I’ve got this group show coming up and, last night, the organizers hosted a reception for the artists to meet each other. One girl was in another room most of the night but I did eventually get to know her a little bit when she asked if I’d like to sit down and draw with her. As it turns out, she just tagged along and isn’t actually participating in next week’s show. Although (while I’m not sure if she meant “professionally”) she did tell me that she’s an artist.
She ALSO told me that she has two nannas (who are both very nice), that Madelyn and Mikaylyn are twins (her favorite twin is both of them), and that she likes to make her own soup in her belly. Yeah, right. “How do you do that?” I asked incredulously. “I eat sweets and vegetables and that’s how I make my soup in my belly.” I had to concede. That’s a dynamite soup recipe if I’ve ever heard one.
So Marley’s pretty great and I’m not saying that just ’cause she gave me some of her drawings.
Is it just me or is this way too close-for-comfort to my art (considering it was drawn by someone who won’t be starting pre-kindergarten for another eight months)?
In any case, I DON”T MEAN TO BRAG but I’m pretty sure I’ve got at least a year or two before she catches up to me in terms of technical ability. I mean – she’s good, but not Sam’s-motor-skills-are-fully-developed good.
Here’s the picture I drew for her.
“How I Make My Soup In My Belly.” 1/4/14. Crayon, pen, and marker. 8×10″
Shit… Looking at these side by side… If I’m being honest, I think the only real difference is that she got bored and moved on to another drawing (and then to dancing, and then to showing me some toys, and then to watching TV) in the time that it took me to draw mine. Focus might be my only edge over Marley… If she gets a Ritalin ‘scrip when she starts school, I’m gonna be shit outta luck.
Oh well. No use in worrying today about what may or may not happen tomorrow.
6 AM. Walking home.
It’s 40 degrees outside and I still haven’t gone to bed.
Pineapple soda, a cigarette,
BRAND NEW RATIONAL ANTHEM playing in my headphones.
What more could an idiot ask for?
—–
I stayed up all night, clearing out my house,
Getting rid of the things in my life that I don’t need.
Some of it is really hard to get rid of.
I still don’t know if I’ll actually be able to part with my zine collection.
And (honestly) I haven’t even considered the records.
But I’m young, itinerant,
I’d rather not be weighed down by possessions.
Do you ever fantasize about your house burning down
And starting over with nothing?
I do.
I’m working to be okay with the idea that if something is important
It’ll come back to me.
I don’t need to cling to anything.
Or only to so much, in any case.
—–
Here’s a cartoon I drew in an Alcoholics Anonymous.
It was the second of three that night.
The third being My Favorite Cartoon.
This one’s not important.
It’s just about me,
Being a resentful little jerk-off.
“Broken Records.” 1/15/13. Pen on scrap. 5×3½”.
There’s no way for me to explain what I was thinking when I drew this without sounding like an asshole. Which is okay – after all – sometimes I’m an asshole!
This kid was rambling on and every word out of his mouth reeked of “here’s some shit I heard some other clueless bastard say at a meeting, so now I’m gonna repeat it at all of you so that I can walk back to my halfway house confident that you guys will think I’ve really got a handle on this recovery thing.”
Which – who knows – maybe that’s me projecting. Or maybe it’s just me being bitter about some girl not paying enough attention to me. And – honestly – what the fuck should I even care? I guess it’s easy to fall into this kind of judgmental/negative thought when you’re compelled to go to more meetings than you’d otherwise elect to on your own. I might have needed that many at one point early on (or I might not have) but by this time last year, I was definitely ready to move on to the next phase. And within a month I had done just that.
I’m outside smoking a cigarette because just standing in that house, my pulse has been racing so fast for so long that I feel like I could collapse and fucking die. I’m acknowledging this moment so that I REMEMBER the feeling should I try to reconsider. I haven’t gotten so much as a “sorry.” If she comes out here and smokes a cigarette next to me silently, I think I’ll pack my shit up right fucking now and be out of town by tomorrow.
There was a little confusion at the printer and – after getting home – I had to turn around and go right back. I got everything sorted/fixed (free of charge!) and flipped on the new Iron Chic album, The Constant One, as I made my way home. I like to put off listening to albums until I have a physical copy and can sit down with it but it’s been long enough that I didn’t wanna wait anymore. (Money’s not too tight but tight enough that I’ve had to put off picking up a few records that I’d have otherwise bought by now).
The first song, “The End,” is a fairly ambient intro to the record and it was the perfect soundtrack as I made my way down the quiet little backstreets of Riverside. Under a perfect grey sky, I passed a kid sitting on the sidewalk with a book.
After just one minute, “Bogus Journey” kicked in and I had a thought about the guitar tone. It’s different, which is kind of cool. We don’t need to reinvent the wheel here but it’s nice when someone puts a little bit of thought into making something interesting.
But guitar tones aren’t really important. What is important is that I had a big grin on my face before Lubrano had even started singing. This song just sounds joyful. I became conscious of my smile and it grew even more. And then I laughed out loud. This is wonderful.
“Leaky Sinks and Stupid Fucking Garbage Disposals.” 3/18/13. Watercolor and ink on canvas. 5 ½x13 ½.”.
Iron Chic are building a discography out of the basic idea that life is ordinary most of the time. Buy their latest album, The Constant One, on CD or LP here.
I’m building a portfolio out of the basic idea that I don’t have to be a fuck-up anymore. Buy some of my art here.
“Because Nihilism.” 4/22/13. Watercolor and acrylic paints, charcoal, and ink. 12×16″.
I painted this in April. I like ants. It’s expressive art and the story behind it is enough likeamillionothers that it’s not worth telling. Instead, here’s the story of my life in April 2011.
—–
When Taylor finally called me back, she sounded weird. “What’s going on?” She wouldn’t say. She was being evasive. I just came out and asked – “are you done with me?” She didn’t answer right away but – when she did – yeah, that was pretty much the gist of it.
Six years… I was in total shock. I had just gotten into my first “treatment” program eight days prior. (Methadone maintenance). I was cured! How could she break up with me now?!? Life was about to become a dream! This is preposterous!
Not to mention, I was in the middle of my final exams. My final final exams. She couldn’t wait two fucking weeks to do this? I was gonna be so busy for the next few weeks that, at most she might have seen me once. By breaking up with me now, it was guaranteeing that I’d fail my exams, not graduate from law school, lose at life, and DIE. What a selfish, miserable human being. (Her, I mean). (I’m really cool and great).
Granted, her timing was a little poor but I’m obviously still alive, and my interpretation of things has changed with time. Taylor didn’t leave me that day – because I had already left her – when I let heroin overtake her on my list of priorities. For the last eight months, I had barely existed in her life. I spent all my time hiding from her, out all day, out all night, shooting up at school or the basement of our building, ignoring her phone calls. Now that I had a couple pleasant days I thought everything was gonna be okay again?
But I couldn’t see that; I couldn’t see anything. I just hurt. More than hurt. I was fucking leveled. I didn’t want to use but… I had to. If I didn’t relapse, that’d mean I wasn’t really hurt. And I was really hurt so… I had to shoot some heroin to prove it. To myself. To Taylor. To the world. (I’m not really sure). And I had to buy a lot (two hundred bucks’ worth) ‘cause that was the best deal. (Money management’s an important skill!) My little bundle lasted me through the day with a few caps left over for the next. And then I put it out of my head and got back to the task at hand.
I hadn’t been to any of my courses all semester (I never even bothered to get textbooks). I logged in to the school’s website, found out which classes I was enrolled in, and settled into a couch in a (usually) empty room at school, where I’d spend the next few weeks, trying to learn as much as I could and just maybe graduate. When I couldn’t stay up any longer, I’d put my computer in my backpack and sleep on that same couch where I was studying. I didn’t get up for anything. Almost. Every six or seven days, I’d walk to the closest store to stock up on bagel bites and apples, which I kept in the fridge of a student organization to which I (of course) didn’t belong. There were three other reasons I’d occasionally leave the couch: to smoke a cigarette, use the bathroom, and (most importantly) – once a day, between the hours of 6AM and noon – go get my daily dose of methadone.
At one point, I saw myself in the bathroom mirror and was pretty impressed with how strung out I looked. (I guess the methadone / Adderall / sleep deprivation combo will do that you). I took a picture for posterity.
Less than a month after this photo was taken, THIS DRUG-ADDLED FUCK UP GOT A LAW DEGREE FROM GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY!
—–
“Barkmarket Fuckacy” by House Boat is my favorite song on the last record [The Thorns of Life CD/LP] to bear the Traffic Street Records logo.
In the liner notes for the record, there’s a special “thanks to Sam North for basically ruining his life to help get this record made.”
(On our way to the studio for the recording of the album, I caught two felony possession of heroin charges and more misdemeanor charges for needles and other paraphernalia than I can count/remember). And if that wasn’t bad enough, the cops didn’t even give me back my drugs when they let me go! So on top of everything else, I had to spend the next day scrambling around Indiana looking for heroin.
In my mind, the word “limp” is usually an adjective associated with something weak or ineffectual (like a wiener, you guys!) but it’s also a verb (Professor North’s dropping knowledge today!) and – in that sense – it’s got a very different kind of connotation. You limp when you’re hurt – when you’re struggling – but what’s important is that you’re still going in spite of whatever’s slowing you down.
When I did Crafty Fest at Artpool, I met some good people, including an artist named William Somma. He does mostly abstract paintings with lots of neon and fluorescent colors, which I liked a lot. (Before I met Will, I didn’t even know they made paint like that; that day, he let me use some for my first time). He also asked if I’d be interested in collaborating on a painting. He started it off and once his paint was dry, handed over the canvas for me do with it what I might. I had never done anything collaborative before and I didn’t quite know how to go at it. That coupled with the fact that I didn’t want to disappoint Will made it a little bit of a difficult process. I didn’t know where I was going and I wasn’t used to working with the anticipation of someone else’s reaction or response in mind. But I kept at it all the same until I finally had something I thought we could both be proud of.
While it wasn’t exactly the greatest mountain I had ever scaled, “limp” came to mind and it felt right. In a sense, being out in the world – creating and selling art like this – was a culmination of more than two years I had spent limping. Or – it would have been if I weren’t still limping. Which isn’t a complaint; it’s just what I do. And it’s working out.
——
There is (or at least used to be) a band called Fiya that had a handful of really excellent songs. When I heard a couple of those kids had started a new band (Nervous Dogs) with one of the guys from Grabass Charlestons (a band I really liked), I picked up their 7-inch immediately.
Avenida Sevilla is three songs and, if I’m being totally honest, the first two didn’t really do a lot for me – but the third was one of the most beautiful songs I had ever heard and (nearly eight years later) remains a favorite.
At $2.70, it’s way than worth picking up. I couldn’t find the song online though so I threw a few images together and dropped it on YouTube myself.
“Walk With Difficulty” by Nervous Dogs Dad was looking at my brother and at me and said, “I don’t know what I’d do – or if I’d even try to fight a thing like this disease – if I didn’t have the two of you.” He used to go out running in the mornings before work but he walks with difficulty now. But he walks anyhow…
