for Jacksonville, to set up downtown for One Spark. I wasn’t an official “One Spark Project Creator” but that just meant that I could sell whatever I wanted without playing by their rules. I got the same spot on the street (outside Burrito Gallery) that I had taken at March’s Downtown Artwalk (the night I had sold so many prints that I told my friends I was “makin’ STRIPPER MONEY“). I was excited for the weekend and my snarky, (gleeful), sorta tongue-in-cheek caption, “CORPORATIONS ARE COOL – YOUR COMMUNITY IS DUMB,” is a reflection of that.
A lot of people take it for granted as meaning/being whatever they want it to (genuine or sarcastic) but some people like to ask me what I meant. “Nothing,” I say. “I’m just a little shit-eater.” Which is to say that I like to (playfully) fuck with people (just a little bit, innocuously). The truth is that I don’t care about corporations or community; I care about me. There are three spots on the canvas where I journaled and, while I didn’t intend for them to relate, they all sorta do. More to the point, they reflect the kinds of concerns that actually bounce around in my head.
On April 10th, the second day of One Spark, I was handing out fliers when some woman actually crumpled up my li’l bio sheet and handed it back to me. Seriously?! I get it if you’re offended by the word “fucking” [as in “I’m a fucking artist, guys“] but this thing says I have a personality disorder and used to shoot heroin but now manage my illness with art. That’s like – the sweetest thing ever! How the fuck is somebody gonna crumple that shit up? (I got a personality disorder! I’m fragile!). Anyway… my journal from that day says: “Every rejection today hurts a lot more than usual. This is probably the best or worst possible path for someone like me. I don’t expect the world to baby me but… well.. maybe I sort of do.”
A week later, on April 17th: “I’m depressed ’cause I’m at my exhibit and yesterday everything was set up awesome and today the owner came in and was all bent outta shape about a bunch of stuff and now I don’t know what’s cool and what isn’t. I don’t even want to set up to paint so I’ve got this [canvas] on my knees, propped against a wall awkwardly. It’s too windy outside. I just wanna leave. The lights aren’t even on. My art is in the dark. I’m done showing at anything but galleries. I feel sleepy and lethargic and I wanna give up again.”
In hindsight, that stuff shouldn’t have affected me as much as it did, but (as angry as I once was) it’s pretty rare that I even so much as encounter anyone getting really angry these days and it, consequently, fucked with my head a little bit, even if it wasn’t directed specifically at me.
Lastly (and best of all), from April 19th: “By 11 AM this morning, I was at work on my painting and I had already eaten half a cake, drank a BANANAS FOSTER cappuccino from 7 Eleven, gone to the [art] store for more supplies, and shown my penis to TWO girls.”
So…
(just to be clear)
“YOUR COMMUNITY IS DUMB”: If you’re doing cool shit, people are gonna wanna be close to it and are gonna be inspired to do cool shit of their own. Suddenly, it’s gonna feel like you’re part of a pretty rad community. On the other hand, if you’re one of those people that sits around griping about how “there’s no community here” or preaching to people about how “we need to do more work to build community!,” nobody’s gonna give a shit about any of that and you’re gonna be spinning your wheels in that same mindset forever. Either way, community is made up of people, we’re all flawed, and sometimes shit’s gonna be great, sometimes it’s gonna be not.
“CORPORATIONS ARE COOL”: Big multinational corporations are mixed up in some pretty fucked up shit, pretty much across the board, and that’s like – a total bummer, dude. But you know what? Home Depot is open late, pretty close by, and has the wood screws I need. Coca-Cola makes sugary bullshit that tastes good and doesn’t cost all my moneys. That local coffee shop is a nice enough place to sit for a minute but they don’t have internet on the weekends and they charge FIVE TIMES more for a refill than Starbucks. And where the fuck else am I gonna buy a 12x18x6″ lockbox other than Walmart? The Dead Kennedys were boring and I’m pretty sure they were aiming for SATIRE when they said, “give me convenience or give me death,” but… take out the dramatic ultimatum and it’s right on target. I’m not trying to save the world with my “dollar votes” and I’m not trying to spend all day driving around to support independent businesses that don’t offer anything more than the corporate stores. I got bigger fish to fry, funny faces to paint, and girls to show my penis to.
