Wednesday, December 17, 2008

High on The Mariner

 




My home is a bar/cafe in Jackson, North Carolina I troubled into a few years back. According to the winking electric sign above it it's called The Mariner, but don't go calling it that when you're in Jackson, they'll know your from out of town. The older folks call it the diner, which has a more timeless and universal ring to it. The diner sat at the edge of the washed out hamlet by a bridge that carries the young soldiers softened from boot camp down to the shores of Georgia. Large thick bushes and coats of weary graffiti covered most of the establishment's pre-botox, sea-foam green, and neon finery. The inside conjured up visions of roller rinks and broken disco balls. It had art deco chairs, new wave counter tops, and sports a color scheme that made your eyes wail. This little girl named shelly worked the bar and zipped around the grill. Shelly had a little too much of her daddy in her, but her crooked tiny mouth spun into the prettiest little smile. She pounded her shoes into dust everyday in that place from sunrise and well under sun down to keep her little boy at home clothed and well fed.

I asked her where the father was and all she said was, "that man taught me only one lesson; leave them wanting." 

She poured thick black cups of coffee and put extra whip cream on my pie without me even asking. She let me stay all night, and as I scribbled every other thought down we chatted about little things and I almost forgot about the long road I still had ahead of me. Now and then I'd let her peek inside my note book and she would nod and smile at me vacantly. Her smile was so warm and certain. I imagined her boy beaming with pride under the same smile with his crayon drawing hoisted up at her. I was riding high on Shelly's river of black coffee, the brilliant incandescence of the pool of aged workers filling up the Mariner's tiny corners. They all came in for the same thing, to huddle under Shelly's smile. 

"I swear she looks like Nina Simone after a dog day afternoon," a knobby faced man whispered to me. In this place, in this haven shelly was patron saint of weary union men, tree splitters, and delivery drivers. Shelly was Joan of Arch, Cleopatra, and Patsy Cline to this grayed collection she tirelessly poured her days into.

When the little hand finally rested on three, Shelly closed the Mariner up, while I protected her from the rain with the latest addition of the Jackson Chronicle. 

"Where are you staying tonight," she said meekly.

"At the Horizon on Peach Tree."

"They've got a cafe in that place," she smiled at me," why come all the way out here?"  

"I heard the prettiest girl poured the best coffee in town at the Mariner."

She laughed. 

"You're a lier, but I'll take you home anyway."

When we got into Shelly's house the three penny tour only got us to the couch. We kicked off our shoes and watched a cartoon cat sing Is you is or is you ain't my baby. We locked arms, half watching the television, and took turns stealing glances at one another. 

"I imagine I could spend my whole life just like this," she said with her lips pressed against my ear.

"I imagine one could," I said.

The next morning I pulled out onto the road.  From then on I was a unceasing dismal comet headed toward an apparition and away from a fantasy.  

 

Saturday, November 29, 2008

Saturday, November 22, 2008

Beat Speak Definitions

Now that my time in the Dirty is dwindling I thought it would be key to write preserve the multifaceted cluster fuck of bluesy inspired verbal deluge that is beat speak. The origins of beat speak are murky. I've heard it said that it began when Ginsberg found Kerouac mumbling to himself face down drunk on charley Patton's grave (the real one in mexico.). Ginsberg wrote it down while in a whiskey and ether fit, but lost the paper somewhere on his way to Pomona. It only re-emerged later in 2006 in Savannah. It's rules seem in fathomable and many outsiders confuse it for Australian. 

Daily Definitions:

Hitch:(Noun) Your steady bike, or the bike that you go to battle on. 
example: Sweet hitch boss-man, looks ripe for chazzer killing. 
Note: a beater bike is never called a hitch. If a man calls your beater bike a hitch, he's making fun of your shitty ride.

Beater or beater-biker: (Noun) A bike that is poorly made, poorly maintained, or made up of junk parts.
example: I just threw beater together out of odds, ends, and chicken wire.
Note: Beaters are best used only as a last resort to jettison a bad scene, no self-respecting rider cuts on a beater.

Walking the dog: (Phrase) A term used for when a man dates an unattractive woman.
Example: I had to walk the dog last summer to break my love drought.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

delta scrape

Alright, these two boys've got the best delta scrape I've heard. The Delta scrapes that scratchy voice you get from sucking up too much dust, whiskey, and cigarettes in your life. 




charley Patton


Tom Waits

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Bar-none

what will we say now that the adder has turned black?

when the face of oppression is masked by our own?

Will we still rattle our shackles after we've transposed their marks on his  wrists?

Is this the change we sought coming, or is the coming change a turn from white and black to horrible gray?

will we fight so vigorously now that it is no longer them against us, but just us? 

Sunday, November 16, 2008

The angry pilgrim

One more week of college, I've been waiting with baited breath for this one. I'm coloring pages feverishly to keep up with posting deadlines and prepare my work for submissions. Times ticking but I cant help but look up old blues men for inspiration there's so many great fellas I haven't discovered yet. Just came across ol Furry Lewis





and Bukka or Booker White



Anyway, keep checking out the Tug Benson web-comic every Monday and Thursday. 

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Tug Benson web-comic up!


I just posted The Tug Benson website yesterday. It doesn't look like much yet, but in time as I figure out comic press, I'll make the site cooler. Also, since I only post Monday and Thursday you won't see any unseen pages for a couple weeks. that's all from me.

yours
Ben

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Walking Tug



I've been working on inking more up coming pages for the Gospel of Tug Benson comic. This is just a spot illustration for the banner. Originally the comic was going to be a web comic exclusively, but during comics art forum a couple of the visiting artists advised me to start submitting the story to publishers. If it got picked up I'd get some green up front, unlike a web comic. Anyhow I'll keep you's posted. The site should be up in a week or two.

peaces

Monday, November 10, 2008

intro page 3

This took a bit of time to color, more than normal really. I kicked the power cord out of my computer after a hours worth of work and lost it all.

Sunday, November 2, 2008

angle angler



this is a editorial comic I'm doing for a contest about our financial crisis and it's causes. I picked the issue about credit card companies targeting college students.

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

cluck cluck mo fuck!

this was going to be a spoke card for a alley cat race here in the dirty but it fell through oh well. I think it's a little over the top, I blame it on watching too much super jail.

Monday, October 27, 2008

Sunday, October 26, 2008

the gospel of tug benson introduction page 1

this is the first page of my tug benson web-comic.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

3 am page 5

alright, here's page five of my Tug Benson comic. Hopefully my web-comic site will be up at the end of November, so you can read the story in order.

jiggs

Monday, October 20, 2008

columbia's revolution


by Columbia I don't mean the country, rather the original personification of the USA. I did this for the recess cover.

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Oh those poor rich folks!

did this for a new mag in Savannah called recess, it's kind of a throw back for me.

Monday, October 13, 2008

The Pack

Oh Hudson, my lovely lady. My little mill town is so remote and the gravel roads so winding to her center that truckers swear that Hudson floats freely between the Mason-Dickson and the Forty-ninth parallel. There is a thread of truth there.
The fall had brought an early flurry and crippling economic misfortune nation wide. Nearly every man woman and child was employed by the Hudson Valley Lumber Company, the company kept its money in the Western Federal Bank. When the market fell it took every bank in the country down with it. The morning we all heard the news they found Boss Thompson’s body three floors below his balcony. When the workers went in at the morning whistle they found a note and locked doors. The mill couldn’t pay anyone’s salaries, everyone was sent home without a weeks pay. At home they found that the houses that they lived in, which were owned by the mill, were being foreclosed on them and the families were sent out into the unyielding frost. With no money to move to another town, most families took all they owned and set-up tar paper and tin shacks near the dump south of town. So in this way the little town of Hudson moved five miles south of itself.
I had no business driving my heap of a car anywhere. It had a shot transmission, the carburetor had a hitch in its giddy-up, the tires were bald, and the radiator had a runny nose. It was a sorry sight. It wasn’t the cars fault, my Packard had become the manifestation of the deep loathing of the financial advantage I had over most of the citizen’s of Hudson. It was my whipping boy. But a cowboy needs a horse and a college boy needs a ride to his campus. I rode my whipped stallion down to the grayed town center to McCoy Auto, a red brick hovel owned by an old friend named Marks. I haven’t the faintest idea who McCoy is.
If I was kind I’d say he was stout, but really he was fatter than any man should be in times of financial strife. But I knew his spirit; there wasn’t a man more giving. Despite the increasing chill, reams of frail, shaggy men stamped the morning powder with determined feet. The marred snow rose and mixed with the sunlight and covered the queues of men. The glaze of white made the shivering men look like apparitions. They came out to fill the precious few jobs that would crop up. Every morning throngs appeared outside the mill doors to fill positions that were already gone like a name written in water.
When I pulled into the garage Marks was berating the three nappy headed boys he’d hired to sweep glass and mop up grease. They seemed to spend more time next to the radio than behind a broom. He looked like an emphatic preacher before an indifferent throng. They ran their big dirty shoes through the gravel and passed jovial glances beneath Marks’ glowering. One couldn’t blame them, there wasn’t but two cars in the lot, business and therefore dirt was sparse.
“Morning Boss, my Packard’s on its last leg,” I said stepping out of the car.
“I bet that last one’s got a limp in too. You know times are too tough to throw money in pyre like that Packard, you should learn how to tinker around on your own.” Mark huffed out with a grin.
“My father was a mechanic,” I said, “I never inherited that gift from him. I’m all thumbs when it comes to working on machines.”
Marks circled my car and smiled again.
“Roll it in boys and jack it up.” A boy yawned. “If words won’t move you my hands sure will, now get on before I clap them on you,” he bellowed. Lazily, the boys took my keys and drove my car into the garage.
“How’s things Marks?” I looked over his face. Marks’ eyes were sunk into his dark face; streaks of grease lined his white beard.
“Nothing another banker with bad news can’t make worse.” He grinned. “A man with clean shoes came by today. My daddy told me to never trust a man with clean shoes. Those kinds of men could never understand more than dollars and cents and they’ll glad hand you into the street to get yours.”
“You get some bad news today?” I asked
“It’s a bad news year.”
“Hard times give us room to grow I guess,” I shrugged and brushes of the seat of a wicker chair.
Marks frowned.
“Grow into what? The only thing growing are rich men’s pockets and starving men at the soup lines. I was out there yesterday talking to father Tom. He said they’ll have to shut the soup kitchen down if Sunday collection doesn’t pick up. Imagine that, even goes in a recession. If God can’t feed the poor, I don’t know who’s left to help.” He lit a cigarette and smirked out a puff of smoke.
“I guess this is why I come to you for a fix up and not to lift my spirits.”
A black cloud from the west descended on the white touched roved of the mill. The lines of men buttoned up their coats and covered their mouths with rags.
Marks watched the cloud blanket the lines of workers. “How many times will clay footed bankers crumble under the weight of their own greed?”
“Our politicians will see us through, that’s what we elect them for.” I stretched my legs out and watch the boys jack my car up.
“Those politicians got the same ideas about poverty that old time Christians had about leprosy, they assume a bodies responsible for their own predicament. Besides, they don’t know what’s going on anymore than the birds in the trees.”
“That’s that red talk; you’ve been letting too many communists cross your door step.”
“White man been covering us in red so long we finally said, okay, we’re red.”
The bulging lines outside of the mill began to thin as distraught men headed back to their tar paper town. I turned to Marks, who was looking out at the men.
“So what’ll we do Marks, how do you hope against hope?”
He stood up and made his way to the shop’s office.
“Capitalism’s for carnivores son, and most of us weren’t gifted the teeth. I just pray you don’t get that kind of hungry,” he muttered. “We’ll get your car going.
The sun lay low in the sky by the time I rolled away from Marks and the boys. I stopped at an intersection a block away I saw him put a for sale sign in his office window. I was the only car on the road and would have been home in minutes, but I took my time and sped away from the oppressive mill and the somber town. When I got home my parents were eating supper. I watched silently as my father chewed on his steak.

Sunday, October 12, 2008

3am page 4

GOD! These take a really long time. I like how they're coming out, but the coloring is way too dark. I think I might revert to a limited palette in the next story, we'll see.

yours for the wild,
Ben

The angler

My grandfather shook the sleep of me early in the morning. It had rained all in night like it does every fall and the fish were rubbing the surface of the sea with their backs. Maybe they were anticipating the whole earth filling to the brim and free for them to move around in.

We were to go fishing. My grandfather was not an avid fisherman , but he felt like a man should feel avid about something. I was unimpressed with the notion, however cynicism is the broth in which adolescence floats about.

We made our way down the slick cobblestone street that spanned the little town. We passed an angler. He was old, maybe as old as my grandfather, but the heavy wind of the sea and a life of plunging his hands into the slit bellies of fish had made his face worn, his eyes sunken, and his nails black and thick. The thick rubber pants were caked with dirt and his dense old sweater was soaked through. We looked passed him and down to the docks, which were normally lined with greyed fishing boats. The storm had found it's way into the dock and had thrown many boats into the dock and onto the large rocks on the bay. Men were hoisting buckets of out of flooded fishing vessels or scavenging what they could from wooden carcasses on the shore.

I noticed the angler was carrying a bag on his and a placard that had likely been on the rear of his lost boat that said "Betty." Most men's livelihoods were bound to the health of their ships.
"We're going fishing!" I smiled at the angler, who was glancing our way.
"I don't think he gives a shit," my grandfather muttered.

I caught nothing that day.

Saturday, October 11, 2008

The bike brigade on tour

Also the image called Liam got into a local show at Desoto row here in Savannah

fuckin fuck fucky fuck fucky school

I posted this mostly as an example of why I, Ben Passmore, am over college. This is a color sketch of some character for a insipid magazine in Charleston. I hate it and every moment I spend on it and works like it induce waves of dry heaving followed my dread pulling.

Other than this I've gotten involved with a little zine called recess, I'll be doing a comic and a short story for the first issue, so that's a nice reprieve.

yours

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

3 am to dewberry page three

alright folks I just finished page three, these are taking a whole heck of a lot longer than I thought, yowza!

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

The Gospel of Tug Benson: 3am to Dewberry

Hey party people, I'm working on a web-comic for my last quarter in school. It's a conflagration of a lot of stories I've already written fit into a story about a man in the middle of a union power struggle and a mill owner's greed. I had to write a definition of the comic and I'm pretty proud of it.


The only Web Comics creator, who consistently produces soundly researched character driven stories of alienation, turmoil, and class struggle in a composite industrial world situated between the 1870’s to the 1950’s for Neo Wobblies, Anarcho Syndicalists (better known as anarcho-communists or anarcho-collectivists), Traditional Socialists, Beat fans, Unionists, and Anti-Dispensationalists in the U.S.A, Canada, and Europe, who enjoy surveying congruencies of our nation’s disintegration under the weight of industrial avarice and individualism, both then and now, in a time when the themes of alienation, personal struggle, and classism are constantly reoccurring in new and increasingly more complex contexts.

It sounds a lot more complicated than it's going to be.


Monday, September 15, 2008

liam "The Eye" Leahy

Just finished another and maybe my last poster for a while, classes are looking pretty heavy in the work area. This is Liam, who was pretty essential to the jump of of my politicization.

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Falling (working title.)

I knew her before we met. She was one of those girls that juggle their almond eyes to each bright spot in a dark alley. The kind of girl that found joy in even the longest, darkest hour. But some pain hung under her shining celebration.
We met in a neon studded windowless pool hall in Santa Barbara. Her face floated close to my ear as she slured into my ear the end pieces of all her adventures. She trailed off and I stuck close to her pretty curls. She would rise up every other minute, sometimes standing on her stool, and expel a dodgy enlightened exhaltation. Her face would flash with a fading beam, only to dim when she'd collapse in my arms like a whales tail into a placid sea.


I wrapped her up in my arms and we swung to Nina and Billie between tightly wound old couples in tweed over coats and sun worn summer dresses. She smiled a deep smile.
Imagine if I found my one and only tonight, she cooed.
I'm one to be sure, maybe not the only, I said.
But our bodies belied our distant conversation and squeezed together tighter and tighter still.
You'll do as my only one. Her eye lashes grazed the crestof my cheek. We funnled our bodies into the Packered and our night's destiny on the road ahead. All the world's a stage, she said, let's tear down the lighting and set the curtains on fire! Her tiny fists pounded my rust bucket's sloping roof.
You listening to me, she asked with spiked accusation, anybody home?
Nobody but us chickens, I said as I started up the car. It jumped and I led us out on to the howling streets, where men and women roam in tenative clusters like starved dogs. My wheels flung the street dust and grime from us and we fell into the unyeilding nighttime.

Saturday, September 13, 2008

The bee's wax

Nothing much to report as of late. I'm resuming my posters more slowly than surely these days as my long trip has worn away a few layers of my resolve. I'm playing at a few new strips for We Think For You and a story line for my next comic for portfolio. Work, work, work is in my near future. Sorry to be so monotone and dismal.

On a lighter note I've learned a new appreciation for viking handshakes.

yours,
The less-than-honorable Revrend Ben Passmore

Saturday, August 23, 2008

Slavan's Fall





Slavan’s Fall

He had seen the grate numerous times on his way to work at the Broad Nation Delivery Service. Often on the long walk to work through the dense city streets his mind would move from considering the multitude of packages and parcels he was bound to deliver to the topography of the sidewalk he was walking on. Everyday as he turned the last corner next to the grand Broad Nation Delivery Service he enjoyed staring down the deep dark chasm under it’s metal threading. The grate itself was unusually large, taking up eight square feet of the dingy sidewalk and although one could see a ways down the hole was it clogged with thick, black pipes like sable tree trunks and was very dark. The hole eventually led to a subway platform, which he knew because every once and a while he could hear an automated female voice say, “The L train is now arriving,” and the clamoring of the train.
One day, as his feet clacked on the metal grate he heard a voice from under the grate say, “I need you.” It sounded just like the automated voice of the train platform, but it was filled with subtle emotion. It trickled meekly up to him from inside the dark hole. He wasn’t sure if his mind was playing tricks on him. He was so familiar with hearing the platforms voice everyday that it had blended into the noise of the city; that is until now. The voice spoke again, “ I need you. I love you.” He started to laugh out loud to himself. “That’s awfully personal for an automated machine” he said, “It must be some kind of gag.” He continued on his way to work.
On the very next day as he passed over the same large grate he heard her voice again. “I need you. I love you. I want you,” it said.
“Alright, that’s a fine joke, but you gotta know when to cut it off,” he said with a furrowed brow.
“I need you. I love you,” she cooed.
“I said that’s enough!” He screamed and stormed down the street.
Now you or I would not have paid this voice much more than mild curiosity. We certainly would not have devoted any strong emotions to it. But, he is not like us. He had no family or friends, not even a faithful pet. He was oppressively lonely. He had been so solitary for so long that he had forgotten what desire or companionship felt like. When the sputtering voice from under the grate admitted it’s tender feelings to him it cut through his thick layers of suppression and ripped him in two. A flood of long discarded emotions came back to him.
The next day he walked around the grate and onto the busy street where cars honked at him and screeched their tires. To his surprise he didn’t hear the voice. He paused and listened closely, but all he could here was the distant echo of people boarding the subway and of course, angry motorists. So he continued to walk to work.
For the next few days after that he walked around the grate and the voice did not call out to him. Occasionally, he would hear it say, “The L train is now arriving,” but nothing more. In a way he missed the voice, after all there was no one else to tell him they loved, or needed him. Some how he felt even more alone. This may be why he walked across the grate again. He stepped on it slowly, one step at a time and squinted into the dark hole. Suddenly he heard it, “I need you. I love you. I want you.” “yes,yes,yes,” he said and ran off.
Each day afterward he walked over the grate and when she spoke to him he would drop a little present down to her through the spaces in the metal threading. At first it was a little piece of candy. Then he dropped flowers down to her that he got from the florist on top of his apartment. He would talk to her as he slipped his presents to down the hole. He would say, “I need you. I love you. I want you.”
On a particularly rainy and lonely night he took a walk to see her. From a distance he saw a large white truck with orange lights. Construction workers had lifted the massive grate and were doing some work on the pipes. He felt as if pitiless strangers were invading his love, they would laugh at him if he tried to talk to her. When he tried to pass under the line of yellow tape surrounding the hole a massive hairy man in an orange hard hat stopped him.
“Sorry boss, we’re doing some work here. You’ll have to go around.”
His face grew hot. “But I don’t want to go around, I want to see her!”
The large man looked confused.
“Look nut, get lost,” the big man said.
He pushed the construction worker out of his way and ran toward the hole. Another worker emerged from the hole.
“Stay away from her,” the man screamed at him and pushed him aside.
The construction workers grabbed at his coat.
“It’s a forty foot drop you stupid bastard!”
He dove down into the deep hole and for a moment the air was cool and everything turned a soft, thick black, but suddenly the pipes grew thicker and he slammed head first into the tiny gap between them. He tried to squeeze through, but he only managed to get stuck upside down. The air was acrid and musty, his eyes burned and he couldn’t see. He wailed in pain,
“I need you. I love you. I want you!”

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

artistic progress goes blarg

Very sick of school and classes. But, my bike trip from Baltimore down to the dirty is in five days and counting so I'm stoked for that. Here's a class project I did, it's an add for a wild life park and another croquil doodle of myself.

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

my muse the many faced minstrel of misinformation

I just got back from New York this morning at 6:00 am, I'm in that space between reality until I can get back on my Savannah schedule. My trip was good on all fronts, a good us of my time and treasure as a late English lord would describe it. Anyway, I bought some inks and paper to draw with and I ended up with a croquil; I never use them but Kate said I should so I did this drawing below. So if you think is sucks blame Kate, because I never use croquils. Just kidding of course...I still use croquils once and a while.
oh! Also I threw it in photoshop of course.


-yours, ect.

Thursday, August 14, 2008

chicken vs the Nat City Knar Reeper

here's another poster, this time of Patrick. I'm not settled on a few things, but it looks good to me over all.

Monday, August 11, 2008

mini marcos


this is the final munny I did for the munny show here in the dirty.

frankenstamp

finally finished with this slock Frankenstein stamp for class. Also, I had to do a long format rap for Hotels.com.

Sunday, August 10, 2008

Hermes

The pungent smell of basura and hot gravel reminds me of Mam and the Pines in the summer of 89. We lived on the corner of Palm and Meadow avenues, which are laughable names to anyone who has seen my neighborhood. The mass lay-offs of line workers from the looming Tucker’s Tomato Paste plant on the edge of town was in conjunction with the garbage workers strike. Towering piles of lumpy black trash bags stood between our bedraggled salmon colored stucco apartments, all baking in the August sun. There was no work to be had anywhere, so most people sat on their stoops in clumps and listen to the radio or lay lazily next to an electric fan. Mam made us stay in side our musty apartment.
“Look at those lazy’s sitting around like lizards,” Ma said to me. She had her purple slacks on, the ones she wore for job interviews or when we took trips to the social services office. Manuela was sitting in her little Oscar the grouch booster seat swinging her little feet into the under side of the table. She was restless, Mam rarely let us out to play with the other kids. I didn’t mind much, didn’t get along much with the other kids, but I felt bad for Manuela.
“Sure the factory closed, but you got to make money, you got to eat. What do they think, if you don’t move you won’t get hungry?” She cracked open some peanuts with her strong hands. “Stop kicking my table baby, eat some nuts.”
All day Mam would clean our cracked tiled floor or heave away another piece of dad’s furniture with Uncle Gabriel to pawn down the street.
Soon there was no more furniture. The electricity was turned off, along with the water. Mam had to fill up the tub and toilet with water from our neighbors hose. She used to sneak under my window every morning, but I see her. I started putting out juice for her, so she’d know that I was grateful. She stopped sneaking after that.
Everyday my stomach ached more, it mumbling to me, pleading for food. Our refrigerator was long gone and my sister and I would sit and stare at the clean rectangle on the wall it had left.

Friday, August 8, 2008

I meet a man on the stairs who wasn't there...


I'm starting to take these series of pictures with word bubbles with random objects and people that tell a story. The story and the object will be totally unrelated...or will they?

Thursday, August 7, 2008

MR. Frank: back in black

he's a little scarier this go around, some said he looks like he's got a beard going. I feel like I'm okay with that, every man should have a respectable beard.

EZLN

This is the finished poster for the munny's show this friday.

I am wet

It's been a hundred and five degrees outside with unmeasurable amounts of humidity, it's got me sweating more than a whore in church.

Brandon's flying down to the grand ol dirty to see me, so here's how! Our bike trip is going to start in less than two weeks.

yours, ect.

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Deny Deny

We had precious little to do that very dry summer in our precious little town of Vandusenville. Ronnie spent half his time elbows deep in thick iron steamers for Fran Igan in Domainy's laundromat. The other half he spent with me retracing the same worn brick streets we'd tread since kinder garden. Vandusenville was oppressively familiar, it was rare that anything new eeked it's way into our valley town.

Ronnie liked to imagine that he was a hardened detective in a booming, malevolent metropolis. He would watch The Long Kiss Good Night over and over again, so much so that the Murphy's Video made him buy the movie since Ronnie wouldn't let anyone else watch it. He started to wear his father's old grey suit with a loose collared shirt under it. We'd sit in the bowling alley parking lot most Saturday nights. The neon lights cascading across the roofs of musty parked cars and the high pitched ring of bottles in the lane's barroom reminded me of some dark city with dark people and even darker secrets. Ronnie would pace in front of me, twisting a wooden toothpick between his thin lips. "Of course I'm nice baby, I'm a detective," he'd say over and over with a smile. He was transforming into a new animal right in front of me, he was becoming something new and exciting. Ronnie seemed to contain all the possibility for creation in the universe under his dirty sport coat. I decide to give him a flat foot name so I called him Phil Deny.

When the sun was high and the ground was too hot to walk on we'd find refuge under the 17 bridge that reached over the dried Lee river. The grimy concrete supports of the bridge pierced the hot ground and provided a tall flat canvas for Vandusenville's budding artists.
A week before the end of August Ronnie's father decided to send him to private school next Winter. His father was the local minister with all the pomp and square jawed morality you'd expect. The school was forty miles away.

We wrote "Phil Deny" in black paint on the largest concrete support. We wanted to remember this summer, when our tiny town became the shifting shadows of a tumultuous and sinister city. I wanted to remember Phil Deny forever.

In November a deep frost threw Karin's High School sweet heart off the 17 bridge, which ended his life. Karin never slept and other night. One late, restless night she plodded along the edge of thew empty river to the underside of the long arched bridge. Her heart beat against her chest faster and faster as she reached the site of the crash. His old Ford still lay in the deep snow. She didn't feel the slicing Winter wind or the deep freezing chill. Suddenly, she saw written on the concrete support the name Phil Deny. Did she think it was a message from her lost love? Or was seeing his name laid out so prominently too much for her little heart? Without pause she threw herself down a chasm between the looming concrete supports.

The police found her the day Ronnie was to leave for private school. Ronnie read the paper religiously ever since he'd taken to being a detective type. He had worked out the cause of Karin's death that morning over his Cheerios. We stood on the shore of the empty river and watched the endless parade of navy clad police retrace the same path along the chasm. They were snapping pictures and leaning into each other to make comments.

"Phil Deny's dead," Ronnie said to me. These days I often forget what Ronnie's face looked like, but the image of Phil Deny is burned into my memory forever.

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

It's alive-ish!



I've been spending so much time on personal work that I totally forgot to do my homework. I cranked out this Frankenstein's monster for today's class though.

daffy with wanton waiting?

I find that I'm often caught in the crossfire between reality and expectation. The big hand and little one continue their tireless marathon, quite contrary to even their wishes I think. I would like a brief pause so that future or destiny could not be so immediately pertinent. I take many entitled breaks, but it's a bit like staying still on an escalator.

Monday, August 4, 2008

Stick a fork in me, I'm done.



This is very neat. You can see more for free at future shorts on yutube.com.Ben is very sleepy, he's been up til five coloring inside the lines. He would like to shot himself in the jaw, but there's just so much left to do. On the up side I've found my note book under a pile of clothes and I just got some sweet pannier bags for my next bike trip!

Saturday, August 2, 2008

heart of teflon

My wife left me after an extensive erotic tour of Gillespie’s verdant midtown. All the while I sat at home unaware while she pointed her feet to the sky and emptied her head of any sense of duty, commitment, or regret. I brought her to sleeping around, she said, because I showed her little attention in carnal matters. It seemed to me that the punishment didn’t nearly fit the crime. If a dog bites you rap it on its nose and send it outside, not empty out your rifle into its gullet.

part a new story.

yours, ect.

Friday, August 1, 2008

Vivo Gentes, Vivo EZLN!

what's up party people?! This is the line work for a new poster for the Munny show. It's a bull bike with a EZLN skeleton and Commindante Marcos riding on it. I'm not sure where I stand on the Zapatistas really, I'm in favor of all legit peoples movments, but I've here some not so favorable things about the EZLN too. Anyway, I'm stoked on this poster.

Yours, ect.

Thursday, July 31, 2008

Ol Jay Dog 2 Cents


Yes! Another poster done, finally. It took forever for me to finish this for some reason. This is my boy Jeremy. I'm well under way with a EZLN piece that'll accompany my Zapatista munny. So lot's of good work today. Unfortunatly, I've lost my note book somewhere, so a whole summer of notes for short stories, comics and bike posters are gone....so that's awesome. sigh, hopefully it'll turn up!

Yours, ect.

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

rumors of progress have been greatly exaggerated

Here's a couple of quotes from yester year that I think are nicley topicail.

"what man can make, man can unmake.
Frederick Douglas

"The time has come to change the tones of submission into tones of defiance."
JW Loguen

Monday, July 28, 2008

Danny the rusty pool shark

The jukebox wailed through the nighttime outside Mikal's Package. I sat under the awning with Clive, who was all how-you-doings and back slapping. I've been rumbling in idle all night. It's not that there's nothing to do, there's just nothing to do quick. The waves of the future are covering this acrid and gauss covered town. Religious feeling numbs men's toes and tips of their fingers. The clouds collapse like two oncoming trains. Old neptune is dragging us down with him and all I can do is wait for my quarter malted milk.

Sunday, July 27, 2008

lost at...

Both the car and I were in a jam. It was crammed beneath eleven inches snow and I was locked in a conversation I couldn't escape from.
"I need you to take care of me," you cooed through parted lips.
"I don't live enough life for two," I said.
"But I love you," You pleaded.
I turned the key again. The car turned over, and died.
You lowered your eyes.
"Dan." I heard you say.
I let go of the key.
"Your eyes are the only visible part of your body, you know," I said. "Save for that your inside is a mystery to me. People are like seas, infinite, torrential, foreign. You can slap a few shoddy planks together and try to navigate a body, but you can't really know someone that way, not in a hundred years."
I turned the car over. It jolted free from the snow back and we meandered onto the slick road.
"Dan," you said pleadingly.
"How could you love me, if you don't know me."

Thursday, July 24, 2008

ZZZ

I had a seven hour day. I woke up at three pm this afternoon, who does that? Clearly, more time needs to be spent preaching the revolution and writing sea shanties than sleeping.
With that in mind the following is a excerpt from a W.E.B Dubois speech.

God wept; but that mattered little to an unbelieving age; what mattered most was that the World wept and still is weeping and blind with tears and blood.

Really lifts up your spirit, right?

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Maybe Somewhere But Not Here

On a dog day afternoon we crawled cowardly through the musty cobwebbed streets of the old cobbled town. It would be over soon. The vibrant arch of our adolescence was spinning into a plodding, muted, vexedness. We wanted to go out with a bang. All helter skelter thoughts of time and tide were toned down by our newer mundane labours.
We collapsed into the night. The sweaty sweet neon pulse of our teenage bar fantasies was sullied by the truth. They were just rooms. Rooms where people dreamed of something somewhere else. Rooms where people chased dreams around shadowed corners and up, and down knotted, rusty fire escapes. Escapes, they sought escapes. We sought escapes.

The Polish Taco

Malcom's was an old saloon across town. The place hadn't seen any maintenance in decades. Dust hung on the place like a coat of paint. I had started working the night shifts to pay off my tab and earn a little for a train ticket back east.
The owner was a slack-jawed Irishman from South Cork. He had gotten it into his head to make a special meal a day. So he got a chalk board and wrote, "Tuesday: Polish Taco." It was half a sow kidney stuffed with chicken and onion. As far as I know it doesn't have a thread of polish roots.
No one bought the special. No one ever ate there. So the owner never made another special and never bothered to take the chalk board down. So everyday was Tuesday: Polish Taco day.

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

To Discipline the Body.

I woke up tomorrow as I always do. Regret flitted in my pocket so I played with it all day.

missing

"Maybe I was made with a piece missing," you said with a smile. You always smiled so tragicly.
We rested and let our shadows play against the tilted wall with the shadows of stacked washers and shopping carts. Laying side by side, we slept under the East end bridge where 80 North meets 102. The roar cars overhead beat the metal planks covering the bridge like a drum. I woke up in the morning to the clang and the deep soak of the morning dew. You were missing agian. I rubbed the last two quarters you'd left me together and thought, "is it missing if it's meant to be gone?"

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

The Reno



what's going family? Here's another poster that I'm far from satisfied with. It's of my boy Richie Reno, on his back he's carting Betty Paige and David Lee Roth. The coloring gave me a lot of trouble for some reason and I'm not in love with the vector color scheme or design. sigh. So this is a work in progress. Who knew trying to crank out twelve posters in one month would be so tiring? On top of that I had a rude awaking this morning, it felt like something was trying to punch it's way out of my stomach, so not razor.

Saturday, July 12, 2008

CehNehDeh



This another illy bike poster. This is my Canadian comrade Degroote.

Monday, July 7, 2008

keeping the dream alive


sigh, Here's another attempt at the vector background. I made it a lot simpler this time, it might be a winner. If you don't see it at first dig the weird bird dog.

Any day now


I've been working on a new series of posters. It's going to be depictions of various bike kids here in the dirty at the moment of the revolution. It's kind of a gag. I'm stoked on the idea, this one here is of my good friend the doctor (not a real doctor.). I'm happy with him, but not all that crazy fuck vectoring in the background, I over did it. I think I've been plugging away at it too long and I burnt myself out. Oh well, more to come.

Friday, July 4, 2008

Rebel Girl



what's shaken party people? I haven't posted in a while, but whatever no one reads this schlock anyway. I've been incredibly unbusy, it's amazing just how much I haven't gotten anything done. I should get a metal. I have found the time to do this thing though, it's for my friends birthday. She is even more awesome than this picture depicts.

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

New Recruits



This year 18% of all recruitments into the Army are conviced felons(pedophiles, terrorists, ect.)and rising due to waining regular recruitments.

American Made



we've redeployed an average of 8,000 troops with untreated PTSD back into military action.

War in Basra



This is the colored version of War in Basra

I happen to hate New York

Ever see A Murder in Manhattan? Woody Allen, very shlepy, it's about a muder in Manhattan if you can believe it. My only hold my only appreciation for that town. The whole town is like a 3D QVC commercial.

Friday, June 6, 2008

Obama: Your black pass card.

As a black man and someone who is generally more leftist than not I think it's important for me to take Obama to task. White guilt seems to get in the way of holding him accountable, I think most of his voters want him to be the answer to our woes so bad their willing to ignore quite a bit. He makes me nervous to say the least. Anyway I'd thought I'd post this.


It's no small thing that Obama is courting the Isreal lobby as soon as he won the candidacy. This is really concerning in the face of all his talk about changing politics as usual and then going of the court AIPAC. sigh*

Thursday, May 29, 2008

My spring quarter is over with!

I've been pretty busy and I have a lot of work to post. But, rather than just repost my work I'm going to just lazily throw down a link to my deviantart site. I did four different editorial things as well as several short stories that are bearable.

http://blackpassmore.deviantart.com/

Thursday, May 1, 2008

obama is an antichrist and a long legged mack daddy.

this is magical.

http://barackobamaantichrist.blogspot.com/

also

youtube.com/watch?v=hfZqMkdpYi0

who are these people?

the evolution of the American worker.


Tuesday, April 29, 2008




this here's the man Mississippi Fred McDowell, pure Delta right here.

I've been working on a couple pieces for my courses I'll post them in a bit.

Saturday, April 5, 2008

Friday, March 21, 2008

Bolshevik Poster



small image of a Soviet Circus poster I did.

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Radio Zombie

My band Radio Zombie jammed out for a little while my bud Brandon (with the melodica) came down to the Dirty for a visit.



http://www.myspace.com/wishywashysuperdork

Monday, March 17, 2008

Haliburton



our swimming hole.

home sweet tent.
always with that gypsy music.






I just back from a wicked camping trip in Muskoca, Canada. My buddy works as a staff for a wilderness program, so I got a gig doing a snow-shoeing trip. The kids where cool, the camping was sweet, an all around sweet trip. Tiffany took some sweet pics for the trip.