neilwaukee

we are all hacks part 2

the above artists name is Felix Octavius Carr Darley 1822-1888

F.O.C.Darley.
from James Fenimore Cooper's novel, The Prairie, 1880.

another reason to work hard, draw everyday, eat your vegetables and draw some more, stay up late, struggle, and you will still never be this good.
and nether will i.

GUNS ARE NOT THE PROBLEM

james must have been driving, when we all spotted the hitchhiker sneaking down the back way home from some bar, the hitchhiker looked all tall and creepy, but hell we had Tommy Natch in the back and the two Menes brothers, so basically we represented a car load of goons,

ohhh, pick him up, pick him up somebody screamed and smushed the brakes on and took the steering wheel away from james

we squeezed him in and ask where he was going and asked if he could buy the gang some beer on the way, and he said sure and seemed to be enjoying the ride, and being teased and f-ed with, he tells us where he lives and it's out of the way but the guys in the back seat need a night cap and the grocery store was drawing us in with bright lights against a black sky, so we stop and park out front and he gets out and your not going to leave me here are you? and of course we are, but no we say, you coming in with me, and hell no we all say, we're all listening to new wave love songs.

he comes back out gives Tommy Natch the beer and we drive off but then he starts getting all ambiguous about where exactly he lives and james pulls over and says get out, and i open the door and come on get out, but he wont get out, so we stand there for a second screamoing,and give me a beer and i give him a beer and he gets up but wont let go of the door,

i want all the beer he says, i get back in the car and james drives off, leaving the fucking nut standing in the woods somewhere.

and we are all laughing and laughing, james gets on the highway to get home fast and 2 minutes later, i swear, Road block,

holy shit. and a state boy pulling up behind us at like eighty, RUN, tommy says, we can't run,

so james pulls over and before we can even say a word, James has a gun to his head, and i have a gun to my face,

and the troopers are screaming, hands on the roof, hands where i can see 'em, then i'm dragged out of the car and dragged into the grass face down, hands pulled behind me, face stepped on into the dirt,

where's the gun?

tell me where's the gun.

now there's like fifty state police standing on each of us, all screaming and trying to crush my face with knees, and pushing .9mm guns into our heads.

and tommy is laughing and taking a nap, no one can squish him.

so we're all sitting back to back hand cuffed to chairs, being interrogated, one at a time, turns out the nutty hitchhiker phoned the state police and told them that we had kidnapped him, threatened him with a gun and forced him to buy us beer, and beat him up before dumping his body in the woods.

why, we are all hacks

last weekend i stopped at the first yard sale of the season, and bought two great books from 1880, you all know by now that i usually only read stuff i find randomly, the book is titled COOPER'S NOVELS upon opening i find this wonderful print, and am amazed and fall helplessly in love, the novel is titled. The Crater, and just look at the wonderful scene presented here, a shipwreck, with some well dressed marooned sailor, his tent, packed with gun and books a nice sombrero, wow, that's where i want to be, lost at sea, with a telescope and a goat.

fantastic.

i find myself staring at this print all week, opening the book starting to read, and slicing back the pages to this print, and knowing that we as artists are all Hacks, that any art we create now is toilet paper, pornography compared to the stunning masterpiece of this tiny print buried in an old book bought for a dollar.

we should all hang our heads today embarrassed at our chicken scratched failings.

i can't read the signature very well but think it reads John Writghson.

i am going out back to burn my studio to the ground.

HYPERION

perhaps it's just me, but you know when i pick up a book, i expect it to be a self contained world, with a beginning, middle and end, with the stress on End. but this isn't what you get in SF novels, but jesus they should warn you or something.

And this book is great, very captivating, a little long, and dated from the eighties but pretty bang on with the future all outdated and plausible even now.

this is the story of seven people going to commit suicide at some time tombs and a monster, the shirke, who travels back from our future to judge all of us and grant wishes, interesting, and bloody, a Sf monster tale very space operaesque, they always use the word baroque, i like that. the best pilgrim story involves a girl ageing backward and her father's quest to save her and his fight against god.

i loved the book even though it just stops with no ending, i'm reading the second of all four of them now, fuckers, gotta learn how to tighten it up. does anyone even edit these massive piles of pages

filling pages is not how to please your readers. authors, editors, publishers i demand editing, or blood.

la push,wa

you know i talk about this place a lot, have spent a million weekends there camped in the log jam and paddling out among pelicans whales and mushed out waves, Toby and Suzanne sent this photo to me, isn't it the greatest, holy cow, drive, now, drive, fast. eat hot dogs and drink gallons of water shoot roman candles and look at the moon.