News (February 2019)

Back from my hiatus!

The past few months have been a challenge. I finished my season (in case you don't know, I draw caricatures for a living) and scrambled to find a job to cover me as I attempt once again to survive the always grueling winter season. I landed on a maintenance job thanks to a good friend, where I was employed primarily to handle snow removal duties. Needless to say, that job got hard quick. The hours went from too short, to too long in a heart beat, and my old knees just weren't cooperating with me. Throwing 50LBS bags of salt rock all day for fourteen hours starts to breakdown any immortal fantasy I might have had about my age and abilities real fast. I went from being excited to have a regular job, to finding out just how much work is required when the snow does finally come down, to somehow dismantling a snow blower (which I never used before in my life), to getting a golf cart stuck in the mud, to trying to give my job away to some random guy, to quitting, to feeling bad about quitting, to getting back at it, to not liking it again, to discovering I can make more in two days drawing cartoons, and to quitting again. It was quite a trial. So unfortunately I had to move on from that business. Good job, but one for the young, and not me anymore. However I did score a couple of pet expos, and dog shows to draw at, and that was a lot of fun. I hope to do more of those soon.

As for writing, I have been working very hard on that. Been studying and practicing my craft every day. I have some stories set aside, made specifically for my blog, which I do plan to share in the very near future after some touch ups are made. I also have a continuation to my Bassy's Basilica sketched out. That will go up probably closer to Halloween, though, as it is a horror and I want everyone to be in that sort of morbid mood when reading it. I have also begun to write some stories I want to send in to competitions, and started a new fantasy that I will be taking very seriously. I am 34 now, and I have been writing since I was thirteen years old. It is well past time I had a book listed in my achievements, so that is my main focus right now. Getting one done, and doing it right. But writing well is a learning process and I have a lot to learn. My biggest revelation this year is finding out that I was never doing enough to get better at it. Now I am, and already I see big changes. For now, Its just going to be a lot of senseless babble until I have the story I was born to write in an agent's hands. Until then, Just got to keep on working at it. Write every day, and don't quit.

No Secrets

There are no more secrets.

I feel so alienated.

I feel so empty.

I feel trapped.

There doesn’t seem to be anything that I truly want or need. 

There is nothing to desire, nothing to hope for.

Yet, I am unsatisfied. 

I lust for acknowledgment, and no one is fooled otherwise. 

There are no more secrets.

Everyone seems so omniscient. But they don’t actually know anything.

I talk to no one, yet everyone knows exactly what I am thinking. 

But they don’t care. 

They wouldn’t like my thoughts if I shared them. 

They don’t understand.

I feel so disconnected.

We are all separated from our world, so hopelessly detached from reality.

We are zombies plodding on blind ahead.

But everyone believes that they can see.

Everyone is Woke, yet they are drowning in there own self-absorbed comas. 

They all hold the key to some great esoteric truth, though they remain torpid in most every other faculty demanding their immediate attention. 

But somehow they know all about me!

How?

They barely even know who they are.

I don’t even know who they are, like a kid embracing a gaiety mascot at a cartoon theme park. 

Still, there are no more secrets.

I am isolated, and I am naked.

I put up walls, but they can see right through.

I have no armor.

I’m a snowflake.

No! I’m angry and I don’t care.

It is all a façade…

I hide away, ensconced by my fantasy realm where I can be who I want to be.

Here I can be free.

Out there I am an introvert, but here I am charismatic, and bold and brave.

Out there I am ignorant and uncultured, loud and brazen, but here I can be intelligent and tactful.

Here I can be anything, and nothing. 

No one can hurt me.

But that is a beautiful lie.

In here they say horrible things, because they know who I really am—because there are no secrets.

In here the mask is also a double-edged sword.

How can they know so much?

How do they get in to my head?

How do they see everything: My pain, my phobias, my wonders, my dreams, and even my likes?

I stay behind a transparent veil. 

There are no more secrets.

Everything that is on my mind, they can see.

How can they know this?

How can I have so many friends, yet still be so alone?

—Share—

I hope you Like my status update...

First Look at My New Characters in Color

#bassysbasilica
Here are the characters for a new title I am currently working on. I am flirting with the possibility of transforming the project into a graphic novel series as it is quite a visceral telling, and would make one kick-ass comic book. As the writer, illustrator, and graphic artist it is quite the undertaking, but I am fairly confident I can pull it off. With time these illustrations will get sharper and cleaner. I want to fully immerse my readers into the world I am building, and I know that many will do better if they can physically see what I have envisioned, so I have been putting together a few pre sketches as I continue on adding to the world. More details coming soon.

Beautiful Hunger

I heard her calling so I went.

The night was peaceful and somnolent, but the wind was pressing hard at my back. The breeze was cool and soft as a lover's touch, but demanding, hungry, and cajoling. Like a voice caught in the whistling gales she whispered into my ear. She told me to go to the sea. Somewhere near the smell of death lingered, but I paid it no mind as I followed her music to the break of the shore. Her airy voice floated on, beckoning me further. The frothy white waves stirred and crashed, erupting into plums of mist against corals and rocks. The tide advanced, eager to lay claim to the beach, for by the call of the moon it was rightfully hers. Cool spray took me like the spittle of a great beast preparing to taste its prey. Coaxing, as intoxicating venom administered to lure me into her trap, her song carried me forward… her beautiful song.  

Wading through the icy waters I went deeper, and deeper still. The ocean was alive, churning and shifting wildly, but I sensed a patience no terrestrial mind could ever understand—she was waiting, and she savored that. But for what, I did not know. The moon swelled over me, like wanting pupils, it's rays reflecting off the placid sea, shimmering as to eclipse the heavenly bodies in the sky. She guided me on my quest to seek the singer of this bewitching song at my ear. So beautiful she sang.

Then there came a darkness so absolute I felt as though I had lost myself in a great pool of nothingness, an endless abyss. The living body fell suddenly silent, stagnant in my wake. In the depths I found a leafy green growth swimming in the water, as if dancing to the lilt of the mysterious voice that still hung on the wind. The weeds swayed from side to side, like a submerged willow. Spiraling green ribbons caught in a vortex turned my way. Suddenly there were eyes upon me, peering up from the queer shrub. They were luminous, glowing in the red of love, the crimson of blood. Spellbindingly beautiful as they were, she caught me in her web.

She calls me still, and so I go to her. Her osculate lips locked on to mine longingly. Her full breasts against me, and her lathery tongue darting into my mouth, I tasted her hunger—I craved her desire. I prayed she would never let go. To my dismay she does not. She seized me by the neck, and wrests me from my own will. Though lissome and smooth as silk, her hands were strong, and so I did not resist, nor did I want to. Like a forbidden ecstasy, I willed her to pull me in and wished I had the strength to free myself from her grasp. The creature asked me to join her, to descend into her realm. I went, and even as my lungs heaved and the burn of the salty water filled them with blissful agony, I never fought her. Oh, so beautiful she was.

Her sleek scaly body coiled around me and squeezed like a vice, yet still I wanted it. My muscles turned to rubber, and my ribs shattered, yet still I begged her to take me. I was hers, she knew well as she opened her mouth to feed. Her jaw seemed to detach and grow. Her teeth were all at once spears and daggers sinking into my flesh. Drowning in my own hot blood, I bathed in her saliva, and came to be one with this beautiful monster. Piece by piece I filled her belly, dissolved in her acids, nourished her fibers, and fed her cells, giving her all the power that was in me.   

With the sent of my own flesh upon her breath, I have been transformed into this magic that was her song. Together we will call on the next to join us, to be consumed by love, and devoured by the sea. Soon another will follow suit, in search of the caller of that song so lovely, so beautiful… so hungry. Soon he will join us.

A Night Out

The music is beating, like a heart testing it’s mortality against a can of Wayyy Tooo Much Shit Fo Dat Vein Energy Drink. The drinks are overpriced. I hate everything! Why the hell did I come?! Everyone is dancing bad. One guy is ambling along, droning around with high sleeves, showing off his new whatever tat, looking tough. I love how people bitch about high shorts on young women but never peep a word about the man-sluts with bare Planet-Fitness-level bicep syndrome. And on that note, the world is getting hot, so skimpy clothes makes sense now. I suddenly realize—naw, I’ve always known it—that I’m no better. I’m that fucking guy who thinks he is so cool that he has some over-all-this-shit attitude, sitting there judging everyone doing what adulthood and what little rope society will allow them to have on this thing that we try to call fun bull shit! All the while I’m wishing I had the guts to be so untethered. I’ve been derided for being a man, for being ugly, short, balding, for having bad teeth, having a quick temper, for being weird, liking stupid bands, wearing lazy clothes, I’ve been ripped apart so much that I am literally afraid of being caught enjoying myself. But I’m thinking shit about these goddamn people, placing everyone in categories, judging, when I’m the one that is damaged. I want to dance—damn it—fuck off, if you hate on it! But instead I drink, and I hate before they can have the chance to hate me. I’m at the club, making stink-face, talking shit, praying I live in a world where the hot girl, with the midriff and raccoon tail—don’t ask—dancing to anyone who she might get a free drink from, will see how cool I am. But no. I suck, and in the worst kind of way. And she gonna get her drink, and I’m gonna keep sitting here writing this story like a miserable fuck who don’t know how to enjoy life anymore. And I deserve it. I’m no better than this guy, or that one. All of us are trying in our own fucked up, damaged-by-the-cards-this-world-has-dealt-us way to stand out and maybe get the girl that does not know we exist. The twist in this story is that sometimes that girl is trying to do the same thing. Most of the time, not so much. Most of the time people just want to have fun. Men have forgotten how to do that as they have left their young-self lost in oblivion. The club is a place for old people to try and remember to let go. Have fun. But things said, things experienced, the disparagement, the jokes, the lies, the peers who have even bigger scars, they make us forget that, and instead we remember all of that which we wish we would forget. So the base thrums, the beat kicks, and we scowl, we float around looking angry or creepy, we sit and brood hoping it somehow looks captivating, we want attention, we want the fun ones to notice, but we only make ourselves look worse than who we really are. Misperceptions sometimes even make us worse than who we are. Being a man should not be so ugly. It should be embraced. We should be proud. And free. We should be like, “fuck you! that’s my song, get the hell out my way!” But who wants to be laughed at? I think that even as I watch these ladies dance with no damn clue what the hell they are doing. They figured it out, but I can’t. Even though I know. I know that I need to just let go. But I’m afraid. I’m damaged... and I’m drinking an over priced light beer. $5 for this shit! Fuck this song, fuck this club, where the cold pizza at?! 

(Sigh) whatever, watching Lost in Space on Netflix 

Gods of Carnage

The wolf snarled with her marvelous, evolutionarily dominant fangs showing—dripping. Her paws were heavy and big, they thudded as she prowled. Of course she wanted it that way. She desired to be heard—fear somehow made the meat all the more better. She could just as easily have skulked under the overgrown hedges, and there she would have been as quiet as the whisper of death. But there was nowhere for her prey to run. He stood there, eyeing his fate so boldly, as if he wasn’t even afraid. They were slow, dumb animals, these ones were. They were curious, far too curious, but very weak, even the strongest of their like. In packs they could be dangerous. They could hold things with their funny paws. They could shape branches into long claws, and have them cling to the air, and bring them down to captured their prey, much like a wolf could. But they were not wolves. They were tricks, and they would not work on her, not this time. She had this one cornered. She will lap at his blood and piss on his corpse. 

The wolf’s muscles were dense, sinuous, and rolling all across her flanks as she closed in. Her hackles went back. She gnashed, and rumbled a growl. The stupid beast only blinked emptily at her. No sign of emotion written anywhere around his long, dull face. They had learned to stand on their hind-legs, the beast observed. Neat trick, though, it will do him no good.

The wolf drew in closer. She flicked her wet tongue across her black snout. And then she said unto her prey, “Soon, I will eat you! How are you so insouciant?”

Poised with his impenetrable sangfroid disposition, the primate set his chin high, analytically. He frowned at the feral creature. And he answered, “Soon, I will dethrone you. Soon I will make you my bitch to call to heel. Soon I will eat everything, and you will beg for my dregs. How are you so complacent?”

“Because,” she said, “That is tomorrow...”

The primate replied, “but not today?”

“Not today,” she agreed, eagerly.

“Today—“

“—I,”

“am—“

“—hungry,” the last human languishing on earth whimpered weakly millions of years later, dying alone on a vast horizon of dry, ravaged ruin.