Sad Day...the UC Berkley Naked Guy committed Suicide!

For those of you who weren't UC graduates (Go Slugs!), you may not remember the UC Berkley Naked Guy. He attended class naked, politely bringing a little towel to sit on to not get his butt cheese on the next sitter at that desk. His notoriety permanently altered my UCSC experience, because the rules about a "clothing optional" campus changed after my freshman year. My friend's boyfriend who would sit in a field overlooking the Monterey Bay in nothing but his tattoos playing flute (not the skin flute, the bamboo kind) suddenly started getting hassled everywhere he went.

Anyhoo, there was news in the SF Chronicle today that the Naked Guy killed himself in jail recently. I guess the guy suffered from schizophrenia and wasn't getting the treatment he needed. Sad.

Jose Sarria Story Numero Uno Done!

Today is not only my birthday, but I also finished the first story in my new book today.

It is a story about Hazel McGuinnes, Jose Sarria's longtime collaborator and friend. Hazel wrote many of the operas the Black Cat Opera Company performed and played accompaniment to the performers. This story is about a love affair gone terribly wrong. Print it out and color it at home! If you prefer to see it on your screen, check out this version!

Books I've read since 2009 Started....

Box Office Poison by Alex Robinson (finished it this a.m.)
Kalfka by R. Crumb and David Zane Mariowitz (thank you G. Maaaaaa!)
Final Exits by Michael Largo (when nothing else will do)
In Defense of Food by Michael Pollen (it was no Omnivore's Dillemma, the content would have been better delivered as a website, or a podcast)
Omnivore's Dillemma (Oddly, it made me want to go hunting, and also it deepened my love for the Chicken!)
Cancer Vixen (Really a page turner, which was wierd because reading a story about a self-obsessed New Yorker with breast cancer doesn't seem that great, but it was really great, dispite somewhat weak art)
Cancer Made Me a Shallower Person (good, not great. But it would be a good gift for someone with the cancer)
World War Z (F*ck Yeah! Total Page Turner! OMG! It's so great, I'm loaning it to one friend, and when he gives it back, I'm mailing it to buddies in China! Which also lead to a viewing of Dawn of the Dead, like when did Zombies start being able to run pell-mell? And the zombie birthing scene....arg!)
American Splendor Anthology (but, really, who doesn't read a little Pekar every month!?)

Movies:
What's New Pussycat? (Peter Sellers and Woody Allen's first collaboration!)
Casino Royale (Peter Sellers and Woody Allen in this early JAMES BOND movie! Hilarious)


You might observe that there's not a whole lot of books about Sustainability on that list....my brain needs a break. So, got any good books to recommend?

Smudges and All #1

New autobiographical comic. Enjoy! To really be able to read the text, just click on the image.

Sarria! Sarria! Sarria! The life and times of the Widow Norton!

So, I have started on a new project, and these are some preliminary sketches for my new project. I've started to research a biography of of Jose Sarria, a.k.a. the Empress Dowager Norton.
Here are a few exciting things I have found out in my first month of research:

1. Jose Sarria was the first openly gay person to run for public office in the US, in 1961. At the time his day job was as singing waiter in drag at SF's famous Black Cat.
2. Jose Sarria married SF's infamous Emperor Norton, posthumously in a ceremony attended by drag kings and queens, Clampers and some minister!
   
3. When he retired from public life (the second time!) he left San Francisco by hot air balloon from city hall!
4. He founded many of the early gay-rights organizations, including SIR (Society for Individual Rights), Tavern Guild, and led early gay activists into partnerships with churches for greater understanding.

So that's some of the excitement in my life! Here are some preliminary sketches. The ones in victorian dress are the Empress Norton, the one with the beret is 1984 at Pride, and the cool-boy is from his 1946 Berlin Identification.

Anyone interested in collaboration?

Getting Ready for APE!!!

I'm getting ready for the Alternative Press Expo, which is coming up on November 1&2 in San Francisco's Concourse Exhibition Center.

At left, you will find a map of the exhibition center, and there is my table #102. I'm sharing the table with China Books, purveyors of wonderful and weird comics from the Chinese Diaspora. Please come visit us, we'll probably have lolly pops or something snacky!

Also, my mom will be at the booth, so if you're a foxy, single dude in the 50's or 60's, ask her if "she's a couger?"

The day the art dies....

Today I got word that a friend and fellow artist committed suicide last Wednesday. Looking at her web site, it really makes me ponder the futility of it all. She made great work. She was a wonderful person.

I'm not feeling like a shitty friend that wasn't there for her - we hadn't seen each other in years - but I'm wondering about the function of art.

I feel that art is here for the extremely important purpose of transformation: transformation of society, pushing technology forward, personal transformation etc. Seeing her work, and how powerful it is, I really wonder about this basic assumption I have. I seek in my art a place of transformation, a place where I can work out the "yukky life stuff" that I'm not a fully realized human enough to deal with (yet?). And yet, someone who was a way better artist than I will ever be, didn't get enough out of the process of making art to not be able to save herself from the Stupid Ultimate Conclusion that we all face from time-to-time?

It makes the process feel futile. What the fuck is art for?

And, as such, there is no way out of terrible decision making, no working one's way out of one's problems, no path to sanity and centeredness.















And yet. Art is futile. That is one of it's joys. It does nothing measurable or concrete. Its effects are ephemeral on both the maker and the participant. Perhaps that's the answer. Maybe, for Virginia I should do an act of art that is completely futile and defiant of the darkness that will crush us all if we don't fight. Or just something ridiculous in her honor.

Rest well, talented classmate and friend. We will remember you with honor.