There is a Swedish black metal band called Mayhem. Instead of elaborating immediately on their bloody history where a lead singer blew his brains out and a bassist stabbed a guitarist to death, I wanted to point out how uncanny it was that the band's twenty year history reads a lot like the progression and regression and (more than likely, inevitable) return to the scene (or, non-scene) of UltraViolent Comics. Did you catch that? That was a thesis statement.
It all started out for Mayhem like the way many killer metal bands start out, refugees from several other bands than form under a new banner (see Cannibal Corpse which started out as three different bands and, effectively, became two similar-but-different bands when Chris Barnes left and started Six Feet Under and George "Corpsegrinder" Fisher filled his boots as the singer). Guitarist Euronymus hooked up with bassist Necrobutcher, drummer Manheim and, later, singer Messiah. After Messiah absconded from the band to get a real job and distance himself from the scene, he was replaced by Maniac. The only other metal musicians with better stage names are Ozzy Osbourne and Lemmy Kilmeister.
UltraViolent Comics started out called "Shit n' spin", which was supposed to be a knock on a friend-of-mine's project called "Sit n' Spin"_a decidedly PG-13 rated and apparently entirely autobiographical internet comic. I wanted it to be everything her comic wasn't, because, at the time, I was trying to be a turd in her punchbowl. I never put the first bits of it on the internet (mostly because it sucked), I didn't color anything, it was autobiographical only in as much as it had people I knew in real life in it, but nothing short of fiction of documented. Fictional documentary…that's an oxymoron.
Constantly releasing EPs, tapes and limited edition material, includeing the ultra rare and sought after Deathcrush EP, Mayhem was truly trying to the creek against the stream. According to all accounts I've read, it was a bohemian-in-black lifestyle to live. Living it must have been stressful enough to drive anyone to suicide. Of course it did just that, however, the third singer, called Dead, in the band didn't kill himself in response to the life, rather he blew his brains out in response to his life. By all accounts, he apparently didn't seem exactly depressed as much as he did seem just odd. Burying clothes for weeks so to have stage gear that look zombie-like, keeping a dead raven in a plastic bag to inhale the stench and chasing cats naked with knives_these are acts, in my mind, of a person who isn't exactly on the same plane as the rest of us.
"Shit n' Spin" quickly became a lame title for me to keep writing down and mentioning to people and after watching "Clockwork Orange" for the thirtieth time, I knew I had a new title to go in with: UltraViolent Comics. I wanted it to have some of that golden age name sake to it (like Detective comics or Action comics). I wanted to draw myself and my friends in to pin ups that look like the movie poster, so I ran with it. I also started asking people around me for ideas for celebrities they want to see get mangled. Encouraging the wrath of men and women who have more than enough money to hire some scum bad lawyer by drawing them getting covered in hot glue and being impaled_this is not something that people who want to live nice lives do_it was also something I made a habit out of doing at least once a day for more than a year.
The shards of Dead's head on the walls of the band's shared apartment: Polaroids where taken, a stew consisting of ham, vegetables and brains was made and necklaces of shattered skull were made to share. Shortly after, and I'm still not sure exactly why, Count Grishnackh, also known as Varg Vikernes, hopped a seven hour train from Bergen to Oslo to go stab Eruonymus to death. It might have been over metal cred, contract stuff or money, but with a lead singer dead, charter members of the band gone and a dead gituarist with a bassist on his way to the pen for the murder, things were officially out of hand for the band. All that remained was Hellhammer, so they went tits up. The band never put out a full length LP by this time.
Drawing in a book, never published, and shown only to the people in the comic, the only people I trusted with material that, realistically, could get me tossed in jail, UltraViolent was forced to enjoy a small existence. While limited, it caught on with the target audience and in my mind, that's all that counted. UltraViolent Comics, like Mayhem, isn't for everyone. Not everyone gets it and I'm not patent enough to explain it to people who don't see the humor in setting fire to Fred Durst.
The band eventually reformed with Maniac as the singer, Hellhammer on the skins, Necrobutcher as the bassist and newcomer Blasphemer playing guitar. Finally, in 1994, thirteen years after the band got started, their first full length album, "DeMysteriis Dom Sathanas" (Lord Satan's Secret Rites) came out. It is unlikely the band will ever enjoy mainstream success, but then again, who wants it?
Once I went to college, I decided to back away from doing comics until I had I feet firmly on the ground. It took me about a year and a half. On the other end of my forced break, I stopped drawing the one page two panel strips and started in on drawing several page long gore-fests where Rush Limbaugh had nails pounded in his eyes, Ted Nugent was decapitated and President Reagan as a zombie was pissed on after being torn to bits with a grenade and a pick axe. I had matured in as much as I was drawing longer, more refined mini horror stories. I even took the leap to putting them on the internet in a reserved way. Nothing too shocking would go up. The guy who played Jesus in the Mel Gibson movie committing suicide and cussing up a storm after he's teased for not being as good as Willem Dafoe… that's just funny. It's unlikely, and totally undesired, that UltraViolent Comics meet with any kind of mainstream success.
In 2004, Mayhem released their third studio LP called "Chimera". Interviewed for a film called "Metal: a headbanger's journey", Necrobutcher and Hellhammer are drunk, unable to conduct a decent interview and looking old. However, later reached again for a follow up interview, Hellhammer seemed sharp and totally aware of the Black Metal's significance to the scene, lack of significance to the mainstream and Mayhem's horrifying past.
In 2006, UltraViolent comics is not currently being drawn as the only audience for it has all but lost interest. I would restart it if I knew I'd like what I was doing and if I knew the people I'd be doing it for would like it. Chances are, in 2009 UltraViolent Comics might resurface, if it hasn't already by then. The idea in my head is for one last bloody bash against a certain figure that is untouchable as of 2006. With any luck, by then, the comic will have crawled out of the recesses of head and replaced the interesting fact pieces I'm currently preoccupied with making now. Until then, there's no saying for sure. Unfortunately for UltraViolent comics, like with Mayhem, there never really ever was anything for certain.

Goals in life:
1. publish books.
2. host Saturday Night Live.
3. get on the cover of Rolling stone.
4. make a guest apperance on the simpsons.
5. get killed in a horror movie.
6. drive in a demolition derby at least once.
7. destroy a tv and a car.
8. go to a party at the playboy mansion.
9. see a baseball game at yankees stadium, fenway park and wrigley feild.

these goals, or at least the majority of them, done, i can die happy.

Don't you hate it when you wear boxers and all day you have that feeling like your tallywacker is hanging out? The only thing that sucks worse is when it's really hot and your sac sticks to your legs like sweaty velcro. Both things are happening right now to me and my trousers are a total disaster area.

I heard on the radio that beer can prevent Prostate cancer. While I didn't need an excuse to drink beer, but I'm glad to have one.

Last night, Robin and I were being cute and I told her if we have twin boys, I want to name then Tomax and Xamot, after the evil twins of Cobra, leaders of the Crimson guard. She said she'd think about it. While having kids something I come and go on, I'd love to have a kid and give him a good name. I imagine my dad and my grandfather would want my first born to be named Earl, spelled correctly and everything, but to stray from tradition, we'd give him a different middle name. Grandpa was named after his father, so he's a junior. Dad was named after grandpa and great grandpa and Grandma's brother James. I was named after my dad, my grandfathers and my mom's dad Wayne. Earl Gregory sounds weird. So I dunno. Earl Wayne junior. Even though I hate the terms junior and senior.
This morning, I was on the front page of the Free Press that Tiger's stadium is going to be demolished in the fall. It's been unused for a baseball game since 1999 and since then, hosted Snoop Dogg for his Super Bowl XL show in January (which I have to imagine was just.... Brrrr). I got nostalgic and did a search for Tiger Stadium and found digitalballparks.com and looked at the pictures they had for Tiger Stadium (which is actually called Briggs Stadium, I didn't know that). I saw a picture of a plaque they had for Ty Cobb, my favorite ball player. Now, if you do a little research on him, you'll find he was not the nicest guy. Matterafact, he is probably the nastiest guy in baseball ever. He makes the owners who bucked the free agency system, the Black Sox eight, Barry Bonds and Pete Rose look good, really. He resisted and resented racial integration to the game. Put his spikes up in to players when he slid in to bases. He was not liked at all in his day or for the rest of his life. He was a miserable person... but a good ball player. One of the best the game ever saw or will ever see. He held many records including career hits, which was broken by Pete Rose in his prime. Pete Rose didn't face the same scrutiny Roger Marris did when he broke Babe Ruth's regular season home run record (which he face because Marris had eight more games than Ruth did per season) or Mark Macguire did when he broke Marris's record. Nor did he face the incredible scrutiny one of my other favorite players, Henry Aaron (who I like because of when he broke Babe Ruth's career homerun record of 715, two guys in Atlanta ran on to the field and patted him on the back in one of my favorite American images, right up there with the sailor kissing the nurse in New York City at the end of World War II) did or Jackie Robinson did. But I'm not going on about Pete Rose.
why am I (or, why was I) going on about Ty Cobb? Especially when I was talking about names I want to name kids? Isn't it obvious? I'd name a boy Tyrus after Cobb. Why? I mean, I just stated a bunch of reason why not to. Here's why: for one thing, it's a good strong sounding name and I like it. He's a hero to the Tigers and I like that too. But most importantly, the other night, dad and I were watching part eight of the Ken Burns baseball series when Cobb died in 1961. He died lonely. He said to a friend "If I could do it all over again, it'd be different. I'd've had more friends." My dad remarked "what a sad man" and he's right. Cobb was a sad man. In his old age, he was charging for autographs, he carried a gun a million dollars in a paper sack and was swallowing a quart of Bourbon and milk to dull the pain of the cancer than was consuming him. A constant reminder to a child of how not to live by having a name like Tyrus would be good for him. Don't resist change. Don't be miserable. Try to make friends. Don't be disagreeable. Be gracious. Be friendly. Be all the things Cobb wasn't.
And when me, my dad, my kids and Robin go to Comerica to see the Tigers play, We can take a picture with the Ty Cobb statue and my dad can tell my kids who he was. We'll then find our seats, the kids and Robin with sodas, over-sized Tigers hats on their little heads and oversized gloves on their little hands in hopes of catching a fowl ball, my dad and I with a beer. Dad'll explain to the little ones what's happening. He'll sing too loud, like he always does, the national anthem. The kids, with their hands over their hearts, mine behind my back. All of us standing up good and straight. Dad'll explain why the other team bats first. Robin will take the kids to the bathroom every other inning or so. Dad'll explain balls, strikes, fowl balls, pitches, positions, batting, calls, counts, hits and runs. In the seventh inning, we'll all stand, stretch and sing "Take me out to the Ball Game", my arm around Robin's waist and my dad holding our kids and our kids around my dad's shoulders. Dad and I will sing loud and hold the note as long as we can for the last word, which, if you don't know, is "Game". The last time we went to the ball park and saw the Yankees beat the Tigers, we did that and I got the feeling we'll do that every game we go to from now on. We'll sit in the sun with hats on and watch. My kids will have binoculars to see the faces of the distant players and they'll probably think like me whenever I see a rock star or an athlete in the flesh: "It can't be him. He lives in TV." Maybe Ivan Rodriguez, my favorite player who's currently playing, will still be in Detroit. They'll see him cross himself like he does every time he steps in to the box. They'll see him adjust his helmet, take a few swings before the pitch and then they'll see the pitch and then they'll see the ball sail high over the out fielder’s heads and the crowd erupt as Pudge smacks one in. They'll see him trot around the diamond as everyone claps Detroit's favorite son (even though he's from Puerto Rico) home. They'll see him cross himself once more before he steps on the plate and point and look to the sky, his crucifix around his neck showing. He'll step on the plate and turn toward the dugout where his teammates will pat his back, give him high fives and "atta boys" as he makes his way back to his spot on the bench. They'll see him trade his helmet for a hat with a beautiful white old English D, clap his hands a few times as the next Tiger in the line up goes up to try and make like Pudge.
I guess I wish I was more in to baseball when I was littler. All I can remember about back then was being angry and hating sports. I can't remember why nor can I remember when exactly I turned the corner in to when I liked them and watched them. I think Hunter S. Thompson and his final book Hey Rube had something to do with it. I want baseball to be part of my kids lives, I don't want things to be like they were in "Field of Dreams" where the only opportunity to play catch with your dad is after you've put in jeopardy everything you have to build a ball field that brings the Black Sox eight back, who, according to Shoeless Joe Jackson (played by Ray Liotta) hated Ty Cobb also. See I reckon that's why I cry when Kevin Costner asks his dad if he wants to have a catch in the end. We waste so much time with so much stuff that's not important that we miss the little things that are. And I want to be the kind of dad that misses nothing.
Sometimes, I wish things were different. Sometimes I wish Robin were here and we were making money and we had a house. I wish we were married and had a bun in the oven. I wish I could see her with a big tummy that I could touch and feel a little heartbeat. She'd put her hand on my face and we'd kiss and the baby inside her would be the most beautiful thing ever. I wish it were five years from now. And I wish that in that time, Pudge would still be with the Tigers. And we could go to a game.

I can always gage how much fun everyone had the night before by looking at the array of rubbish in the parking lot opposite my building as in my neighborhood are five bars, a dance club and a strip joint. It’s not uncommon or unsurprising to see any imaginable collection of debris left behind.
Usually, there’ll be several empty, often broken, bottles and depending on what bottles there are and how many are left behind, the night was better for who ever left them there. If there are unbroken Bud light bottles, usually the night was only okay. If they’re broken, the night was bad. If there are cans, the night was lousy. If there are empty bottles of vodka, broken or not, someone had a blast. The better the vodka, the better time someone had.
Empty soda bottles or cans are an indication there was no fun had at all, however, true party animals go to Seven Eleven before the club gets rocking, which usually doesn’t happen until at least ten or eleven. They snag a big gulp or a slurpee, some nachos or a taquito and hang out in the parking lot before they get their dance on. To see Seven Eleven trash is a sure indicator that whatever happened last night was truly legendary.
Bottles are the first hint as to how things went. The more odd things are, the wilder time was had. Empty plastic cups are an indicator that the party went out in to the parking lot after closing time. From time to time, I’ve found Hawaiian leis and Marti gras beads. I’ve found packaging for sex toys and once, I even found a forgotten pink anal plug in the parking lot.
Most common are the discarded fliers, advertisements for car washes with girls in short shorts and invites to next week’s parties. If you don’t know where those come from, a dozen or more elves appear in the night while the lot is full and the party is in full swing. The elves jam them under windshield wipers and in to driver side windows. If you’re unlucky, like I typically am, it rains that night so the flyer gets soaked. In the morning, in the sun, the flyer is still damp and the sun cooks it to your window or windshield. When I peel it off at noon when I leave to get coffee, it leaves a little paper square there. The only thing that can get that off is a carefully applied razor blade. Forget your finger nails.
The most confusing thing to find is packs of cigarettes with untouched cigarettes still in the pack. Bar savvy cats call it alcohol abuse when people spill alcohol, but typically, the bar savvy are usually too sauced to come up with a cute term for it when smokes go unaccounted for. I have to imagine they aren’t missed until the Sunday morning hangover arrives.
Unrolled condoms or torn condom wrappers in the grass or shrubs is enough to make anyone wonder how drunk do you have to be that the trip home would be too long to get down to the love making. Maybe it’s just some people’s way of killing that hour or so between the last drink and the drive home. But then one would have to wonder what they do for the remaining forty-one minutes of that hour of sobering up. I suppose that would explain the abandoned panties I’ve also found from time to time.
To see a collection of shattered glass that used to be a window in someone’s car, not a broken bottle, is enough to make me really worry. Obviously it means that someone’s car was busted in to and probably someone’s stuff was stolen. Fortunately, my car looks incredibly low-rent. There’s nothing worth stealing in there short of my girlfriend’s adorable pink Hello Kitty pillow that I keep forgetting to bring in to the apartment. I can’t even imagine a thief would even bother getting close enough to my car to take a look at the unfencable goods inside because it looks so bad compared to the silver Cooper Mini that belongs to a stripper who works the day shift, the over-sized and unsexual hemis that belong to the red necks who live on the outskirts of town, the repulsive Lexuses, Esclades and Jaguars that belong to the divorced slime bucket men that go to clubs dance badly with the cute co-eds who are just out to have a good time and the Tarsuses, the Accords, the Civics and the other mid-sized sedans that moms and dads buy their kids when they go to college that’ll be dented, scratched and damaged after nights of buzzed driving. Given the alternative, a thief will bust in to one of those. Nine times out of the, those vehicles will have some kind of interesting stereo system or speakers that’ll be worth the brick to toss through the glass.
I’ve never found mouth pieces for sobriety tests which, I suspect, is because, in the parking lot people aren’t driving home quite yet so the cops haven’t collared them and either delayed or canceled their arrival at Denny’s or the Coney Island. Which beats the alternative: trying to drive drunk to get after closing time food. Even if they pull it off, eventually, they won’t, and that’s the worst thing ever.
The parking lot and the junk left behind tells some kind of story that, when it’s paid attention to, is at least kind of a little interesting to think about. Granted, it’s not worth thinking that deeply about or paying that much attention to, but it beats actually going to the party, paying cover to go to the club or opening up and closing a tab for beer that’s never worth the two seventy-five it costs to get it plus the tip to have it brought to you. It’s not worth trying to find a table dealing with other people to watch the game to find out what happens at the five bars, the dance club or the strip joint at night.
Rather, I have more fun staying up until two-thirty or three to watch the crowd leave, cracking my window, just above the parking lot and catching what parts of a conversation I can hear. Usually, the most pronounced and easiest to understand words are the ones that are easiest for a drunk kid to say over and over again. “Fuckin’ fuckin’ this, fuckin’ fuckin’ that”. It’s people like them that need to spend more time pouring over their literature reading than pouring themselves drinks. Their vocabulary is as stunted as the kid’s growth that started smoking at age ten.
If I’m really lucky, I get to see people get arrested, guys get in fights over girls, girls get in fights over guys or just a good old fashioned screaming match that never culminates in a fight, just a lot of big talk and hurt feelings. It’s hard for me to say which is my favorite thing to see happen in the parking lot. Unfortunately, if I fall asleep, I don’t get to see that. Sometimes, I’m lucky, or unlucky, enough to have some incredible jerk come along, pumping more decibels out of his car than he transferable credit hours with a higher blood alcohol lever than his grade point average. A guy like him is a mixed blessing. When he comes along, I get to wake up and see the show. When he doesn’t, I get to sleep as soundly as I would if I was at my mom and dad’s house, which I think is kind of a rip off. If I’m paying for a place in the city, I ought to get all the city action I can handle.
To be accurate, I’m not sure I’ve seen all the city action I can handle. I’ve never gone home in the evening and said to myself, “My god, I just want to get out of here.” Which I think is kind of odd. It’s amazing how much crazy stuff you can see before you reach some kind of threshold. It’s not uncommon, while waiting for a bus, to have some toothless guy with black gums ask you for a cigarette, spitting with every s sound he makes. It’s an every day thing to see a group of people hanging out, leaning on the planter in front of the bus stop, which, by the way, is directly across the street from my building. They might seem to be waiting for a number ten or eleven to the south side of town when I leave for work at 8:30 and maybe they left, but in the afternoon, when I get home, they’re still there. One has to wonder what’s so great about that part of the world that either they don’t leave or they come back.
Then there are the bums who seem to find me like moths find fires to fly in to. “Got some change for some food? I’m really hungry” can be interpreted as “Got some money for some beer? I’m embarrassingly pathetic.” For the most part, I don’t mind the bums. I don’t even mind being lied to. I know that for the most part they aren’t as hungry as they are thirty and I know that if I pass them what I have, it’ll go toward a forty of Cobra or Colt .45 or some other bottom shelf brand of beer. I’ll pass them what I have because usually either before or after I do, they’ll give me some priceless piece of bum wisdom. One time, I had a guy tell me and my girlfriend he had recently been paroled from prison, used to be a boxer and has thirteen children he supports by biting the heads off chickens. That’s worth buying a guy a beer.
The only draw back of being in the city is the cops who defend the law from ruthless and wicked people who park where they ought to not park. I can ignore the fireworks that were set off during the Pistons’ playoff run that was cut short last week and the gun fire I hear from time to time. But at least when the Fraternal Order of Police call to hit you up for money, you can respond by telling them that you were ticketed for a fifteen dollars for parking in a spot you’ve been parking in since you got to the city and never had any trouble with it and if they want money from you, they can hit the city that ripped you off for it. Usually, they’ll take the hint, but they won’t learn from it. They’ll ticket people for talking on your cell phone while skipping down the sidewalk and then wonder why Ice T makes a song called “Cop Killer”.
So aside from the cops, I love living in the city. I love the trash, the party-goers, the club-sters, the bums and the suspicious cast of characters who seem to be every where. I love broken glass and dead grass that’s littered with cigarette butts, candy wrappers and apple cores. I love the gun fire and the popping of fire works, both of which follow a Pistons win. I love knowing that there’s a Seven Eleven and a Coney Island open some where right now. I love walking in the direction of the smell of a church bar-b-que, finding it, over paying them for incredibly good food that’s horrible for me, sitting at a picnic table with people I don’t know and getting to know them while I eat.
I could live with out the ruckus on the nights I want to sleep, but you take the good with the bad. You find places to smoke and meet people. You find places that have cable so you can watch ESPN for free. You learn how to make a dinner out of popcorn and water. You pick up on certain survival skills you wonder how you ever lived with out. You learn how to skip out on a four beer tab without getting caught, even while buzzed. You meet people who have free bus passes and how to make a copy of them so you can ride the bus for free. You devise certain scams that make getting by on minimum wage possible.
There are more honorable ways to live, but at least I’m not selling drugs or hurting anyone. I’m not actually skipping out on tabs and screwing over waitresses—I’ve just learned how to do it and I save that skill for when the food took too long to get to me, I wasn’t asked enough if I wanted more beer, if I wasn’t flirted with enough and if a pair of drunks who bothered me while I was trying to watch the Tigers wasn’t bounced. Which happened once and I had to abscond with out paying. I felt as though I was justified in doing as much. Picture a fifty something man and his thirty something girlfriend, both drunk as skunks when they arrived and kept drinking while they were there. The man kept telling me I had a beautiful girlfriend and asking me if I minds that he smokes, which I thought was weird since I was already smoking. The woman kept telling my girlfriend she had amazing boobs. It’s not an every day thing to rip working people off and it’s not the worst thing in the world to talk to an annoying drunk. So the next few times I went back, I over tipped the waitresses and the bartenders to try and earn back from of my wasted karma. Everyone else is trying to make it, kind of like I am. And the worst thing I could do in the world would be to set people back.

Imagine working retail for a moment—a purgatory toward a paycheck I hope many of you have escaped from long ago or, even more fortunately, never had to go through yourself. You see a disgusting buffet of people you never thought could leave the house much less make sufficient money to spend it on whatever you’re selling it the place you call work. That is the mixed blessing of retail you’ll see every kind of American mish-mash you could want to see. It’s not uncommon to see NASCAR fans (a real treat), yuppie liberals, disgusting people with big foreheads, foxy co-eds who starve themselves and on and on.
Now picture working in a text book store, my day job of the moment, and seeing a bronze goddess who’s dressed like she’s either coming to or coming from aerobics class in a black tank top and black short shorts that the bottom of her bottom spill out of. She’s there for books for the semester. Behind her is a wrinkled guy, not unlike Jim Leyland without the mustache or Tigers uniform. He’s in a pair of khakis and a brown leather jacket. He follows her around and awaits orders.
The dynamic between the two is appropriate to make one wonder is this husband and wife, husband and second wife, husband and third wife, boyfriend and girlfriend, unloyal husband and mistress or simply father and daughter? The two don’t seem to have chemistry sufficient for romance, but think about it, he’s fifty if he’s a day if not damn near sixty. He’ll do whatever she in short shorts demands if it means he has a snowball’s chance of doing the hibbty dibbity later on. Fathers, especially, I’ve observed, the fathers of cuties like this one, will buy their daughters anything, be it thousand dollar handbags, shoes, tennis bracelets or diamonds. Husbands and wives, in my experience, at least, there’s something at least resembling a fifty-fifty give and take. I’m pretty unfamiliar with second wife dynamics, so that could be the case. If she doesn’t fit in to any of the above, it could be that she’s a student of a very eager-to-see-her-succeed professor, but that couldn’t be. When they checked out, (he paid, by the way) he didn’t indicate he was an instructor at any school and they always do. They get a tasty discount.
Which leaves me with the answer I was most suspicious to: girlfriend and much older boyfriend or mistress and cheater. My co-workers and I immediately launched in to speculations as to what we just saw. They insisted it was child-whipped daddy and manipulative daughter. Not husband and second wife or mistress and divorcee. I told them to watch and see what car each get in to before they decide. She got in to a white Mustang and he got in to a tan Taurus, which in my mind, answers all lingering questions: he bought her the Mustang and he settled for the Taurus so she’d stay with him and throw him a bone every month or a week if he’s buying her gas. I’d be lying if I say I didn’t sneak a glance at her hind quarters on her way out and one of my esteemed co-workers caught me checking her out and laughed at me a little for it.
If you’re lucky, while going through retail hell, you get an interesting customer a day. Like the guy who comes in almost every day, talks really loud and asks for a copy of the Free Press. That’s enough to make a normal day a memorable one.

I was up until five last night doing some shit I'd been putting off forever. At ten this morning, on a holiday, who should roust me but some dipshitted right wingers telling me how Hillary is bad news, how Dick Morris is a god and why I ought to agree with them. I fuck with those scrotums normally anyway for no reason so you better believe if they woke me up after five hours of lousy sleep on a couch where it's too hot for this time of the year... I'm in a really exceptional mood.
I chewed her out for bothering me. I told her there aren't any right wing retards at this number so why am i being called on my day off. I told her I had worked until 5 and I wasn't in the mood to be told how to vote in an election that's two years off this particular morning. I told her I'll vote for Hilliary just to cancel out her vote. I told her to tell me her phone number so I could pass it along to those cronies in the ACLU. I told her never to call here again and to tell every dickless organization that's on the wrong side of politics that this number is as unfriendly to the GOP and Lee Harvey Oswald was to JFK.... okay... that last past isn't true.
but i thought about it after the fact.

Deviant Art

For fuck sake.
I was up until five putting up twenty-one pages plus one cover of the second issue of the book that, christsake, I wanna publish. Course I still I gotta get'em off to my little brother so he can get better scans made of them and re-letter them becasue my hand writing sucks. In a perect world the drawings would all be good, not just the first one on the page. But shit, in a perfect world, I'd have more than five inches, a nice full head of hair, LeBron James' money and Henry Rollins in the White House.
Can't allways git what'cha want. But if you ask sometimes, you might get feedback from intresting, creative, intellegent people.

If you've living under a rock not reading comics, you've missed a lot. Superboy is dead and the DCU has been as mixed up as a Jackson Pollock. Last year, DC successfully tried to recapture of that Wolfman/Perez Crisis action with Infinity Crisis. I knew that darn Alex Luthor was bad from the get go.
Not to be outdone, Marvel is trying, and thus far, pulling it off, to do their own universe-wide treatment. Here's what's up:
The New Warriors, a team of screw up nobody heroes who became reality TV scum, try to take down a den of no-gooders. In the ensuing fight, Speedball (which, I could have sworn was some kind of drug, not some hero) and Nitro (a villain with the ability to blow things up... not pee energy drink) cause an explosion that consumes 900 little ones. It was a disaster that should not have happened. Heroes should not act like idiots. They should have protocol. There ought to be a law enforcing hero decorum.
What's happening now is that the government is getting ready to enact a hero registry policy and why not? Cops have to go through training and certification to be cops. So do firemen, federal agents, judges, etcera. Essentially, if act is passed and if the heroes don't register, they're outlaws.
Here's where I'm confused: what's the problem? The old Spider-man argument "If my identity becomes public knowledge, my family is in danger?" what about cops families? Remember that Chicago judge whose family was wiped out by neo-nazis a year or more ago? Doing the right thing isn't always easy and it isn't always popular, but it's still the right thing. If Spider-man is compelled to be a hero and the act is passed, I'll be incredibly disappointed with him if he breaks the law.
Which brings me to the sides. Captain America, the living essence of law, order and America it's self, is not only against the act, but he assaulted the Federal Agents in S.H.E.I.L.D. (the Marvel equivalent to the CIA). He is betraying his country. He is putting his interests before the safety of the United States. Captain America is a traitor. The Law is the law is the law. No one is above it. Captain America, despite his many years of service to his country, does not have the right to arbitrarily pick and choose which laws he wants to follow.
Most confusing is why Captain America is fighting a law he’s already following. Captain America’s actual name, Steve Rogers, has been known through out the Marvel Universe for some time now. Could it be that the eighty something American champion has gotten a little soft upstairs?
So cheers to Iron man, Billionaire scientist Tony Stark, who is backing the law. And the Fantastic Four, the first heroic family, who has been public almost since day one. They are all fully aware of the risks they’re taking and if you’re not, give DC’s 2004 block buster Identity Crisis a read where Elongated Man’s wife is murdered by someone who know who she was which, frankly, could have been anyone. Her status as an honorary member of the JLA was public knowledge. With that in mind, Iron Man, the Fantastic Four and any other actual hero who steps up and joins the right side in the Civil War are far braver than we even knew. Sure, the Fantastic Four have fought off Galactus and Iron Man has battled his own demons along with Loki whatever other demons have crossed the path of the Avengers.
We all know how incredibly romantic the masks are and how wonderfully old fashioned and how terrifically silver age a secret identity is. But it’s no longer 1963, people. It’s the twenty-first century and it’s time to grow up. If the law passes like it looks like it will, I’ll expect the heroes to follow the law because if they decide not to, in my mind, there’s very little difference between Captain America and any other so-called hero who sides with him and, say, Red Skull, Dr. Doom or Baron Zemo (who I understand Captain America is going to ally himself with before long). Captain America is becoming a terrorist under the ruse that he’s trying to help us all somehow. Do not be confused, my fellow Americans: the law is the law for a reason. Not Captain America nor anyone else is except from it.

I’ve told and retold this story to myself and to others more times than I’m ashamed to admit, but I reckon that now that I feel like I’m between stories, as it’d be, now’s the best time of all to put down some kind of comprehensive look back to the best of my recollection. The only draw back that I can think of is that since it all started, I feel as though some of those brain cells where those memories lived have been annihilated by a combination of head banging, fighting, drinking and smoking. Things will be over looked and omitted. I have to tell myself I’ll do the best I can do when it comes to keeping track of the past six or so years. I’ll even start at the beginning for the sake of everyone involved.
Remember being told in Sunday school God doesn’t close a door with out opening a window? I reckon the window was always opened, but why would anyone go though a window when the door is open? God had to close the door so we’d face a challenge and change. I just wish we went through the window ourselves sometimes so we didn’t have to have the door get slammed in our faces.
Everything before the first of March in 2000 was kind of a bunch of crap. I was a complacent and boring high school student. Then a guy I knew since I was very little died in a car accident. I suppose there I looked at everything and decided I was pretty unhappy with things. I had a few pretty good friends, but I remember feeling like I had more enemies to worry about, which I imagine is a pretty common problem among most teen somethings. But at that age I was eighteen and there were even a few guys who were getting ready to get married. Now, at twenty-four, I have no idea how or why they bothered getting married that young. Even if it worked out, and in most cases, it didn’t, they were just throwing away their independent years.
I was about a month or two away from graduating from high school although, for the most part, I was going to community college, which, looking back was an elaborate ruse to skip high school classes by telling teachers I had to go study, meet with professors in office hours, catch a guest lecture or view an art gallery. Some guys coasted through the end of high school, I didn’t even bother putting my boat in the water. I never took the SATs, ACTs or any of that. I was dating an unattractive girl, one of the few unattractive girls I would ever date. I’m kind of thrilled with myself to say that as I grew, I dated gradually more attractive, more interesting and better smelling girls, but that’s all something I’ll get around to elaborating on later on.
So I looked at the facts and I hated everything that was happening. I knew I couldn’t drop out of high school to get out of it. It made more sense to just graduate and take it from there. So I did. I dumped the ugly girl and went to prom with a friend of the family—almost a big sister to my brother and I, and the daughter my mom and dad never had. We had a pretty good time. I also quit my job at McDonalds. I figured that if I died tomorrow, I didn’t want to do it with every pair of Dickies I had soaked with vegetable oil or animal fat. I floated around for a while, relaxed and collected my non-thoughts after high school. I eventually wound up applying and getting the job at a movie theater which turned out to be one of the best worst mistakes I’d ever make. I liked working late with the movies and being left alone all day. It let me try drawing again, which was something I did a lot more of before high school and I kind of got in to it again. Looking back, my drawings were pretty sloppy but I was having fun and I didn’t care.
In my free time, I would wander over to a comic book store that I used to go to when I was about twelve or so and hang out with a guy I knew about the same time. I had nothing better to do. I had no girlfriend, no hobbies and I was listening to the same boring music I had been listening to for ages.
Less than six months after I initiated all that change, I met Corey, a girl who’d be at the core of most of the events that’d take place for the next few months. In the same month Corey and I became pals, I got the job that my friend used to have at the comic book store which would turn out to be the longest job I ever wind up having until recently.
The comic book store would be the location of much uninteresting drama and, for the most part, happy times. The boss wouldn’t be there much of ever. The only proof we ever had that he was there was that pay checks would arrive on the seventh and the twenty-second of every month. When I worked there, there was a constant cast of three workers: an irritatingly-zealous Jehovah’s Witness and over-eager anime fan named Trevor, a med student slumming it in Jackson and working in a rinky dink retail gig like a comic book store named Jason, who I’d known since seventh grade and me, a wide eyed country mouse perpetually in a black t-shirt, aggressively learning about comics and girls named Earl.
This meant that when I was working, people always had a place to go and hang out. Corey and I hung out for a straight month in October even though she and I had a significant other at the time. I was dating a girl named Daphne—a sharp, creative and dark girl who’s only draw back was her powerful insecurity. She was dating a metal head named Brandon who was still in high school at the time. I’m not sure if he had the Disturbed tattoo yet, but it was something he anticipated getting. Corey and I would watch Kevin Smith movies and go to the mall a lot. We were both eighteen and we couldn’t drink so we had nice safe fun. Even if we could drink we wouldn’t. At the time, Corey was fiercely straight edge and I was barely even a social smoker. At the moment, I believe Corey had tried pot, drinks from time to time and doesn’t pitch a fit when I have a cigarette around her.
There was a series of cult flicks being shown at the theater I used to work at. I had quit, by the way, after a promised raise hadn’t happened. The series included Evil Dead 2, Reservoir Dogs, American History X, Trainspotting and 12 monkeys. We didn’t see Evil Dead 2, but we did see every movie after that. By the end of the series, Daphne and I would have downgraded to just friends, which was all we ever really were, plus all the kissing. Corey and Brandon broke up and I don’t remember why. We were both kind of bummed but hanging in there. We tried kissing each other just to get a feel for what kind of kisser the other was. I don’t remember what kind of kisser Corey was or how good a kisser she was, but I do remember her putting me in her top five.
But it’s not like I remember to much anyway: I don’t remember what classes I was taking at the time, how I did or even what I learned. There are a few little things I remember, but it’s like having seven pieces of a fifteen hundred piece puzzle. Marijuana is Alzheimer’s for young people. You just choose to get it and fortunately, you tend to forget the most boring details and remember only the interesting things.
In the following month, George W Bush would be handed an election, Corey would find a new boyfriend in a chubby, dorky wanna be punk with green hair with a bad band with decent guys in it. We split ways for a bunch of reasons and had a few spats, but it was all for the best looking back. She got wrapped up with those guys and reveled in how totally cool being straight edge was (it wasn’t) and I made friends with a guy from the KFC Corey’s dad owned—a freakishly skinny guy with a Chelsea cut, creepy eyes and the biggest collection of Marilyn Manson albums I’d ever seen. His name was Matt. Over the next few months, while Matt was house sitting for his Grandparents, I would crash out over there many nights. It was then that I really picked up smoking and lost a lot of weight as I’d eat as much as Matt. Typically, he’d consume a little more than a bag of Doritos, a twelve pack of Mountain Dew and about three packs of Camel light wides. We’d be up late playing video games most nights. A few nights, we’d be lucky enough to go out to snag some coffee at Denny’s. We met a steady flow of girls, kissed them, touched them and didn’t call them again. We had a pretty happy life for a few months leading a bachelor’s existence: up to our knees in rubbish, on unvaccumed floors and over-turned ashtrays, magic cards and comic books. We went to rock shows and I did my best to document everything by doing a drawing of stuff Matt told me was good enough to do drawings of. He had something of a natural and difficult to explain leadership streak in him. He’d be the last to agree with that.
Between going to class and work, one night in January of 2001, at one of Corey’s boyfriend’s shows, we met Clair. I remember writing her number on my arm with lipstick. It ultimately became Matt’s. As the winter wound down, Matt and I kept up a steady flow of stunts, like camping out in front of Wherehouse Records to get Ozzfest tickets. There was something strangely satisfying in being almost idiotic with him, as if I was Tom to Huck, Oliver to Jack Dawkins, The Narrator to Tyler Durden.
It was that spring that I met Matt’s friends: Arnie and Skott. Skott will be more or less overlooked as he’s not worth pushing the keys to make letters in to words for. But to do the time he and I were friends justice, here’s the scoop: Skott, to make a long story short, was a two-faced lazy phony pushing thirty who had ulterior motives, shady agendas, repulsive goals, boring stories and unfunny jokes to tell. He thinks I’m sad some how, as if I never achieved anything in my life. I guess if getting two college degrees and hold two jobs is nothing and pathetic, so be it. But here’s my idea of nothing and pathetic: being a loud-mouth, know nothing screw up. And that’s all anyone will ever have to know about him.
Arnie was an R2-D2 to a C-3PO, a trust-worthy friend who’s weary to trust anyone else. Kind of a contradiction, but even though we’re no longer friends, I feel as though I can and would tell him anything and he’d keep it a secret. Sadly, I think he feels as though I’m unworthy of his trust. We haven’t been friends for a year and I still have no idea what the hell happened between us. I’d like nothing more than anything to be his friend again, but most frustrating about Arnie is his tenacious unbending stubbornness and his absolute refusal to compromise. Which can, at times, be beneficial, but by and large, I have to imagine, has to be a powerful drawback for Arnie.
Also notable about Arnie, he’s one of the few guys I’ve ever kissed. It wasn’t bad. It was like kissing the girl from high school—mustache stubble and all.
It was also that spring that I worked the first, and to date, the only, comic book convention I’ve ever worked at. It was nice. I met San, which, to be honest, is the only significant event that took place there. But when I think about it, San and I have been talking this long and there’s something kind of rewarding about that.
I don’t remember too much about the summer of 2001.
I think it was in the fall of 2001 that I dated Amanda for a bit. Back then, it was real. Looking back, it was good enough for then. She and I were not unlike Daphne and I and the girls at Matt’s, friends you got to kiss. Shortly after nine eleven, I crashed my car and went two years until I had another one. I hooked up in to an indy comic book publish group in Jackson and tried to get some books published. Looking back, they were bad and it’s no wonder they didn’t go anywhere. In December 2001, the comic book store closed and relocated. Jason and Trevor left the company and I lost track of them. I still see them once in a while. Trevor still hates me for stealing his girl and getting him fired, I think. But almost five years later, I don’t care how he feels.
In spring 2002, Amanda and I broke up. It was one of those things not unlike losing a pet. The sooner you’re detached from it, the better—the less you’ll be attached to it when the time comes to lose it.
That last bit made me feel bad. Amanda’s no ones pet to be owned or to be taken from. The steady flow of dudes she went on to dominate was a downward spiral. Not to build myself up or anything, but after me, she dated fuckin’ down in the world.
I remember sleep walking through the summer and fall of 2002 and graduating that December. I scrambled to get in to a school last minute. With my associates under my belt, pretty much any school I applied to wanted me. I elected to go to Eastern Michigan University, which was another of my best of my bad calls. Eastern served its purposes in getting my degree in two years. It was just kind of a junky place with enough shady dealings with the executives to make the scum at Enron and in the current White house blush.
But it was at Eastern where Robin and I met on the internet. If I wasn’t so lonely, I doubt I’d’ve spent so much time on the computer. She came here and lived on campus and eventually lived with a scum bucket bitch who also isn’t worth elaborating on. It was because of her she left Eastern and went back to Jersey.
I guess that about brings me up to speed. At the moment, I’m still living in downtown Ypsi, selling books to students at a text book store and anime to fans in Ann Arbor. I have two jobs and I work a little more than forty hours a week. The Tigers and the Pistons are doing good. God is in his heaven and all is right in the world. I’m in love with Robin and I’ve finally found someone I love more than anyone ever. We’re going to get married once she graduates and I can see a happy ending in the works. I’m sure there’s more I could say, more people I could mention and more drama to go in to, more important events I ought to go on about. Doors have been closed and windows have been opened and at the moment, I’m satisfied.

Robin’s been scared for the past few weeks. She has to move out of the shit sty Kelly and her putrid little cabal made the apartment she elected to share with her… although it was more like Kelly imposing her will on someone with a good nature, a trusting heart and an innocent demeanor. To some extent: she’s spoiled that for Robin and that pisses me off. Now that it’s almost over, I guess now’s a good time to tell everyone what happened as far as I can tell: Robin hadn’t stayed in her place since about Thanksgiving when we got back together after this awkward break we took. Shortly after Christmas break began and Robin was back in New Jersey, Tiffany and Mark had keys cut for them to the building and the apartment by Kelly and there began their move in. From there, whenever we would go over, it would get worse and worse. Picture a dumpster, complete with garbage, cigarette butts, empty bottles and cans, rotten food, with a TV, puke-stained carpet and four sacks of trash. One named Brooke, a friend of Tiffany’s who claims to be an ex-cocaine addict. Don’t sweat it though: from the look of her, she’s recovered nicely—she gained the weight back and everything. Another named Mark, who left his place he shared with Alex and Veronica because they made insulting demands (like “where’s your share of the rent this month?”) and made impossible requests (like “would you please take a shower?”) which is totally understandable. I mean, a guy can’t be expected to act like an adult when he’s twenty-one, right? He’s got a world of drinking to do.
Speaking of drinking, there’s the next one. There’s the girl who makes friends with who ever has the beer or Jack or what have you. If it gets her drunk, she wants all of it and she loves you as long as you have a forty for her. That’s Tiffany. The perpetually hung over in class, fish-faced girl who loves drama, lying, acting the victim and talking you to death. I’m not exaggerating. Hang out with her for ten minutes, which is six hundred seconds. She’ll somehow speak four thousand words about people you don’t know, stuff you don’t care about and music you don’t like.
And queen shit herself: Kelly. The girl who seems to be in need of sycophants—not friends. Yes men who think it’s hilarious when she rips on them. People like Mark, Tiff and Brooke. Pretty much everything you just read about those cats she’s probably made light of to their face. Kelly the girl who tries harder to drink more, smoke more, fuck more and party more than she does study more. Kelly the girl who always is busy trying to seem punk rock (with Green Day, No doubt, Blink 182 and Sum 41 in her iPod) that she forgets how to be a decent person to anyone in her vicinity. Kelly the student who has learned a grand total of zero in college because she’s managed to bullshit her way around assignments and is content to get a C in everything. Kelly the leader who led her three person army in to staying up until five in the morning and sleeping until five in the afternoon and cleaning their bodies a grand total of never. Kelly the cunt who would rather be a bully than a friend to Robin in saying nasty things and making sleeping in her own place impossible.
That’s the place that Robin could have lived. She elected to stay here with me. This semester has been relatively uneventful as we’ve avoided them when at all possible, which made for a very growth friendly environment. I think Robin did pretty well in her classes. And that’s encouraging, but it’s still like… where do they get off making her place un-livable? What gives them the right to make her want to leave by acting like monsters until she doesn’t even bother putting her suit case in her place when she got back in January?
I guess the question I should be asking is why didn