All the Time Lost

March 11, 2026

“All the Time Lost.” 6/8/25. acrylics and pigment ink on clock face. 28 inch diameter.

In early 2025, I’d been trying to embrace the notion that just because I can’t yet see that things are as they should be – that doesn’t mean they aren’t (or that they won’t be). It just means I can’t see it yet.

As summer crept up, I was not feeling so optimistic. I was thinking a lot about how I’d essentially lost all of my thirties to relapse. How even if my career was going well, it was not going anywhere near as well as it would be if I’d been at it all along.

I was thinking about how back in Round One,1 I was grateful for all of the tragedy and trauma in my life, grateful for my addiction and the time I’d lost to drugs — because all of that led me to art and a life that I enjoyed.

AND I WAS THINKING ABOUT THAT THING WE DON’T LIKE TO TALK ABOUT. And how it’s super fucking hard to be grateful for that. Because what did I get out of it? Eight years of relapse? Hurt, fear, distrust, resentment, and [insert OTHER BAD THINGS here]?

Looking back at my records, I’m kind of blown away by how well I did in those early months (and how quickly I started to take it for granted). The relapse may have cost me momentum, but wasn’t it still a minor miracle that I was able to pick back up as quickly as I did?

 It didn’t feel that way. I was making money, but – even when I’m doing well – if I’m not hitting new benchmarks of success, I start to feel like I’m spinning my wheels. I crave constant progress.

I’d been commissioned to paint A CLOCK, so time was very much on my mind. I titled my clock “ALL THE TIME LOST” and journaled my pessimism into it.

Not everything needs a positive spin. Some things are JUST BAD. If you wanna believe there’s a lesson in everything – sure. But those lessons are not always worth their cost.

“Everything works out in the end. If it hasn’t worked out, it isn’t the end.”

Oh yeah? Works out for who? Innocent people spend decades in prison. Some people DIE YOUNG. Is death an example of shit “working out?” We’ve all got main character syndrome. Someone else’s death isn’t our life lesson.

“Everything will be okay in the end.”

The end is death. If everything is “okay” when you die, it just means “nothing matters when you’re dead.” And “if it doesn’t matter now, then it never really did.”2

It was totally obnoxious but I wound up in the same place I always do:

Any logical conversation about meaning ends at nihilism. So – UGGGGGHHHH – we’ve gotta make our own meaning and make the most of the time we still have left. As ANNOYING AS THAT IS. (‘Cause “for better or worse, someday this will all be over”).3

That was about as positive a conclusion as I could get to. I journaled some more, thinking about the kinds of art walks and street markets I’d been selling my prints at. I was making job money but not runaway success money.

Everything has an opportunity cost. Am I wasting time on “sustenance money” at the expense of higher risk, lower immediate-return efforts that could pay off bigger later? Am I inadvertently branding myself as a street-level artist when I wanna be in high-end galleries? I’ve only been clean 14 months. Am I impatient? How often should I be hitting major achievements?

And BECAUSE THEY’RE NEVER FAR FROM MY MIND…

Signed, limited-edition “classroom” sized clocks are available for purchase in the webstore.

As for girls, the current dearth of FRESH CANDIDATES actually has me reconsidering investing my time and energy into saving/repairing one that’s still broken. 

I’m comfortable for now. I miss having a partner. If the rest of my life looked just like this but with a partner, I could be happy with that. But I’d like more.

By sometime in the fall, I had an epiphany: I was happier than I’d ever been. It occurred me that this was true even without a girlfriend. It had barely been a year since I’d been seeing someone but it was still the longest I’d ever gone. Was it possible my happiness was at least in part because I didn’t have a girlfriend?

I honestly can’t say but I do know it’s because (contrary to what I’d written) I did not go back to the girl I knew to be broken. And I didn’t go out with any other girls I met that weren’t emotionally where I needed them to be.

In the past, the moment I met a pretty girl that liked me, I was in. It didn’t matter if she was fucked up. I probably even liked it if she was a little fucked up. That was no longer true. I want someone who is both inspiring to and inspired by me. Someone who wants me but doesn’t need me. 

I’m not gonna pretend that the song title “(Holy Shit (I Can’t Believe)) I Still Don’t Have a Girlfriend”4 doesn’t regularly pop into my head. But lately I am hitting new benchmarks of success. AND I’M SO FUCKING BUSY EVERY DAY. Things are going really well and I don’t have the TIME to stress girls all that much.

It’ll WORK OUT when it’s supposed to.5

  1. “Round One” is what I call 2013-2015 – the three years I was making art before I relapsed and stopped for almost 9 years. ↩︎
  2. That’s a lyric from “The Politics of Starving” by Against Me! ↩︎
  3. Another lyric – from “My Staple Diet Of Rice, Vitamins, Alcohol, and Painkillers” by The Murderburgers. ↩︎
  4. A song by The Steinways. ↩︎
  5. I finished this painting/clock in June 2025 but wrote this statement for it in January 2026. ↩︎

Ever since the fire that burned down my bus/home, I’ve been hemorrhaging money. Luckily, I’ve also been making a lot of money. After getting ProPanels the last week of December, I started applying to “higher tier” events, like juried art festivals. I’ve been getting into most of them and it’s going well so far. This week though, I’ve got decisions coming in for six of them so CROSS YOUR FINGERS FOR ME. This week has the potential to make me feel like THE UNDISPUTED CHAMPION or to majorly bum me the fuck out. That said, I applied with a booth photo I took of my very first set-up (before I knew what I was doing) so… my future applications will be better. (That’s what I’ll tell myself anyway if things don’t go my way this week).

I don’t really use this “blog” for anything but adding art to the website and writing whatever’s on my mind right when I do that. If you want near-daily updates from me, I post all the time on TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook. There’s a bunch of stuff on there from the last month about THE FIRE, the new RV, the painting I’ve been working on for the last month, and lots of videos in which you can see how clever I think I am.

And check out the Events page. I’ve got stuff on there right now for the Carolinas, Atlanta, Kentucky, St Louis, Chicago, and I’ll add more as they’re confirmed.

Here are the three songs I mentioned:

(this is the best one)

I Could Never Love Anyone More Than I Hate Myself

September 19, 2015

"I Could Never Love Anyone More Than i Hate Myself ." 4/30/15. Acrylic paint. 36x36".
“I Could Never Love Anyone More Than i Hate Myself .” 4/30/15. Acrylic paint. 36×36″.

For as much as I talk and write about Wallis, I’ve never really shared the full story of how we first came together. I’ll save the cute elements of the story for later and just give you the important part that hasn’t seemed relevant until now.

When I met Wallis, she was actively addicted to heroin. She was trying to not be on heroin but (like most addicts) she was finding that to be a little tougher than she could handle. We hit it off really quickly but I told her on our very first night together that I couldn’t be around that sort of thing. I told her that if she wanted to continue spending time with me, she couldn’t be using drugs. (I’m way too fucking fragile to not relapse if a pretty girl has a needle and a bag of dope to share with me). She told me she didn’t wanna use. I invited her to go with me on a road trip for a week – up to Illinois and back.

In the course of that trip, we fell in love. Which was a problem because it meant we needed to figure out what we were gonna do to keep her from going back to heroin once we got back to Jacksonville. We decided that she’d need to quit the strip club and get another job (nobody can stay off drugs in that environment – no addict anyway). I told her I’d cover her (financially) ’til she got a new job and then – when it was time for me to leave Jacksonville – she’d quit her new job and come with me. Sound familiar? I did for Wallis the same thing I had done for my best friend, Chris, a year prior. I brought her out on the road with me to keep her off drugs. To show her another kind of life. Like Chris had done, in exchange for “all expenses paid” she’d just help me with my set-up, selling art, whatever. (And like Chris, it pretty much worked. She never used once; not while traveling with me anyway).

When we left Jacksonville, it was for Minneapolis, where I was to be featured in a gallery exhibit. Halfway through the exhibition’s run, we returned to Jacksonville for a week, so I could make CRAZY MONEY at One Spark. On the drive down, Wallis started talking about going to see old friends – friends that she had, historically, used drugs with. I told her that this was a terrible idea. She argued that I needed to have faith in her. I responded that I’d heard that same exact sentence and had this same exact conversation many, many times in the past (with another girl) and that I knew perfectly well how this was gonna end. I told her that if she wasn’t willing to forego the reunion (and the inevitable relapse that’d come with it) that I couldn’t be her boyfriend anymore. One Spark was going to be an incredibly important week for me financially and I didn’t wanna fuck it up by spending the whole time worried about whether Wallis was safe.

She said okay (as in “okay, then you don’t need to be my boyfriend anymore“). There was no hostility or drama beyond that but when we got to Jacksonville, we went our separate ways. Wallis relapsed that very first night (though she wouldn’t tell me until later), but called me the next morning and spent the rest of the week by my side like a lost puppy. On the night before I was to return to Minneapolis, she broke down crying, told me she had fucked up, and that she still wanted to be with me.

And I took her back.

I first had the thought years and years ago – upon hearing Rivethead’s “In My Heart a Warehouse Burns For You.” The last lyric in the song is “I love you just as much as I hate the man.” I’m not exactly the biggest fan of cops or authority figures of any kind but when I’m really fired up and full of hate, there’s only one target it’s ever directed at: me. I still listen to that record (The Cheap Wine of Youth) all the time so the idea of captioning a painting with “I love you just as much as I hate myself” had occurred to me on a couple occasions but I didn’t wanna be derivative.

Then, when I bought Pretty Boy Thorson’s An Uneasy Peace (the final song of which is called “I Love You Even More Than I Hate Myself”) I had a bit of a god dammit moment. That should’ve been mine! The song’s awesome and it doesn’t matter that the lyric is similar to another.

I started thinking about it though – that line – and whether or not it was actually true (for me). I was dating Wallis and I absolutely loved her but did I love her more than I hated myself? I wasn’t really sure. I decided that sometimes I’m afraid that I could never love anyone more than I hate myself. After all, we had weathered the storm of her relapse but I was sabotaging our relationship bit by bit with my low self-esteem [and cheating]. I wrote about some of that anxiety in the bottom-right corner of the painting:

It’s so much harder to travel with a second person. Staying with friends feels like a much bigger imposition and I can’t stay with girls I meet. That’s probably the hardest part. But I love Wallis. (And I really like fucking her). And I think she needs me. I tried to leave her in Jacksonville but it didn’t work out. I hope she’s with me because she really loves me and not just ‘cause she’s scared to go back to “real life.” It if doesn’t work out, it’s probably gonna be because I can’t stop thinking about fucking other girls, which I know hurts her (and is really so selfish and dumb - and even mean - on my part) but really has nothing to do with her. (She’s so fucking hot and sexy and cute and beautiful). It’s just my insecurity and my compulsion to fuck every pretty girl, to prove to the world (and myself) just how fucking wonderful and desirable I am. It’s not helping that girls are throwing themselves at me these days. But I know (or think) that shit won’t make me happy. And in the end, I’m just gonna want someone to love me and I love Wallis.

There’s another, shorter string of text higher up in the painting, similarly inspired by punk rock: “I was listening to that Gateway District song where they sing, ‘I’m always falling way behind and you go on and on and on.’ If only I knew someone like that. Maybe I’d have someone to look to. Everybody I know is struggling. Everyone I know is as hopeless as I am. (Or worse).”

There’s a brighter, happier pair of sentences in the top-left corner – the product of a moment when everything was right in the world. Amazing sex with Wallis and I’m driving to the gallery showcasing my art while listening to “Another Way Out of Here” by The Murderburgers. The thought occurred to me that “nothing in this world makes me happier than an energetic, upbeat song about suicide.” I gave it a second thought. Is that true?  I concluded, “Except (maybe) hitting girls in the face during sex.” I smiled. That’s pretty funny. I’m pretty fucked up. The things that I enjoy are – well – a little odd. This was all well and good at the time. I posted a close-up of that part of the painting online and it was met with positive feedback and just a little bit of “Oh, Sam…” But before I even got the chance to write the statement for this painting (as I am now), that photograph – that caption – would make the rounds on the internet elsewhere and garner a very different kind of response.

You see, when I wrote that, it was about sex with Wallis. Sex which includes light, consensual, fake-violence (or whatever the fuck you wanna call it). Wallis likes getting slapped in the face during sex. And I like doing it. Win-win, right? Well, yeah – until you get accused of a violent rape and the media picks up on the story and uses your art to support the idea that you’re the kind of person capable of violently raping a nineteen year-old girl you just met.

Sitting in jail, I wondered how I was going to break the news to my friends and fans that I had been accused of this horrible fucking crime. I bailed out, Chris Spillane picked me up, and after ten minutes of discussion he tells me, “There’s one more thing we’ve gotta talk about, Sam. The publicity on this story is not good right now.” Publicity? This story? “What the fuck are you talking about?” I googled my name and discovered that I didn’t need to worry about breaking this news to anyone. Some reporter knew or figured out who I was, wrote an article about me complete with images of my art (like the “hitting girls in the face” one) and everyone else picked it up and ran with it. Suddenly, strangers on the internet were talking about how I was the kind of person who PUNCHES girls in the face. I was a scumbag and I was definitely guilty. What the fuck? I’ve never punched a girl in the face! I slap! Playfully! And only with girls that WANT me to!

But none of that mattered. What mattered was that it was incredibly easy to paint me as some kind of violent sexual deviant who had finally gone off the rails and just started violently raping people. Freedom of expression has its fucking consequences apparently. The charges against me have since been dismissed by a judge who (after hearing all of the prosecution’s evidence and the girl’s testimony) ruled that there was no probable cause to believe that any crime had been committed but the evidence in the case isn’t all public yet and I’m still having to deal with (well-meaning) assholes who think I deserve to be castrated for something I never did. At the time of this writing, this is all still incredibly recent so I’m still working out exactly how a person does deal with something like that. (I’ll let you know when I figure it out).

Flashback to five months before that nightmare though – back to when I was still working on this painting (that’d later incriminate me in the court of public opinion). I wrote that I was feeling:

“stuck in a rut. This spot [on the street] isn’t super profitable [for selling prints]. I don’t even wanna write about what else is going on. I don’t want to muddle up this painting that I’m not even happy with. My little sister is killing herself and today I blocked her phone number because I’m tired of her asking for help, not taking my advice, and then texting me updates on her self-destruction that she knows will just upset me. 

I really need the validation of some sales to cheer me up today. If I make less than $100 today, I’m gonna feel super depressed.”

And then – to remind myself what a dipshit I am for worrying about how much I make in one particular day, I added: “I’ve made $7,000 this month.” True as it was, it didn’t really help me feel any better in that moment. I continued writing – about an interaction I had with a guy who stopped to watch me paint:

“Someone asked me yesterday if I really hate myself and why. I had a hard time articulating it [the way that I feel sometimes]. He said he thinks I’m not as unhappy as I let on. I’d do a much better job explaining it to him today: I’M UGLY, PALE, OUTTA SHAPE, MEAN, SHITTY, POOR, FEARFUL, AND IN A CONSTANT STATE OF STARVATION FOR VALIDATION.”

Reading that now, remembering that day – it’s kinda scary. Everything in my life was going so well and I still had this monster inside me, gnawing at my insides, telling me that everything was awful. That I was awful. I’m really grateful that I don’t feel that way about myself all the time. Arguably, my life is way more fucked up now (on account of the VIOLENT RAPE ACCUSATION) but – I don’t know – I feel better today. Maybe it’s because I’ve had to fight this awful thing. Maybe it’s because I’ve had to become stronger. Maybe it’s because enough other people hate me now that I can take a break on the self-loathing. I don’t know. I’m not sure. But after separating in late-June and spending two months mostly apart, Wallis and I are back together full-time. We’re living together in an apartment in Chicago and it’s been really great. And you know what? I love her WAY more than I hate myself. Not just ‘cause I’m not hating myself so much right now but… This girl… After all we’ve been through. After all I’ve done for her and all she’s done for me… Words are insufficient to express my gratitude, affection, and love for her. I’m probably gonna marry her.

And you know what? When it comes to “falling way behind” versus “going on and on and on,” maybe I do a little more of the latter than I allow myself to recognize sometimes. Maybe I do a lot more of it.

HAPPY ENDING.


“I Love You Even More” by Pretty Boy Thorson & The Falling Angels


“Another Way Out of Here” by The Murderburgers


“Waves and Cars” by The Gateway District

“In My Heart a Warehouse Burns For You” by Rivethead

“I Could Never Love Anyone More Than I Hate Myself” is now up in the webstore.

11/8/14 status update

November 8, 2014

I’ve neglected my blog for so long that it’s hard to know where to start. While anyone who follows me on Facebook is pretty up to date with the gruesome details of what’s going on in my life, here’s the gist of it for anyone who’s not up to speed:

  • I moved in with a girl in Chicago in July. We broke up in August.
  • A day and a half later, I started seeing another girl in Chicago. That lasted three months, until Thursday, when I finally left.
  • I love the girl but the relationship was incredibly dysfunctional and it had me more fucked up, twisted around, confused, depressed, anxious, and suicidal than I’ve been since December 2012.
  • While I’ve neglected writing the statements for my artwork, I’ve still been actively creating new pieces. The lack of updates can be accounted for by (1) not having had the new pieces photographed yet, (2) not having their statements written, and (3) the fact that these new pieces are HUGE and the last two have each taken more than a month to complete.
  • My charges are still pending and still stressing me out but I’m still (sort of) optimistic that some kind of a resolution can be reached – or at least resigned to accept the punishment that’s being offered as part of the plea deal that’s currently on the table.
  • As the weather got colder in Chicago, I saw a dramatic decrease in my print sales when I’d go downtown to set up, paint, and sell. Consequently, my income this last month is lower than it’s been since January, which is stressing me out but not killing me.
  • I desperately needed to get out of Chicago to escape my shitty relationship, so I’m in St. Louis now. On November 22nd, I’ll go to Minneapolis for the Rivethead reunion. On November 24th, I’ll return to Normal/Bloomington, IL for my next court date. From there, I’m not sure what I’ll do but if I have to accept the plea deal, I’ll be put on two years probation and will need to choose a state to serve it out in, since my movement will be restricted and I’ll have to be physically present for monthly check-ups. My art career would warrant that I choose either New York or California but I would probably have to choose Florida for the sake of my mental health, as that’s where I’ve got the most emotional support. In theory, I would be able to apply for travel permits to leave the state for my “job” (for example, to go to Minneapolis for my exhibition in March).
  • When I left Chicago on Thursday, I left without Chris Spillane. It was six months ago that I petitioned the court to have him picked up by police and put into detox and six months since I picked him up from detox and brought him out on the road with me. He now has six months clean, a job, a place to live, and everything else that could be reasonably expected of relatively well-balanced kid of our ilk. When I return to Illinois for my court date at the end of the month, he’ll have the option to rejoin me but I suspect that he’s gonna keep on in Chicago, building up his new life.
  • In September, I started seeing a psychiatrist in Chicago. In October, she put me back on antipsychotic and antidepressant medications (in addition to the Adderall that I’ve been on for ten years). The last time I was on antidepressants was as an inpatient at Tranquil Shores in February 2013. The last time I was on antipsychotics was (I think) as an inpatient at the Wellness Resource Center in February 2012, though I almost went back on them in January 2013.
  • In addition to the psychiatrist in Chicago, I’ve also started meeting once weekly (via Skype or Facetime) with Tracy, my counselor from Tranquil Shores.
  • Anxiety and depression destroyed my appetite the last month or so and I’m skinnier than I’ve been in at least twelve years. That’s good because I have body dysmorphic disorder and being this thin makes me feel good about myself. It’s bad ’cause… I don’t know… ’cause people say it’s bad…?

1182014

I have no idea how this all comes across as a whole but here’s what I think should be the important point to take away from it all: October was a bad month but – here, in St. Louis – I am safe, and cared for, and feeling eight million times better. I am no longer suicidally depressed and though I am afraid of what will happen once I leave St. Louis in two weeks, I am okay and I am once again grateful.

I’m going to spend the day with my current work-in-progress, possibly do some layout work for a new flier or work on written statements for finished pieces, and – tonight – I’m going to go downtown to see Rational Anthem play with The Copyrights and The Murderburgers.

If you wanna buy some art right now, that’d be pretty great.

Pulp

September 20, 2013

I’m in the middle of a silent temper tantrum, by which I mean I’m not talking and have dedicated myself to staying miserable until I exhaust myself. I used to do this almost every day, but they’ve been pretty few and far between since the day that I consider my “emotional sobriety date.” So – of course – I’m angry and now I’m even angrier with myself for this than I am about the stupid incident that sparked this episode.

Here’s the other of my two 9×12″ learning to draw with charcoal sketches from January.

"Pulp." 1/17/13. Charcoal. 9x12".
“Pulp.” 1/17/13. Charcoal. 9×12″.

In February 2012, I was kicked out of my second rehab in as many months. I found myself running around Delray Beach with the girl I had been kicked out with. I’m not going to try and diagnose her state back then but – if I did something that bothered her – she could flip a switch and go from being totally in love with me to telling me what an ugly, worthless, pathetic, despicable piece of shit I was. On one occasion in our first week out on our own, we were staying in some little shitbox motel. (If you’re familiar with Delray, I’m sure you know it). I don’t remember exactly what went wrong, but it had something to do with heroin or getting more heroin. And – in case I didn’t already hate myself enough (I did) – she was really piling on as much hatred and vitriol as she could manage, to ensure that there wasn’t so much as a shred of self-esteem left in me.

I went into the bathroom. I was crying. I looked at myself in the mirror and couldn’t fucking stand the sight. It made me angry that I was the person looking back at me. So I started punching myself in the face. I don’t remember how many times. Enough that, for a good while after, I looked like someone had kicked the shit out of me pretty well.

Which I’ve always been good at. I’ve always been good at beating myself up. But that was the one time when it was most literal.

 

I’ve had thoughts like these today. I have had these impulses today.

This seems appropriate.

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