At World’s End

Decided to make a stop for a much needed getaway from the World, so I chose At World’s End State Park in rural Pennsylvania. Got lost on a trail, got caught in a storm, and lost all cell phone service. It was exactly what I needed to do. Found a couple cairns and deep wooded shrines. I have lost myself in the modern world, becoming as dead as the concrete and manmade structures that surround me, and all their tribal, political drama on both sides of the fight, and I desperately needed to shut it off. And that I did, without even knowing I would, here at world’s end. With comfortably affordable camping, and a wide option in trails that stretch to lengths that even an experience hiker would be made satisfied, this was the respite I desperately needed to experience. 

She Figured Me Out

It’s late...

It’s October...

It’s Halloween and I’m stuck here...

We were pushing toward the home stretch on a day that I hold very dear to my heart. Unfortunately I was stuck at work, drawing caricatures for the good’ol Alabama Peanut Festival! Don’t get me wrong, I love that carnival, and I mostly enjoy my guests there... Mostly... Alright, that is my last Aliens throwback joke this week. Anyhow, I’m out there working with Flash Cartoon Fan and V-Blog legend Ashley The Man with the master draw Hand Ro**** (name edit for privacy, but this man is an ol G, just don’t ever say the phrase book-on-tape around him) occupying the candyland stand (the kiddy area stand) on the last painfully slow hour of the day. 

Look, I have ADD, and I LOVE Halloween. So when things get slow at a time like this, it gets me pacing, it gets me facebooking, and it gets me jabbering about off-the-rail nonsense. I just want to get the heck out of there! But darn it, I’m committed! And I’m suppose to be the manager, so I have to stay, tuck in my shirt, thumbs up, smile, quietly hate myself, and count the minutes of my life ticking away waiting for someone bold enough to bail on Trick-or-treating to ride some sick carnival rides and buy an awesome cartoon face of themself. But sadly, what happens is not really that. The trick-or-treaters are in bed, high on sugar, and dreading the school day waiting for them in the morning. And then the ones who do come out—there is no safe way to say this, so I’ll just go ahead and call them the late-hour-carnival patrons. 

So we are hanging out up front. The carnival is dead, at least our end of it is. The midway circle where all the rides are always appears busy, but its wristband holders, it’s teenagers abandoned by their moms, and it’s a bunch of kids with not much else on them then what little can keep them from dying of hunger or dehydration. We are back in the dark, hanging out next to candy castle. I’m staring at it debating going on a diabetic run, but then a Mom approaches with her children. She wants a caricature. She sits them down. I’m a little bit annoyed, a little bit relieved that I got guests to draw. But somehow—call it intuition—I get this feeling that no matter how I draw her kids she is going to hate it. She took two seconds of deciding before she put her kids in my chair. I never saw her so much as glance at our displays, or ask even what the price was before she got the impulse. My strategy in this situation is to succinctly explain our pricing so she can understand that we have to charge per person. And yes that means every face we have to draw. Never quite understood why people think their babies would be cheaper or even free sometimes. They don’t cooperate, (though sometimes they are better than their adults) their heads are about the size of yours, and they are mostly crying... mostly!! Damn it, I did it again. Get out of my head, Newt.

So, my strategy didn’t work. But never fear, they are still going to reject it. So I sit at the board and I start drawing. Ash is watching. I feel the mom’s eyes burning into me, scrutinizing every line. She doesn’t say a thing for a time. She just gets lost in the magic of it. Suddenly, Mom gets flummoxed. She starts scoffing my work. I get flustered. I turned around to try and explain what a caricature is. But before I could Mom gives me a I-got-your-hustle-figured-out side-ways glance. She says to her children, “naw, come on now. He got a trick marker.”

That left me nonplussed, and Ashley laughing his ass off. 

I could do nothing but watch, dumbfounded as they scurried off as though I was some sort of scam plague they might catch before they spend all their money trying to win an on the brink of death Carny fish. 

That day I knew I should have just went trick-or-treating... or at least just stayed out in the woods to get drunk with some Dead family members by the fire. 

Cartoons at the Junk Convention

Tink! Tink! Tink

Oh there he goes again!

His lap-bowl of belly moving like a mold of jello to every click and clack of his ancient mower engine tractor. The tired machine cranked its soul out carrying years of making America Great Again with a beer in one fist, and a Big Gulp gas station bargain soda, with whatever superhero is selling movie tickets this week slapped on the label to pinch out every last drip of novelty from the age-of-heros dead brand in the other. He scowled hard ahead with the look of a man whom has grown fat and comfortable in his overalls, assuming everyone around him owes him something. America, home of the free... free from English and Roman Tyranny at the cost of mowing down an indigenous people, though, to many here it meant: entitlement, Freedom, for me, myself, and I. Everyone paints the picture of theirselves as God when they are led to believe that is what they mean by being made in His image. But who am I to judge. His old iron mechanism clicked along, trudging him through the aisle. At one point he just stopped and died. The sun finally showing the old man the way to the light. It’s about time that thing did more than show us the cloy taste of humility; Trump needs to do something about that smug yellow bastard in the sky. The traffic stopped in the narrow alley. I watched from my stand, eating my fifteenth goddamn oatmeal bar hoping it wouldn’t taste so bad this time. For a moment everyone just waited. Flywheelers in Fort Meade Fl was a big swapmeet and tractor show that draws in hundreds of old timers from all over to trade their junk, and show off their turn of the century touching Tonka Toys... wait, nobody has those anymore? Well then good. I guess I belong here too, at the old man convention, the land of misfit toys, the can of cream corn nobody ever remembers buying. Anyway, out here it isn’t unusual to find a human stick in the spokes. Funny thing is the place is so big that almost nobody walks. It’s quite the site to see everyone riding on their merry shopping spree in their suped up golf carts, tractors, bath tub on wheels (this is based on a true story) and Triassic era machinery. All that was missing is someone using their cats to pull a sleigh. Though if it happened at Flywheelers I’d probably just wince for a fast moment before grabbing another damn oatmeal bar wishing it was a pint of whiskey. The old man was fine, by the way. He woke, rebooted, remembered where he was, and obnoxious clock ticked his old ass on to another lane, ssssslowly. 

The event was great though. I made beginners money drawing cartoons, everyone was pleasant, my neighbors were great, and I got me a lot of exercise. They have this fantastic old times village there. It’s really fun  riding around that area, and visiting the old chapel where you can still smell the acrid stench of burnt heretics from the weekend before. I’m just kidding, everyone was nice, and there was hardly no public executions. Surprisingly enough there was a lot of diversity. Everyone coming together for the love of combustion engines, unhealthy food, junk, and one guy looking for the Dunking Clown that was never there, god help us all. I saw a Trump/Pence flag waving over a sign that said “American Made Junk” and I half chortled, half cried, and all put in on this gas powered generator someone was selling for $150. I cannot say no to a deal. I had a fantastic time and drew some funny faces. Here are a few of those sketches. 

A tale about a fabled GMC

I want to tell you a story about a mechanical companion I like to call The War Machine. I want to tell you about my GMC Sierra. 

I met her a time ago, when all hope was lost. I travel the country, traveling far, to treacherous lands, braving great tempests, and wild suburbs, dangerous drug infested middle of no where counties, and borderline bubble communities so distant from civilization their ideology about the world around them expands only as far as the college they are made to pursue for a path toward a better position in the meat factory that owns the town, to the other option which is working at the local Walmart. I draw caricatures in the carnival circuit, which is live cartoon portraits of patrons. And boy do I have some stories to tell about such a career, but those are not stories for now. This one is about a machine that had once seen better days before she met my lifestyle. 

Somewhere in Tornado Alley, in back country, in oil vile, where the population of cities and towns stays in the thousands, I had brought my $2000 beat’em up Volkswagen Jetta to meet the task of carrying my equipment with me as I followed a small carnival company across a no-man’s land that Stephen King would have killed Mad Max in. The car was only meant to take me from A to B, however at some point the alphabet was ate up by a vortex to another demension between those two letters, and B just kept getting further from my reach. 

One day, one fate-filled morning on a July 4th, on an early busy work day where I was suppose to get from my overpriced roach motel to my fair three miles away the car stopped working. And we were forced to walk. Some time ago before hand my laser cut key just kind of... fell apart, but I discovered that I could start the car by cranking the laser cut part in the ignition with a wrench. Anyhow, fast forward to the story, the car stopped fucking working on the worst day it could. We had to walk to work with our easels in 110 degree weather. That’s what it felt like at least. 

The problem could have been a million things, and I’m not all that mechanical savvy so I decided I’ll need help figuring out the mystery when the fair was done. Problem is nobody in this part of human civilization ever seen a Jetta, and this current predicament was met after having already dumped thousands of dollars for repairs into the damned thing. Basically, I was stuck with the great debate of Einstein’s Relativity because the fucking thing was quickly becoming a black hole for my bank account. I let my partner hitch a ride with the carnival unit we were working with to meet our next show on time, leaving me in the middle of nowhere with all the money I had in the world and no clue what I was going to do next. 

After having it towed and feeling like a stupid ass when the dumbstruck mechanic I sought out for help showed me that the problem was simply that the laser cut key couldn’t communicate to the severed computer chip inside, I got the thing running and drove 90 miles to get a new key made at the nearest Volkswagen dealership. It cost me $200 for the new key and it took them an hour to make. At this point I have officially spent over $7000 in repairs to keep this hunk of ticking time bomb from clocking out on me and leaving me stranded thousands of miles from my closest life line. I decided to go look at their used car lot whilst I wait. And there she was.

I saw a big ass dent in the side of it and I knew it was love at first sight. I bought that bitch, and headed back to town to get my shit. A deluge struck but it was no thang G, cause the beast was high off the ground: unlike the Jetta that has already left me stuck on a hill to wait for a flood to pass a time or two. 

When she was still pretty and clean, my partner in crime took her to pick up a blind date and had a nice time. When I got her back, I made a sharp turn and a box of supplies punched through the back window like paper. Me being cheap I taped up that shit with good ol gorilla tape. A year or so later, I came back to my car after watching one of the new Star Wars in theaters to find that someone knocked off my side mirror: it gets the gorilla tape. Another year, got into an argument with a dude over a parking space, he kicked in my turn light while I was working: it gets the gorilla tape, and still works. A year after that I come out after a grueling gig in Memphis Tennessee to discover that some crackhead had chosen my messy vehicle as his own personal treasure chest... too bad he didn’t have the right tools for the job: that’s what she said. I go to the driver side with a lingering headache, from my leisure drinking the night before, that morning I saw there was no keyhole, there was only... well there was only a hole. I paused, trying to retrace my steps from last night. “Did I really slam my door that hard?” Couldn’t remember. Fuck it! Went to try the other side. That’s when I saw what appeared as a bullet hole, this time underneath the handle. That’s when it hit me: it was about damn time. Someone tried to use the ol key to the city (crowbar) to get in. I was on the cusp of being enraged when I stepped back to find that it was in the passenger side door where the back window I literally had TAPED THE FUCK ON! So apparently gorilla tape is Crackhead proof. I started cracking up laughing. The cops thought I was insane. 

The door still worked so I never reported it to my insurance. But then, one year later, just last night, after completing a weekend gig in Lakeland Fl and wanting only to get a snack at Wendy’s and get the fuck on out of there before the city consumes my soul like that ship tried to do to Johnny Depp in Pirates of the What-ever-the-fuck my door closed for the last time. The latch just stopped latching. I was forced to ratchet strap the driver door to the passenger door to get to my next destination. And now, I’m just waiting for the next adventure with War Machine, the truck of Legends and Broken Dreams: get the gorilla tape!

News (Jan 13 2018

Back in Florida again. Had one day in the sun before the cold found where I was hiding. Now it’s been slated skies, and fuck-your-comfort kind of weather since. So my 2018 has become a positive set of goals thus far. Been working out every day, even in this 9th circle of hell winter blast sent by someone dead that hates me climate endeavor. Also focused on writing a book; praying I can get something finished before the end of the year, but that is a up-hill battle through a jersey rush hour traffic kinda venture... in short: writing is hard as fuck. Out here drawing caricatures with icescicles hanging like polar bear Jack, but I’m enjoying life. Going to be sharing some new art soon and hopefully some more writing shorts, and essays. Take care, y’all 

News (Oct 10 2017)

I had wanted to publish one story per week for the month of October, but my working schedule interfered with those plans, sadly. however, I have finished one hell of a solid short story that I will be sharing before halloween. It is a 4,300 word story in the horror/suspense category, but I added a few elements of fantasy because that is truly my genre by nature. I don't want to give away too much about it, but it will be fun, sexy, and dark. I wanted to step away from my very serious Historical Fiction to write something completely different,  something with fewer restrictions—I really needed the break. So I went and created a world that we could explore ever deeper should we be interested in such a journey in the future. Short stories are exciting for me, but my demanding lifestyle and all-consuming primary projects make it a difficult task to complete, and to polish a single story in a short window of free-time. As some of you may know (those of you who are probably actually taking the time to read this, and I thank you for it) I travel the country for a living. My big road trips are a full-time job all on their own, but then I spend much of my life on this planet sitting at an easel drawing caricatures, and however I do love the job, between it and travel, and writing, and studying, I get a tad bit inundated. My ambitions are hungrier than I can even handle half the time, but I will keep trying to produce and share new work wherever I can break away from my life to do so. My next live drawing event will be in Georgia, and then I get to go back home to finish some drawing commissions, and polish up some stories. After, I will finish my work season in Jacksonville Florida, and begin a grueling month of writing in November: attempting to complete the first draft of a new novel in thirty days. This Halloween I will be sharing my last short story until I finish all of that. If you guys like it, give me some feedback and perhaps we will develop that universe further. Some interesting side facts about the upcoming short: it was inspired by a song by one of my favorite rock bands, In This Moment, and the book by Laurell K. Hamilton Guilty Pleasures. Hope you all enjoy it. Thanks again, Blessed Be!

Sincerely:
Jarce ArtThor (author)
Jeffrey Arce