MONDAY MORNING ART

figure black. acrylics on paper

cell yellow. acrylics on paper

cell 3. acrylics on paper

night figure. acrylics on paper

garden. acrylics on paper

wind. acrylics on paper

stars. acrylics on paper

circles. acrylics on paper

story of the week: I EARNED WHAT I GOT

"primary colors" acrylics on paper

Sheldon asked about Grandma and I told him, "She didn't go out anymore after they made it illegal for her to smoke cigarettes in the diner." It's true. She got so fat after that, it wouldn't probably have been possible for her to get out of the house anyway. She had worked all her life since even before my grandfather had died, and so she must have decided that she deserved a good retirement, cause she didn't do anything but smoke Pall Malls and drink Coca Cola Classic. She had gone out and bought a few pallets of Coke back when they were gonna change to New Coke, and she said she had enough to last the rest of her life, as long as I didn't give em all away to my friends. That was why I didn't bring the guys around too often, I guess. Sheldon asked if those old Cokes tasted good, and I didn't know cause they were never really cold.

That was the problem, the fact that refrigerator broke and then the television started to lose reception. During a bad rain, all of Grandma's lawn ornaments got scattered out in the salty muck and I couldn't hardly find any of the pink flamingos. Grandma said they were really old, and probably worth a lot of money, and she said they probably got stole by the Indians that didn't know to stay off white man's land.

"What is she gonna do about her trailer sinking?" Sheldon asked, and I told him to shut up. For awhile I'd go out and shove cinderblocks and old tires and whatever other crap I could find down into the salty, chalky white stew of mud and sewage, but then one side of the trailer stuck up higher than the other and Grandma got angrier than the Devil on Easter.

"They're trying to make a laughingstock out of your granny, boy!" She thought it was because she didn't pay taxes. "I earned what I got, boy. You hear? Don't let them shame you." She never left the couch anymore, because the floor in her bedroom got warped enough that no one could walk in there. I shacked up with Angela Winters, even though she still let her ex use the apartment to stash his meth. No, I didn't like it. But it got to smell in Grandma's trailer.

Sheldon got me a job hunting egret nests. The bosses wanted the land cleared of birds, to get everything ready for another housing development. People shook their heads and smiled to think about houses out there in Salton City. We'd seen those men come and go talking about houses and jobs before, and we'd undoubtably see some more come and go again before too much longer. Anyhow, the bosses had me go out in the dead of summer when it was probably 120 out, cause there wouldn't be anyone out to spy what I was up to. So that's why I wasn't with Grandma.

I brought her some McDonald's for dinner that night and when I opened the door there was a rush of air so hot it made me sick. And it was still hot out there, outside in the evening. But that air was probably 20 degrees hotter. I went straight in yelling her name. The air conditioner had stopped working, I knew immediately, and I crossed the debris of garbage and all the things that Grandma collected, and I saw her there on the floor. Lying there under the air conditioner, eyes glazed and looking at nothing.

HALLOWEEN MASK PAINTINGS

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

story of the week: TAR BEACH

bug 2. acrylics on paper

Like any other person in town, I followed the news reports about the Tar Beach murders. There had been five small children with the two families, pretty little boys and girls, the youngest of them 4 years old. Their faces had flashed on the evening news for months, while the authorities combed the forests and the sea for remains. The camp had been found wrecked, torn apart and soaked. It was a rogue wave, was the common wisdom. An anomaly, a freak occurrence. The authorities couldn’t find enough evidence to say for sure. But they couldn’t find evidence to say for sure what had happened, except that 11 people who had gone one night to camp on a pretty, isolated little strip of beach had not been there in the morning. Eventually the 9 year old son of one of the families showed up. The one who had gotten away. He had walked almost 30 miles down the coast, to the nearest town south.

The survivor had a story that no one could believe. A man had shown up at the campsite. What he’d done, the little boy did not tell anyone. At first there was a flurry of interest, of fear. But then it became obvious that the little boy was not in his right mind. He said things that didn’t make any sense at all, about sea monsters and giant apes, and then he stopped talking for good. As far as I have been able to uncover, he is still in the asylum.

Since the experts couldn’t give a satisfactory answer, it was decided among the people in our little town that a rogue wave had been responsible for the disappearance. It was a concern of ours that outsiders not be afraid to come visit our coastline. We did not have much industry. And so we passed a law saying you couldn’t camp on Tar Beach. Well, that was enough of a resolution as anyone needed, and eventually no one wondered anymore about what happened to the ten bodies of those families that’d never turned up. And when two teenage runaways showed up on the beach last year with their throats cut, no one said much at all. Bad situation, they said. A drug deal gone bad.

I had seen the kids in the van when they passed through town during the day, and I heard talk at the café that they’d asked about the beach. Two girls and three boys, not hardly older than teenagers. So in the afternoon I went out there, and, there they were, out splashing around in the water. They were getting a fire going in the blackish sand. The fog was just starting to come in, but it was still warm, so they were all still in their swimsuits. I came out of the forest and walked up to their fire. Not one of them noticed me until I was a few feet from the slowly growing blaze.

“Hey,” I called out, “Hello.”

They were a little bit startled, but said “hello” back, and I asked them if they were going to camp out on the beach.

“It’s beautiful out here at night,” I said, “but I have to warn you. It is illegal.”

The kids smiled and shrugged and looked at each other, and one of them, one of the girls laughed and said that they knew. I gazed at her and shrugged and grinned.

“Can’t say I blame you all. Have a good evening.”

I went back to the house and tried not to think of them, out there alone. I wondered if they had people, whom they had left behind. They looked so young… you couldn’t help wondering what their story was. As was my habit, I went out around midnight for my night walk and decided to go along the path to the beach to see how the kids were doing.

It was so dark on the path that I was forced to slow to a snail’s crawl at some parts. I’d cut the trail years ago, and it had been a long time since the days I used to jog it. I came out above the beach, and I could listen to the kids talking. They were laughing and having a good time.

I did the boys first. Had to cut one of the girl’s throats before I was ready, though. That was too bad. But she was screaming like you wouldn’t believe, while I was still working on her boyfriend.

bug. acrylics on paper

MY ART IS UP AT DALVA BAR WITH PHYLUM COLLECTIVE

cell 1. acrylics on paper

cell 2. acrylics on paper

If you're in SF, check it out. There's a bunch of really rad art from the Phylum folks, and these two things I did. I'm selling them for 100 each.

Dalva is a cool spot in the Mission. The opening is on this Tuesday, so remember to drop in and take a look around.

I HAVEN'T BEEN POSTING ALL WEEK FOR A GOOD REASON

I've finally said everything I'll ever need to say.

PSYCH!

I'm hard at work on art for a show on Sunday. But I'll have plenty to post up here soon!

I've also started a new project with Eddie Wright over at Tyranny of the Muse. I'll have more on that as it develops.

And I started putting work up on Fictionaut, which is a pretty cool Web site. Technically, I've put only one piece of work up so far. But I like it, so I'll put more stuff up.

Also, I have an infection on my foot and I'm worried that it's gangrene.

OK. Here we go.

story of the week: 10/29/2009

"over the town" acrylics on paper

The construction crews showed up Wednesday morning and they started to build something that rose several dozen feet into air over Ronnie's house. She called her daughters and her sons, and they all came over.

"No one told you they were coming?" George, her oldest son, asked angrily.

"Oh, no, not at all," Ronnie answered, and then she laughed incredulously. "They just showed up."

"Fuck that, mom." George declared, and then he and her younger son Johnny went out to talk to the men. A few minutes later the two sons came back and told her that the men and the company that they worked for had all their city permits.

"You got some mail from the city?" George asked, angry. She didn't know, and so her and Paulina, her younger daughter, they went through the piles of mail on the table that had been set aside because they were not bills and not advertisements. There, near the top of the pile, was a large envelope filled with copies of the company's permits and drawings of the cell phone tower that the men were building.

"Oh my goodness," Ronnie gasped. Her husband stood out on the yard until late, talking a little bit to the men working, asking whether or not there would be side-effects of living next to the tower. The men said he should ask someone who knew about those kinds of things. On Saturday, the tower went live and all of Ronnie's children commented that they got remarkably better cell phone service in her house.

That night Ronnie and her husband Tommy were woken up when their windows lit up as if by daylight, and a high-pitch scream that did not sound human ripped through the room from somewhere outside. Then, just as the two old people were scrambling around in the bed, an explosion louder than anything either of them had ever heard before hit the ground outside and it was as if gravity stopped working and all the sheets and all Ronnie's combs and Tommy's shoes and all their clothes jumped into the air and floated around for 20 seconds in the weightless daylight that turned deep, rosy orange and then black.

Ronnie hurried out to turn on the television and flipped through the channels, to find news about what had just happened. There was a late-night movie on, a yoga program, some infomercials... all of them were as they should be, except that there was static on the screen. And then the static got so bad that it covered the screen and there was a voice that emerged, a man's voice.

"...all survivors should make their way east, away from Los Angeles and inland. If you are injured, the government is asking that you raise a flag of any color and shape, so to notify paramedics of your location..."

Ronnie hurried outside, feeling dizzy and sick, and found the neighborhood intact: the sky a clean deep dark blue and everything as it should be. She and Tommy got into the car and drove to their older daughter's house.

It took several minutes of knocking and ringing the bell for Mickey to answer. One of the grandkids had gotten up with her and stood there, wide awake and excited.

"Oh, Michelle! Have you seen the news on the television? They said to leave Los Angeles, sweetie!" Ronnie exclaimed. Mickey frowned at her.

"What?"

"The explosion, honey! That light? I can't believe that you could sleep through it." Ronnie looked at her quizzically. "It was so terrible."

"Come in," Mickey said, yawning. They all sat down and turned on the television. There was no static, no voice issuing a warning like what Ronnie and Tommy had heard. Still, it took several minutes for the two old people to calm down. Mickey turned on the news to see if there was anything that might explain what had happened. There was a big news story about escalating tensions between Iran and Israel. But nothing about any explosions.

The next day Ronnie went around to all the neighbors with whom she normally talked, and she asked them if they had experienced anything. It was only Ronnie's house. Tommy spent the day snooping around the cell phone tower.

"It's the tower," he declared in the evening. Ronnie shook her head.

"Should we talk to the city? Maybe they will move it?" She asked, but Tommy grunted and laughed.

"Might as well talk to the cell phone tower, see if it will move itself!" He shook his head.

That night the explosion shook the room again and, before her eyes, Ronnie saw a vision of herself jumping out of bed and then melting in a flash of light that obliterated everything, the wall and the window and the bed and the sheets and everything. Her flesh vanished and then all the meat of her fell away and her bones exploded into a vapor of ash. It was so loud and so bright that she was blinded and left deaf, and when she recovered she found her face soaked with tears. Tommy was in the next room, with the television.

She found him messing with a tin foil dish he had made. It was stuck to the top of the television, and he was fumbling with metal coat hangers he had bent out of shape and covered in tin foil. The television was on, the screen filled with static, and the volume was up unbearably loud.

"Sweetie?" Ronnie asked, her voice trembling almost as severely as her body shook. As she spoke, the static cut out on the television and Tommy yelped victoriously.

It was the same message as before, but now they could see the man speaking. He was in a white studio, and the quality of film was poor, as if it had been filmed with a camcorder. The Los Angeles area had been evacuated, he said. All survivors should leave. He continued giving instructions, and Ronnie came closer to see what was on the screen, as if it would make more sense the closer she stared at it. She felt cold all over her body.

That couldn't be right, she thought. As far as Ronnie could remember, it was October 21. But that couldn't be right. Because in the lower right corner of the screen, it clearly read 10/29/2009.

"fear" acrylics on paper

SATURDAY MORNING ART

blue arc. acrylics on paper

man in forest. acrylics on paper

blue arc. acrylics on paper

story of the week: LAST TRAIN

"black bird" acrylics on paper

The music was still playing and the house was still full of laughter and people when Ann found out it was long past when she and David should have left. David was not surprised. He had already, in his mind, decided to spend the night at the house, probably on the floor. He had realized, back when there had still been more than enough time not to, that they were quickly approaching the time that the last train would leave back to San Francisco. So when Ann approached him in with the urgent information that they had just 10 minutes before the last train was to leave, he just shrugged and smiled. She frowned in a way that turned her broad, pretty face ugly.

"You can sleep here," she told him. "I'm going home." And he could tell that her stubbornness had been aroused, and she was drunk anyway, so there was going to be no negotiating. He protested a little, testing the air between them in any case. But she was already going out the door. He hurriedly said good night to some friends, and then he went after her.

The streets were empty. No cars passed. Down the neighborhoods, he ran after her, the twin clap of sneakers against the pavement the only noise, aside from the far off sound of police sirens, somewhere in the black night. There was no moon out. After a block, the houses gave way to an old industrial sector of town. A few factory yards, all of them abandoned and closed, sat along the road, chained up and left rotting in the night as in the day. It was there that the streetlights ended, and in the shadows, which grew larger every step forward David took, the shapes of all kinds of things began to catch his eye.

"Hold on," he called out to her, trying to catch up.

"We're going to miss it!" She hollered back. He couldn't seem to close the distance between them, her long dark hair and black jeans both blending into the dark. David was nervous now. It wasn't a safe neighborhood, and though he usually dismissed those fears as trumped up by the media, he began to be palpably nervous. A shiver ran all throughout his body. The shapes in the shadows were, in his mind, now almost definitely the shapes of dangerous, malevolent men-things who were there to prey on him and Ann. When he came into sight of the station, it wasn't any relief for David. He was fairly sure that they had already missed the train, and would need to walk back through the same darkened blocks back to the house party.

But they hadn't missed the train. The voice was announcing the San Francisco Daily City train would be arriving in 2 minutes, and Ann was buying her ticket. As he came up behind her she yelled, grinning, "I told you we would make it!" He swiped his card feverishly, knowing that the train would leave without him if he wasn't on the platform. The ticket printed out and he sprinted up the stairs to the elevated platform.

Ann had gone down towards the end, looking down the tracks. The big black hills of the East Bay sat impressively in the distance, and a landscape of rooftops lay in all directions. Ann turned around to look at him, and she waved. It was then that he saw the shape.

The sound of a train approaching began to whistle in his ears, but he could only see the stretching, expanding dark of the thing behind Ann. It was black, pure black and spread out in either direction so far that he couldn't tell where the shape ended and the night began. He was surprised, but not frightened, at first. It seemed like a trick of the eye. It came down low, so it was right over the train track and it seemed to grow and grow as it bore down on Ann. Something near the bottom moved, glinting as if made from metal and brightness, and David yelped as it hit Ann. She jolted, leaping forward as her whole body bucked. Her eyes wide with shock and then seemed stuck that way. She rose into the air as if levitating, her arms and legs gently, spasmodically moving. David stared at her as she floated along the track, gaining speed as she passed, and then he was looking at her disappear, her body still shaking with spasms and her jacket turning a deep red.

Trembling as if cold, David looked into the dark as if expecting an explanation for what he had just seen. He tasted saltiness, and confusedly touched his face. It was soaked with tears. Then the sound of a train approaching began again. Before he had managed to turn around, he was lifted up over the track by the surest, firmest of grips. Pain shot through his whole body and he twitched, suddenly unable to cry out or struggle or move at all. The black night rushed past, faster and faster and faster, until suddenly the incredible force behind him turned upwards and roared away from the city's light.

And then there were only the stars.

"black box" acrylics on paper

IDEAS FOR A NEW AMERICAN FLAG

As pointed out by some people, President Obama and me, and lots of other Americans are not real Americans. As a result, we will soon not live in real America anymore, but fake America.

Fake America will need a new, fake flag. So I got to work: