I always wondered…

I realize its been a month since I’ve posted. I do have a good explanation for this.  Aside from moving out of my apartment in Cincinnati, moving into an apartment in New York City, starting a new job and bouncing around from couch to couch in the meantime, my dog ate my computer. And sketch pad. And pens.  Yep.

The other day on my way back to one of the many places I called home over the past month, I sat across from an elder woman. She was incredible, a beautiful woman so expressive in her silence and public solitude.  I couldn’t tell if she was reading or staring at the pages deep in thought.  I liked to think the later.  The corner of her mouth dipped so low it nearly fell off her face.  This woman had stories. She carried them in her drooping eyes, in her side-swept pewter hairs neatly tucked in place by the coarseness of the fiber, in the folds of her skin – a roadmap to the gatekeepers of her life’s past and present.  After seeing her, I knew she would become my next sketch.

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Bowel movement irregularity

I was telling my good ol’ friend Robb the other day that I was working on a sketch about my bowel movements, which lead to the comment “when am I not talking about my bowel movements.”  The answer is simple: never.  The thing is on the surface it may seem like its all about my excrement.  All about my poop.  How much. How often. If its normal.  And it never is.  But if you think its only about my fecal matter, that’s merely because you aren’t looking deep enough.  My tales of deuces dropped past are allegories for many things, such as the life and death of the Samurai warrior class in pre-industrial Japan and the Ottoman Empire’s role in the shaping of feminism in modern Turkey.  Therefore, next time I ask you “how often does the normal person defecate” think long and hard.  What am I really asking? Really.

The sketch below came from a conversation several weeks ago when I was pretty certain I was not in the realm of regular.  I decided to sketch what it would look like if I entered a contest for bowel movement regularity.  The flannel-clad lady on the right climbing a pile of feces is me.  Smiles.

Enjoy!

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Black Milk

Its been almost a week since I’ve posted.  A sketch a day eh?  Yea. About that…

This sketch was actually completed a few days ago, I simply haven’t had the time to post it.  Too much gallivanting around the city…but really, is there ever too much?

I’ve been listening to Black Milk lately and reading Jason Tanz’s Other People’s Property.  In “Bounce” from his 2007 album Tronic Black Milk raps, “Even old school artists feel like the game’s fucked, that’s when I clock in as an option when you need a breath of fresh oxygen.”  I find the discussion of authenticity and the “real” pursuits of an art form or movement to be fascinating, especially when authenticity is used as a marketing tool.  For something that was initially an underground culture on the periphery of New York City life, mainly among lower-income urban black and Latino youth,  the present day marketing of authenticity within a movement is evident of the drastic break from its origins.  Is the “game fucked” because unskilled rappers are making it big, whereas many talented artists remain silenced?  That is only part of it, as hip hop was born detached from the middle and upperclass avenues of success.  The tools necessary to impress at something like breaking, for instance, were time, dedication and practice.  Not money.  Now, the multi-billion dollar hip hop industry plays by a lot of the same rules the hip hop artists of the 70s were frustrated by.

Therefore I question, is the “game fucked” simply because of talent?  Black Milk, who recently moved out of his basement studio in Detroit to go where the action is, may think that is what tainted hip hop.  And he may continue to spout those words rolling around in a Hummer limo.  We shall see.   I’m  curious to see  how rappers and producers, like Black Milk, who discuss authenticity in their lyrics and have at least some understanding of how class plays into the uneven successes of talent and talentless artists change the practice of their art and lifestyle, if at all.  Or will he, like others, simply “sell out” at some point and become the subject of future underground hip hop artists’ bashings.

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Kimu Chan

The elder warrior child Kimu Chan has a soft spot for tapioca pudding and death.

I drew this and realized how many Paul elements are present.  Not only because I used Japanese and Paul is Japanese-American.  Also (and here is were the depth comes in) because of my subject matter:  ladies who deliver death.  Paul loves that shit.  That is Paul to a t!  Thank you Paul for your never ending inspiration.  I’m still winning, you bastard.

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