Listing Imaginary Orthographies…part 3 of 26
C is for Cyclops
“C is for Cyclops” – 3.5x5 inch - ink on paper …third week of Alphabeasts.
Listing Imaginary Orthographies…part 2 of 26
B is for Banshee
“B is for Banshee” – 3.5x5 inch - ink on paper …second week of Alphabeasts.
Listing Imaginary Orthographies…part 1 of 26
A is for Abominable Snowman
“A is for Abominable Snowman” – 3.5x5 inch - ink on paper …first drawing for Alphabeasts, more info can be found HERE.
For Lack of a Better Title…
….or, “After the Long Absence from Blogging”.
I know what you’re saying to yourself right now, “No one has ever smuggled and entire pumpkin through a customs checkpoint, up their ass!”…and while that might be true, it has no bearing over what I’m updating this little blog with….so stop day-dreaming and pay attention!
A while back I had threatened that after the Crumbly Nevertheless Book – “My Legs Are Useless” was finished and in the world (for better or worse), that I would make the actual drawings themselves available. The one thing in my favor at this point is that I never said exactly when, just after.
For those of you preparing to argue semantics complete with lit torches and raised pitchforks, as well as those of you still trying to shove that pumpkin in your bottom, the reason for this post is to let you know that I intend to finally make good on my past threat.
As most of you might already know, at least those of you who had followed the Crumbly Nevertheless blog and/or purchased the book of the collection, the drawings themselves were all done in ballpoint pen on 3x5 inch unlined notebook pad paper…not really the best format to be sold to collectors. So I have spent the majority of this week making the collection both more presentable as well as more archival.
Before anything else, all of the drawings were sprayed with an archiving spray…unfortunately, this was done in my studio. Let me take this opportunity to just inform you all NEVER to do this. While all the drawings are now ph neutral and will survive longer without fading or yellowing, my brain is not! I do believe that my brain HAS in fact both faded and yellowed slightly in the past week….plus, the night after the drawings were sprayed, I dreamt that rabbits wearing top hats were yelling at me for my lack of string possession….but I digress.
From then, it has been a multi step process of bringing the drawings to a presentable and salable state. First, all of the drawings were mounted onto cotton rag paper rendered down to 4.5 x 6.6 inches and embossed to closely frame the drawing.
These mounted drawing would eventually be attached to 8x10 black matts, so I decided to make vintage styled photo corners.
I am still undecided as to the best way to make these drawings available. I am at this time leaning mostly towards posting a few at a time on my sadly neglected Etsy Store, but still considering other options.
Considering the amount of work on these that I’ve been able to accomplish over the past week, I’m anticipating having these completed sometime this week, and hopefully photographed and available by the weekend.
Next Up: Completing the print collections of the "Removing the Head to Steal all of It’s Miracles” drawing series.
The Sounds of Reconnecting Eel Parts...
Completely Imaginary answer by me: "AAAAAAAAAAAAAARRGHHHHHH!!!" complete with pounding head against drawing table until it starts to sound like a Nerf Football soaked in Automobile Oil....followed by the falling from the chair into a fetal position on the floor, with labored breathing resembling the sounds of a badly bruised tangerine struggling to poop.
Horizontal Skydiving…Nobody Walks to LA part 2
My ride, packed and ready for the road. (Notice its beautiful, shinny bug-free-ness)
Milque Toast, my travel buddy, is getting antsy to go. We are a few hours late on leaving thanks to a kitchen disaster, involving a garbage disposal exploding. (Notice his beautiful, shinny bug-free-ness) 
The first day was the hardest and longest of the trip, and contained all of the total jaunt’s mishaps, including: having a semi truck’s tire tread flung at me from the car in front while going near 90 miles per hour. Luckily, the tire hit low enough to get whisked under my bike, but in doing so managed to whip my right leg off the bike and open a gash in the knee. I managed to keep the bike up, regaining control after getting speed wobbles at high speed. A few neighboring autos pulled over as I did to make sure I was alright. 
I called it a day after this and stayed in the first hotel I could find, where I mended my knee with super glue (not kidding! Amazing on deep cuts!). There I discovered that I had the funniest looking sunburn caused by not putting sunscreen on my hands during the morning ride through Colorado….and after a Good Nights Passed Out Face Down on the Bed, I went outside to find that the tire that went under my bike had hit the roll bar on the right hand side with such force as to bend it back into the engine (as seen above). I decided to take it a bit easier on day two. (which I have no pics to document…we now jump a day to my one and only day in Hollywood) 
Milque Toast and I sharing a bottomless mug of coffee from what is becoming my favorite spot to stop in L.A., Café Muse….if having only gone to a place twice now can be considered enough of an attendance to warrant a favorite place recommendation…which I believe is a Yes.
Milque Toast patiently waits for me to take this picture before we visit the Corey Helford Gallery in Culver City. We missed seeing the artwork from the Anniversary show, but got to see original Coop paintings, so who could complain? 
And finally we arrived at the Gnomon Studios. Milque Toast poses with the incredible Lily Feliciano, the Executive Producer of Sketch Theatre, the one who originally invited me to become involved, and just all around amazing person. The breasts in the background are unidentified and completely unintentional…really…seriously… 
The innards of the Gnomon Workshop’s Gallery…with many (if not most) of the sketches that are contained within the Book’s pages. All were up for bid in a silent auction. I was bidding on a Travis Louie sketch (not the one that hung above my own sketch….but seriously, how cool is that?!), and the last time I looked before the bidding was overwith, I was still the high bidder. Enough time has now passed that I have to concede that someone else got a bid in at the last second…and I now hate whoever that is with every fiber of my being (kidding…congrats to the winner)
Milque Toast in front of our new favorite drink, Absinthe. We tipped this drink tender well, for even though he was stocked with whiskeys and vodkas and other such sot after beverages, he did spend the majority of the evening making absinthe drinks for everybody.
Milque Toast with Dave “the Chung” Chung. I met Dave and his wife, Desiree, early on in the evening and hit it off with them immediately. Dave has an awesome style, and an incredible ability to quickly freehand his vision in pen on the page….his sketches are better than my finished drawings. As an example of what I’m talking about, GO HERE to see one of my favorite sketches he did under the Sketch Theatre lamps.
And here is the BOOK that this trip was all about. I had no doubt that the volume would be impressive, but I was still impressed by every detail taken to produce such a book! The design, the printing and binding…everything about the book is amazing! It was published by Baby Tattoo, who are also responsible for a few other art books in my collection that I cherish. I think it’s safe to say that they are a company that I’m starting to more than admire greatly.
The book has already been reviewed HERE, by the cool folks at Nerd Reactor.
Here Milque Toast poses in front of the expansive Salt Flats in Utah. Sadly, this is one of the only scenery pics I took during the entire trip. One of the problems with having planned out such a long journey within such a short period of time was the inability to stop and enjoy areas like this further….and there was a lot of beauty to take in.
Just look at this badass bike….got to and from Los Angeles, over 2000 miles, without incident or complaint. (Notice the beautiful dull bug-coated luster)Nobody Walks to L.A.
I’m a little late on doing this post, that is, I really should have written about this over a week ago. That being said, I’ll just get into the meat of it.
For those of you who know me, or have been following me in any of my various forms of social media outlets (blog, Facebook, screaming out of my studio window into a megaphone made from luncheon meats stitched together), you might recall a drawing I was fortunate enough to do for an ongoing online project known as Sketch Theatre.
A quick recap for those who are giving me that blank stare that I’m all too familiar with: I did a drawing for Sketch Theatre. That’s about the quickest recap I can do.
A little more in depth: Sketch Theatre best describes what they’re about in the Mission Statement, but the process is this: they film artists from various fields drawing and use the footage to make a short film of the process.
Its fairly genius actually, and completely surprising to me that it hadn’t been done before, at least, not to the success that Sketch Theatre is doing it.
Like I said, a little over a year ago I was extremely lucky to become a part of this, and had traveled to L.A. to have my own drawing filmed.
The reason I’m bringing all of this up is because of the fact that I’ll be travelling back to L.A. in just a weeks time to join the Sketch Theatre Crew and many of the artists who have participated for the release of the first Sketch Theatre Book:
Needless to say, I’m excited to be a part of this, and there is no words to describe how amazing it is to be listed among such other artists that I’ve admired.
So, if you are reading this and have the ability to attend at all, please do! It’s looking to be a great event.
I’ll post more info on where and how to get a copy of the book when I learn it at a later date, for those of you who can’t attend.
Hope to see you there!
Insert Silly Title Here:________________
CRUMBLY NEVERTHELESS RELEASE
AVAILABLE HERE
Taking a year longer than I had anticipated, not only am I happy to say that this book is finally available, I’m downright relieved! This assembles the entire collection of crumbly nevertheless drawings done over a few year period.
Several people have expressed interest in acquiring a signed copy of the book upon it’s release. I have seriously considered the best way to have this happen, and unfortunately, an actual signed copy just isn’t feasible. The books themselves do not come through me, but straight from where they are printed. In order to get a signed copy, the book would have to be sent to myself first, taking twice as long for you to get your copy, and costing twice as much in shipping, yada yada yada.
So, the best solution that I could come up with is this:
I have a number of printed title pages from the book. If you are interested in a signed copy, send me a copy of your receipt (it doesn’t contain any financial info, just proof of sale and a shipping address) and I’ll send to you a personally signed title page with an original sketch or drawing or doodle.
If you are still interested in an official signed copy, message me and I’m sure we can work something out.
Thanks to everyone for the support on this project and the patience to see it come to light. I hope that the book is enjoyed as much as I enjoyed drawing everything within it!
What started out as doodles, for artist and writer S. Fisher Williams, evolved into a few years worth of drawings exploring techniques of an unconventional drawing tool for fine art, the ballpoint pen; as well as an exploration into an imaginary world of dark humor, the tragically cute an untold fables.
A Case for End Credit Theme Songs…
Now, I want you all to bear in mind that as I write these words, my stomach is trying to kill me. I’m not saying that my stomach is a little upset and is sitting in defiance with it’s arms crossed at the bottom of my torso, no…I’m saying that at some point it acquired a gun and a saber and a pirate’s voice and we are in the process of dueling until one or both of us are mortally wounded, and then the end credits start rolling to a crap song written by the director’s nephew.
This really has nothing to do with the original intent of this post, it’s just that I sometimes have trouble thinking of intros along side the fact that I’ve always felt my readers lack a basic exposure to Pirate Stomach Battle Films necessary to fully enjoy the intro I just wrote……why are you looking at me like that?
In any case, going back to the original intent of this update, which was to give you all a quick update on some goings on, the first being the state of my website. Some of you might have already seen, the website is currently in a sort of limbo state.
The reason for this is because I have switched between web hosts (which some of you know can take a little bit of time for the name servers to propagate and files to then be moved); But I’ve also decided that the site needs a complete overhauling. So, I hope to acquaint you all soon with a new updated version that is a bit more streamlined and makes a bit more sense.
And just a quick mention of a few things I ‘ve already told you, but you might have forgotten when faced with the horror that is Pirate Stomach Battle Films:
● My CafePress Store has been made a “pro account”, meaning that there will be more things offered on a regular basis…
● There have been more prints added to my ImageKind Store, and again, more to come, hopefully on a regular basis as well…
● “Ϣ” is a really cool looking character that I wish I had more of a reason to use…
…..and lastly, I have officially killed off the Crumbly Nevertheless Blog, doing so for a few reasons: First, there hasn’t been any reason for me to keep up with new updates seeing as I ended the drawing series over a year ago; Second, the impending FINAL version of the Crumbly Nevertheless Book is at press, and while I’m 
aware I’ve threatened this before and might be jinxing the whole project by even merely mentioning it here while I await the proof copy that is to be mailed to me, I’m still finding myself optimistic enough to announce that it WILL be soon available (god willing) and better represents the series than the blog.
Plus, I didn’t completely kill off the blog without leaving a trace. All of the posts were incorporated into this here blog, before the final blow was dealt and the shallow grave was filled.
Of course, there will be more on the book as soon as the proof copy arrives and (again, god willing) is approved.
Am I forgetting any updates that you should know? Probably. But if so, I blame the blood loss as a result of the Pirate Stomach Battle from earlier. Seems I’m losing the fight. It also seems that I sometimes have problems with conclusions to these posts……and then the End Credits roll.
A Tragedy in the Form of Promised Things…
While many of these things I’ve threatened might never see the light of day, for reasons ranging from being impractical, not having the time or being illegal in most or all States, I am happy to report to you dear readers that I have finally made good on one of these long-time threats, that is, actually making a Pro account of my Café Press Store in order to offer more than one of any given thing. And while this might not be as exciting news as, say, reading about a man made of luncheon meats being torn asunder in the city streets by countless birds while a bus of horrified onlookers slowly start to feel a wave of relief, it…..well, it……let’s just move on.
So, in christening the new store (or the promise of the new store, as there is still a lot of formatting and additions to be made as I write this) I have added a few new items, as can be seen below.
The coffee mug pictured above is entitled “Winter Scene” and was especially draw for drinking out of….whatever that means. No, actually, it means that this image will only come in mug form….at least for now.
I am in the process of designing many more mugs, and can pretty much predict that down the road, coffee mugs will dominate this store as they are quick and easy items that are made to hold one of my favorite things on this planet.
While I can’t say this bumper sticker is very artistic, I will say that it goes with my philosophy of nonsense…I can also say that there will be many more, just for the fun of it all.
Like I said, right now the store is rough and in it’s settling stages. There are just random items on the storefront that I’ll need to put in sections or do away with altogether. I’m also hoping to add at least one product per week, give or take…and some most likely will be sillier than others.
So check the store often, at least to see some artwork that I’ll not post anywhere else. And of course I’ll be posting updates of such things here.
Planting a Garden of Fridays…
So here’s the thick of it": Twitter can suck my balls! (how’s THAT for an opening line Mr. Zubrick, my 7th grade Social Studies teacher?)
Actually, no. I didn’t mean that…as I have become somewhat addicted to Twitter lately, and have to admit that it shoulders a bit of the blame for my absence from this blog (not to mention actual human contact and conversation).
If blogging were a drug, then Twitter would be the equivalent of a one-hitter, or a speed bump; just enough rounds of quick fixes that can keep one sustained and believing that they are acting perfectly normal in public, when in reality they are arguing about toast-crumb rights with an abandoned soiled shirt on a park bench….and I suppose that would make this very blog the equivalent of nodding off in a back alley with twelve needles in your arm while a family of rats wait patiently in the shadows for the sun to finish setting so they can eat your face and feet off, and then you soil yourself….but I’m kind of getting away from the point.
The reason that I brought up Twitter at all was so that I could explain where the idea for the subject of this post came from. One of the trends that I have found myself getting caught up in on Twitter is what’s called Follow Friday, or simply tagged #FF, and it’s a easy enough idea, basically that of suggesting to others who to follow.
I have discovered some cool artists and illustrators, writers and thinkers and a few trouble makers through this process.
In my attempts to return to the world of blog writing, I thought it a good idea to try to emulate the Follow Friday posts here. So, that’s exactly what I’m attempting to start with this post, and will continue to do so on a relatively loose weekly basis. I will try to bring at least one person or website or what have you every week with a short explanation of “why” or at least a description.
To start the whole process off, this week I introduce you to two other blogs I find myself always looking forward to reading new posts from…
http://shewalkssoftly.com/
Maintained by Dana (no last name given) who describes herself as an arts, culture, literature, technology, science and media geek. SheWalksSoftly has been a go-to blog for me for a few years now. We seem to share the same tastes in a great many things, and she seems to discover them online before I do…so, for that reason, I tend to discover them through her and her blog…..and for that, I am grateful.
http://organicmeatbag.blogspot.com/
Simply put: Billy Donald is both my friend and my arch nemesis, and I have designs to destroy him, I cannot mention him or his blog here without first stating that all important fact. That being said, Billy has amassed quite a following since starting (restarting, again & again) his blog, and with very good reason; His blog is hilarious and very well written! I liken Billy to social critics such as George Carlin for this reason: underneath the humor is a foundation of high intelligence that is so subtle it could often go unnoticed, but without it the argument would collapse….if that makes any sense. In any case, I still plan to destroy him.
To both I offer the newly created and soon to be highly sought after Zombiespoon Manifesto “Head on a Stick Award!” to take or leave as they see fit…but at least to know that it was offered. (blog awards are such silly things you’d think I’d have created one long ago)
Plug Head’s Irrational Fear of Drains…
Well, I’ve finally made good on my word to post more prints….who would’ve thought I’d actually complete something that I’ve mentioned that I would (more on that statement in a future post).
The prints in question are of the ten drawings from the Burial Rites Series:
A little bit about the series for those interested: the drawings were all done with ink on book pages, the book being a copy of Burial Services by J.B. Bernardin
that I found months ago. I then colored them carefully (carefully due to my being almost completely colorblind, for those of you who didn’t know) with colored pencil and Inktense pencils. The staining of the pages was done digitally, from scans of coffee stained watercolor paper (I tested actually staining the book pages themselves with really poor results unfortunately).
The drawings themselves are very loosely based on the pages they were created on, which might be obvious on some but completely arbitrary on others.
In any case, this was one of those projects that I found completely enjoyable, most likely because there was no goal attached to it in the beginning, just the act of drawing for the sake of it.
These ten are not the end of the series. I am still enjoying defacing this book with my imagination. I won’t promise that there will be additional print series based off of these, but we’ll see how people respond to these.
Just Because, a Virtual Journey through a Written Wilderness
If I were to personify my blog (in all its forms from all its hosts, from the day I started blogging ‘til now) I would have to describe what would initially appear to be an elderly gentleman who, it would seem, had recently been battered about the head and shoulders with a pillowcase filled with a variety dead fish. Upon closer inspection one would discover that its not an elderly man at all, but an extremely malnourished middle-aged fellow with poor posture and the possibility of scurvy or an early untreated case of rickets; plus, he’s wet himself recently and taken to stapling raw bacon to his shirt sleeves…or, maybe he’s a half man, half turtle sin against nature, who’s wearing one of those plastic Halloween masks, you know, from the seventies that they don’t make anymore, and a lab coat covered with his own feces and he’s begging for spare change outside of the local Subway sandwich shop and just generally making everyone feel somewhat uncomfortable and itchy.
What I’m getting at here is that my blog as a person is very sick and either in the need of serious medical and psychological attention, or to be taken out to a remote field and shot several times before being covered up with a thin layer of dirt, eventually to be found by wolves or other scavengers.
At this moment I’m putting stock into antibiotics and shock therapy…I’ve been virtually vomiting my activities, whims and ideas into this little unread corner of the digital world far too long to not give it a fighting chance….plus, I’ve been claiming him as a dependent on my Tax Returns for these many years, so there’s that.
The Cradle of Life or the MySpace Vagina
Say what you will about the ghost-town formally known (and still known, I suppose) as MySpace…but not only do I credit it for my introduction into this narcissistic habit of blogging, but its also where this now shrink-wrapped-with-pudding-skin looking ribcage of a journal was at its healthiest; sporting a few hundred readers and comment conversations that sometimes rivaled the initial posts itself.
My blog walked tall, sporting a bright white flawless smile and a full head of hair. It nodded to the ladies, paid its taxes and stepped out of the shower to pee. It went to sleep knowing that these were the salad days.
A Short Pass Through the Live Journal Tundra and the Beginning Stages of Illness
But, while it was MySpace that in a sense parented my blog, it was starting to resemble more the creepy uncle that you don’t want to leave your child alone with….the one with one hand always in his trouser pocket….the one that wears “trousers” in the first place…and has rumored to have a collection of movies for “special friends”. I spent an increasingly larger amount of time filtering through the “check out my naughty web cam pics” comments on both my blog and profile wall, that I finally saw fit to join the mass exodus and jump the MySpace ship allowing it to sink alone in its own sea of underage daddy-issues.
My little blog found itself alone now on a cold barren ice wasteland known as Live Journal, where its first coughs developed I believe. Life there was short, as I moved quickly to Google’s Blogger, before the zombie hordes of LJ set upon me with inquiries as to why I wasn’t writing about Green Issues or joining them in ganging up on whatever other blogger they happened to disagree with that week.
The move from Live Journal to Blogger, and the Steady Decline into Physical Sickness and Dangerous Insanity
One of the causes of this journal’s present state does have to do with the couple moves to new locations and the loss of readership as people fell from the wagon train only to be devoured by scavengers or the natives. But let’s be honest, an even larger part has to due with my loss of focus over time leaving readers fed up and lost to the saloons unable to afford whores or being killed during a poker game gone wrong….I have no idea where the wild west references are coming from.
I started writing these posts in a time of serious transition, having just come out of a relationship unexpectedly, quitting my job, moving to New York, leaving New York, finding myself in Denver. It was a few years of a seemingly endless Limbo….and writing ridiculous things to an unseen audience was in some way cathartic. But with the settling here in Colorado came a new focus, I suppose. I had the intentions of taking my passion more serious and having the blog reflect that. I think you few readers left know how that has gone (queue tumbleweed bouncing by). The blog has suffered serious neglect the past few years I’ve lived here, leaving in this present state of long few and far between ramblings, wild eyed and stinking of moose piss. And while I believe that my intentions to make the blog appear more “professional” were good, I have to admit to myself and to you that there really is almost nothing professional about me.
My mother summed me up almost perfectly years ago with the phrase “Just Because”. I was her ‘Just Because Son’, due to the fact that whenever questioned on why I would draw or write or do the things that I did, that was typically my response. The second that there was meaning or a goal attached to something, I would almost always lose interest.
I’m still this way. And I think it’s the primary reason for this blog’s neglect. It’s not that I couldn’t write about my artwork in a professional matter, it’s that trying to do so exclusively made any and all updates painfully unappealing to me….and apparently I left the blog locked in a dark basement with a damp sponge for nourishment.
Where does all this bring us? Am I giving the blog pills and the promise of a new start in a room with sun, or am I just giving it a small break while I polish the shotgun? I don’t know. I didn’t intend for this post to ramble on this long, so maybe that’s a good sign that I’m letting go and getting back to the “Just Because” reason for writing (good sign for who, I couldn’t say)….or maybe I accidentally left the basement door unlocked and this here journal is wandering around some looking for toast crusts before I kick it back down the stairs and take away it’s cartoon Sunday privileges. We’ll all just have to wait and see……just because.
Not for Lack of Trying…
…or, a Call for Help.
Recently I came across the images that are posted here and my head was flooded with ghosts of familiarity.
This image was used for the 1984 film "Death Warmed Up"
I KNOW that I have seen much more of this artist's work before, most likely on other posters, horror book covers and magazines, but for the life of me I cannot remember where nor can I find out who the artist is.
I'm not sure where this image was used before
Reverse image searching pulls up very little info, and there is no mention of artwork or their artist in the IMD for 'Death Warmed Up'. So I come asking all of you, my fellow artists and horror fan friends, if ANYONE has any clue as to the artist behind these images....or possibly other images by the same artist that could help in the search....so that I can lay this search to rest before it becomes an obsession and I find myself wearing soiled bathrobes and having tea-parties with boiled egg friends....
Thank You!
Throwing Miniature Candies at Children…
I have been wanting to update this here blog type thing for a few weeks now, but have found myself too busy making costumes for this fine day as well as the Denver Zombie Crawl. I find myself without time today as well actually, but wanted to tell you all:
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!
There are so many thoughts and memories that I’ve wanted to share here, but like I said, I haven’t left myself the time. So instead I’ll share with you a link to a blog of another who appears to share the same nostalgic love of Halloween:
….and I promise to return after these festivities with updates of everything I’ve been up to these past several weeks.
Have a great night!!!
Things Held Together with Butters and Spite...
or The Year of the Head on a Plate…
In all the time that I have been doing this here blog-type thing, (yes, look everyone, he’s mentioning his own blog yet again) the most frequent question I get asked is where the titles of these posts come from, and I will take this return to blogging after a semi-long absence to further ignore that question and post about something else entirely….namely, the Death of Crumbly Nevertheless (finally).
A few of you might, at this point, be asking “What is Crumbly Nevertheless?”, and I will tell these same few to go and sit in the corner while wearing these bags filled with pissed-off ants over their heads…..the rest of us will continue on from here without them. But if I was to answer that question, it would go something like this:
Crumbly Nevertheless (blog) started as an excuse to justify my doing the little strange things that keep me happy. It was another small online corner of the world for me to post everything from the sketches I was doing at my day job in secret from the boss-type peoples, to making a potato zombie army and photographing scenes of the potato zombie outbreak (yes, I have done this, I just haven’t shared any images for fear of very uncomfortable jackets and padded cells smelling of piss), etc.
And like most of the things that I start to do on any sort of regular basis, Crumbly Nevertheless started to take it’s own shape and direction, gaining it’s own voice, look and style….becoming primarily about the 3”x5” drawings done entirely in ballpoint pen.
(this is where we get to the Death of Crumbly Nevertheless that I have been mentioning the past few posts) When I started doing these drawings over two years ago, I had no direction or time-frame in mind…like I said, it was just another thing I did that kept me happy. For all I knew, I could have done these drawings indefinitely, until the day I am committed or murdered by a Canadian Dakota Fanning Fan Club fanatic…and don’t get me wrong, I WILL still be drawing these little guys until that time, they just will no longer have their own dedicated showing space.
I think Crumbly hit it’s peak at the Seven Days of Dr. Seuss, or possibly with the beginning of the layout of the Crumbly Nevertheless book. Whatever the case, for me Crumbly has basically run it’s course as it’s own entity, and it’s time I took it for that long walk into the woods with my shotgun….and then make Crumbly Nevertheless soup out of it’s remains, which I imagine to be fairly oily and tasting of dead skunk ass.
On second thought, maybe I’ll just stop updating the Crumbly Nevertheless Blog and let it starve…..who knows? Maybe it can survive on it’s own by attacking and sucking the life from neighboring blogs, leaving them dried husks of shriveled family photos and YouTube ICP videos about rainbows being all magical?
But, like I said, this is not completely the end of these little drawings….I do have plans in the works for them.
First, the book is nearing the end of it’s third (and hopefully last) revision. It will contain every published Crumbly Drawing so far, as well as a few dozen that have never been shown. The drawings themselves will become available for people to buy as soon as the book becomes published (either in an online gallery, or on Etsy…I haven’t decided the best avenue just yet), as will prints of many of them.
And what of the Crumbly Nevertheless Blog? Well, all of the posts that exist there currently will be blended into this blog in the coming days, and it will be left in the dark, eventually having no visitors due to the lack of updates. I imagine that it will become transparent and blind, relying on echo location to find whatever prey accidentally stumbles it’s way……or maybe I’ll eventually delete it.
Failure of the Chum-Burger Market…
Let me just start by expressing how much I love it when people survive a serious accident that would kill most others, and then emerge finding and thanking God. I mean, seriously….screw the doctors that worked tirelessly to save the person, let’s thank God for waving his magic wand and saving the life. Never mind the fact that this same God who has the power over life and death could have just as easily intervened and spared the victim the terrible suffering when the person was originally run over by a semi and then chewed on for hours by electric land sharks, only to be left in the ditch for a few weeks by the passing tornado that picked them up…I’ll stop….you get the point.
First, I get it. It’s a hard thing to process when coming face to face with one’s mortality, and while for some it brings with it a renewed appreciation for the life that they have, others seem to be forced to understand it by suddenly believing in Dungeons and Dragons in which a God has just rolled them a saving throw with his twelve sided dice.
I suppose I would be able to swallow it better if the victims (or survivors) (or critical thinking impaired) were to apply this to other aspects of their lives. I long to hear a variety in the stories that God has gotten involved in.
“I thank God for curing me of my twenty year bed-wetting condition!” or “I knew God was right there with me, helping me take that left turn with one hand while I used the other to stuff my slack-jawed pie hole with the convenient-store bought microwave burrito.”
Or how about “I would like to thank God for the minimal possible punishment I am receiving after beating my wife in public in Vail, Colorado!”
….and with THAT out of my caffeine fueled system, I will admit here that I am again aware that this is not the update that I’ve promised twice now. But I will not leave you this time without a little piece of my artistic doings behind these pages…..does that make any sense or am I waxing poetic a little too much?
One of the many side projects that I have been doing and returning to for these many years is my collection of zombiespoons. For those of you paying attention, you’ll be used to the fact that I’ll go through stages of producing many new ones, followed by long periods of nothing……much like this blog……and visits outside where people dwell…
In any case, I seem to be starting one of those production periods yet again (of both blogging and the creation of zombiespoons), and I share with you one that I honestly can’t believe I had never done in all this time….that is, just drawing him:
So yes, not only can you expect a barrage of random thoughts pouring from my brain (like the one above) into simple font form on this here computing machine, but now you can also look forward to the next chapter in zombiespoon personas….maybe even a Zombiespoon Book? You didn’t hear that from me……even though you did.
(Re-Post) The Jeans are fine, it all the Drinking and Whoring that's making you Fat...
...or the Truth about Proverbs Revealed!
(this is a re-post of an entry originally written November 27th, 2005)
There are plenty of fish in the sea.
- Yes, but there are also sharks...and they'll eat you!
There’s more than one way to skin a cat.
- But the end result is always a sticky screaming skinless cat.
A rolling stone gathers no moss.
- Unless of course, it happens to roll through a patch of sticky, stone-sucking moss....found primarily in England.
There’s no accounting for taste.
- Which is why you don't see many successful Taste Accountant Offices around.
Time heals all wounds.
- Except for a severed head.
Two heads are better than one.
- See the above proverb to understand why.
Variety is the spice of life.
- Cannibals can come in all shapes and sizes.
Walls have ears.
- I suggest that you start wearing tin-foil and keeping to yourself.
A watched pot never boils.
- Unless of course you fill it with water and put it over a heat source, dumbass.
What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.
- I dare you to refer to a woman as "gander" to her face.
When it rains, it pours.
- Unless it's just a slight drizzle, you gloomy bastard.
A woman’s work is never done.
- Which is why I suggest that you beat her....she's making a fool out of you.
A word to the wise is sufficient.
- The wise tend to bore easily.
You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.
- But shit is still the best fly bait of all.
You can lead a horse to water, but you cant make him drink.
- But you can drown that ungrateful bastard of a horse.
You cant fit a round peg in a square hole.
- Unless you were to use tools, which is what got us all out of the jungles in the first fucking place!
You cant make a silk purse from a sows ear.
- And, seriously...a silk purse won't go with your new Sow Ear dress you made.
You cant squeeze blood from a turnip.
- Not without first soaking the turnip in blood for a minimum of 24 hours.
An apple a day keeps the doctor away.
- But a bullet in his brain will keep him away for good, and you could stop eating all those god damned apples.
Beauty is only skin deep.
- Yeah, tell that to the screaming cat.
The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry.
- The main reason world domination has never been achieved by those in cahoots with mice.
Better late than never.
- Not wise to say when your job was simply to deliver life saving medicines.
Blood is thicker than water.
- Which is why a turnip needs to soak in it for so long.
Brevity is the soul of wit.
- Stupid people tend to babble on and on and on...
Cleanliness is next to godliness.
- That is of course, unless you worship a Mud God, then the cleanest of people are obviously witches and should be burned!
Cold hands, warm heart.
- The beginnings of hypothermia.
Curiosity killed the cat.
- No, the skinning of the cat led to it's death...let's not blame how it got there.
The devil is in the details.
- Which is why the Cliff Note version of the Bible is so popular in churches.
Don’t cry over spilt milk.
- Unless your captor swore he'd fucking kill you if he returned to find the milk spilt...then cry your eyes out bitch!
Don't look a gift horse in the mouth.
- Unless you have reason to believe that it swallowed your keys...it's a far worse thing to just gut the horse in front of the giver without first being sure.
Don’t throw out the baby with the bath water.
- That is, unless you happen to have a bath-water baby....then by all means throw it out....what would the community think?
The early bird catches the worm.
- But in the end, it's still a worm and tastes like ass...I suggest sleeping in and then having some coffee.
Every cloud has a silver lining.
- Why then, have people not made their fortunes as cloud miners?
Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.
- Smart people stink and have no friends.
Give him enough rope and hell hang himself.
- Which is far better than giving him the materials to make a shiv to stab you with!
Haste makes waste.
- The reason behind the low cost of housing near Haste Factories.
He who laughs last, laughs best.
- Those that tend to chuckle first get the ever loving crap kicked out of them.
Ignorance is bliss.
- Yes, everyone on Jerry Springer seem so damn happy.
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
- Which fails to explain why plagiarism is so ill received.
Knowledge is power.
- Really really smart people could power a city block, while those that are merely clever struggle keeping a string of xmas lights lit.
Love conquers all.
- This explains why Hitler lost...he just didn't love enough.
The meek shall inherit the Earth.
- It is very likely that the Great Meek Uprising will happen in your lifetime.
Old soldiers never die; they only fade away.
- So what exactly is buried in those cemeteries neighboring Veteran Hospitals?
A picture is worth a thousand words.
- Photographers are the most boring people on earth.
Out of sight, out of mind.
- Blind people are all insane!
Poets are born, not made.
- But ignored by everyone else nevertheless...now mimes, they are made in labs!
Procrastination is the thief of time.
- When Procrastination was finally arrested in '73, nearly three hundred years was discovered in the crawlspace or buried in the backyard.
The proof of the pudding is in the eating.
- Even the very best of pudding photographs can be faked, plus then you'd have to listen to the damn photographer for at least a thousand words!
The worm turns.
- Yeah...wait, what?!
Begin the Begin…
I’m going to cheat here a little bit….first, by not posting about The Death of Crumbly Nevertheless like I said I would in the last entry (I still will, just not right now)….and second, by re-posting a blog entry in it’s entirety from a few years ago.
Now, before you get the torches and pitchforks out, let me just say this: don’t you think you’re overreacting? Just a tad? I mean, seriously….who the fuck starts an angry murderous mob in this day an age? Especially over a mostly-overlooked blog? Shame on all of you!! Shaaaaaaammmmme!!
The reason being is this: earlier today I was talking to my friend Jason about blogging and about my blog in general. It brought to the surface further how my descent into online rambling madness began.
Like I stated in the previous post, I started this form of online public diary writing on myspace….the first post being about not being able to find my coffee cup. Why did I write about this? Because I was bored and the option of “blog” was there. This might have been the first an only time I wrote anything had it not been for the fact that my post really seemed to upset Glen Danzig (or, let’s be honest, whoever might have been behind the Glen Danzig myspace profile), and an online fight ensued.
This clinched it…if I could upset someone like Danzig with a post about a missing cup of coffee, well I had no other choice but to keep writing!
It started of slowly: posts about “guess what Clint is listening to?”, which were usually answered with “strangled cats humping to an Ethel Murmen musical”, or the like.
What changed everything is the post that is to follow, the re-post, that is.
The post is titled: “The jeans are fine, it all the Drinking and Whoring that's making you Fat... ...or the Truth about Proverbs Revealed!” and is nothing more than a list of proverbs and my own little take on them. It was just another example of what I do to keep myself entertained, and the fact that I write the most when I have nothing to say. But this entry took off unlike I could have imagined.
Within a week after posting it I had acquired several dozen more subscribers. I was receiving emails from people asking if they could repost it, one from a college student wanting to use it in a paper…and another from a school teacher wanting to use it for her class.
This solidified my writing habits, for the most part, from there on out. That is, write a lot about nothing….which is something that I am constantly filled with….nothing…obviously, I’m trying to get back to that…..
Looking for Reflections in a Burlap Sack...
This little blog has been going now, in one form or another, for about half a decade; ever since my first random posting on MySpace back in July of 2005. For those who are still with me, and by that I mean those few who have followed this blog for enough length of time that you are in for the long haul and want to see how it ends, I salute you. You have stayed with me through my rambling lists, disjointed observations and what some have called “a raping of the facts”…(ok, only one person has actually said that in an angry email to me, an email I like to pretend they were spitting mad while writing, but I like the phrase enough to use it here).
And those same few of you by now might have noticed the pattern to my posting methods, involving both, the cycles of frenzied, almost religious updating followed by long periods of silence and virtual tumbleweeds getting snagged on the barbed wire fences lining the long, dust-filled roads the lone hitch hiker has traveled without seeing an automobile in god knows how long…..and he’s running out of Skittles.
But there’s a little more to the pattern if one were to look a bit closer, even if one didn’t want to look closer, because I’m going to point it out anyway. The postings and absences coincide and can be mapped with whatever is going on in my little world. For example: take a look back at the periods when I was posting almost everyday if not more than once a day. You’ll notice that these are during some sort of transition in my life….as in struggling in New York, or staying in Pennsylvania looking for work and a new state to move to.
Now look to the voids….these usually coincide with periods of stability and production, usually drawings.
It’s a shame really…although this little soapbox was originally started as a way to poke fun at my friend Clint and just to record random stupid thoughts, I have tried to evolve it into also a venue to keep people informed on the progress of my professional targets, those being art and writing. If stepping back and looking at this blog as a whole shows anything, it is that I tend to write the most when I have nothing to say. This probably says a lot about me that I will continue to ignore….like this wound that is spreading and smells like cheese….or the shark in my bed wearing the clown hat. Some things are better left alone…..do you smell something burning?
So, if the lack of posts over the course of the past year is any indication, I have been keeping extremely busy drawing and writing and what not. The image above is a hint to one of the cooler things I’ve done during this time….click on the image to see where it leads….I’ll write more about that experience in an upcoming post. But for now, take this as my promise to attempt to bring this journal back up to speed, and maybe even try to stay on top of it…….Ooooooooooo look!! Something shiny!!
Coming Next Post: the Death of Crumbly Nevertheless
