Tombstone [Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt]

It's been a very strange and wonderful span of 240+ hours. Ideas and projects are a-brewing and I'll post some sketches once I get the chance.

Naughty bits by Conrad Roset

Thank you, Maelie.

Maeve Winona

My niece was born on Friday morning around 5:30AM. Seven pounds, six ounces of fricken adorable caterpillar.

Momentary lapse of judgment and privacy

1. Although I consider myself an open person, I'm finding my boundaries as far as respecting others' privacy, and my own. If I let loose all the little dirty secrets of the shitstorm I've been faring for the past 18 months, I would suddenly lose quite a bit of self-respect and quite possibly friends.
   
2. I still am filled with immense joy when someone I grew up with doesn't recognize me whatsoever when we bump into each other in a public place.
   
3. This weekend brings the last weekend of the Northern California Renaissance Faire, and with it sadness and some glee. I've missed out on some events around the Bay Area that I know I will be kicking myself for (i.e. Hoodstock '09, XY Scatter playing at the Blue Macaw after a year hiatus, the hip-hop show at The Stork Club Saturday night, Alternative Press Expo '09, and even GOGOL BORDELLO PLAYING AT THE FOX THEATER IN OAKLAND), but for the ... experience of the Ren Faire (basis for LARP, Confidential) and the very gracious, gorgeous, generous and thoroughly AMAZING people I have met through Nativearth, Schulps Pottery and good ol' Patrick Morris & archery, I wouldn't trade it for damn near anything.
4. Finally, I sadly have not made the deadline for Alternative Press Expo this year (Matthew Silady had offered to sell my comics at his two booths, which you should fucking check out anyway!!) BUT I will have material available online AND I'm working towards WonderCon '10. If there are any painters, artists, vagabonds that would like to work a table with me, please email me.
   
5. I got called a dumb grownup for the first time this week by a little girl I was trying to comfort. She was getting a flu shot (made a deal with my mother that if I went and got tattoos, I wouldn't complain about vaccinations or shots) and I was trying to tell her it would be okay, and she told me to shut up, that I was just another dumb grownup. I was deeply insulted.
   

And now for something completely different; pretending like I'll be going to do homework and not be a vandal.

When there's nothing left to burn ...

You aggravate the hell out of me, but you showed me something beautiful. I can only hope you find that kind of beauty in your world. I think you have.
I'm still looking for mine.
Final thoughts before indulging in the weekend and the strange thoughts and feelings that they entail:

I'm not sorry I met you
I'm not sorry it's over
I'm not sorry there's nothing left to say.

Naughty Bits via Chagrin
[Fine, yes, I was a copycat. Get over it]

[speechless]

It's been a long time since my faith in humanity has been revived or even restored.

Someone anonymously left a fruit tart and a note for my mother, wishing her a speedy recovery with her recent surgery.

I almost started crying, it was so simple and very beautiful.

Whoever you are, thank you for making my mom the happiest I've seen her in years.

Girl Anachronism

[Excerpt from my sketchbook, opening for mini-sode for Wingnut, "LARP, Confidential ®"]

Beginning to feel like all the Faire participants are escapists in their own right.
Life crams itself into every nook and cranny within the few days we're there, and it revives my best memories of art school, building sets for theater and even childhood. The euphoria is then wrapped in a sleeping bag, deep-fried in THC, homemade mead and lust. Dust lightly with Casa Boogers and serve between 59º - 96ºF.

Besides, where else can I hammer in tent-stakes with a 4-inch heel red pleather knee-high fuck-me boots?

As of late

We rejoiced when it was 95º in the shade, I had fun losing (Thumb Wars, 5-Card Stud Poker), and have never regretted leaving my sketchbook (or even just a BOOK, I normally carry at least one) at home more than this past weekend.
Hello randomly placed sketches and portraits, I missed you.
Don't ever leave me again.

P.S. The foot was from when I had to stay in bed part of June. The face was probably someone sitting in Bay Street. I am the one sporting the Sapporo label (in my top 3 favorite beers, thanks to my Shoko Hori), and I unintentionally did a portrait of a flute player in almost the same exact manner as my brother Michael's portraits of people. Right down to the bright colors.
Gotta love genetics ...?

Zombified, and loving it,

c.i.

Zehn

It's been 10 years today that my uncle was killed down in Mammoth Lakes on a motorcycle trip on his way up to see my mother and I. We were supposed to meet him the next day in Jamestown, just outside of Yosemite and Sonora.
Instead of moping around, mourning the loss, I ditched my Algebra II class this morning to sit out in the sun, listen to music and take a nap.
When I got up I tried to find his obituary online, but instead I got a link to Santa Anita Raceway where he was the finishing photographer for the races. I had no idea, but in the same week a jockey named J.C. Rodriguez was killed. A few lives summed up in a few sentences.

-------

This second weekend of Faire made it so I would miss Newark Days - the annual celebration of suburbia that includes a cast of the same yuppies and carnies every year. Thank God.
The escape came with a price: setting up camp in a space time continuum where nakedness was encouraged, intoxication rained down like the tomatoes at the "Flogging Booth" and the unshowered heathens that I've come to love and cherish in all of our LARP-ing glory resided.

And now, dear Lurker, I sit. I drink my coffee, and try to fudge my way through my online math homework.

Cheers,
c.i.

Ciao Bella, Ren Faire [First Weekend]

I was able to tack on an extra 500 geek points for being employed, very last minute, at the Northern California Renaissance Faire with my lovely Sydney, and will be wenching Gelato every weekend until October 18th.
I realize I have given out this URL to advertise my art, be patient: I need to install my "new" scanner when I'm not bombing online math tests.
And now for something completely different: a shower.

Fractured Ulna, Full Love

You roll off my tongue like smoke, and I'm struggling to keep you in my lungs.

"alone with everybody"
the flesh covers the bone
and they put a mind
in there and
sometimes a soul,
and the women break
vases against the walls
and the men drink too
much
and nobody finds the
one
but keep
looking
crawling in and out
of beds.
flesh covers
the bone and the
flesh searches
for more than
flesh.

there's no chance
at all:
we are all trapped
by a singular
fate.

nobody ever finds
the one.

the city dumps fill
the junkyards fill
the madhouses fill
the hospitals fill
the graveyards fill

nothing else
fills.

-c. b.

9.9.09

This is my brother and
(still feels weird saying this because I'm not even sure if it's official, but)
my sister-in-law, and my niece kinda chilling out.
I'm not sure what names they're coming up with, but I know this:
that kid is going to have some crazy hair and some insane want to draw/photograph people, or buzz their head and play bass and guitar (not like my brother and I ever did that ... -cough-).

Now accepting monetary donations to go see my brother and Melissa in New Mexico.

Also: thanks to the power of the internet, apparently there's a lot more people visiting this site. Bravo for being interested, hopefully you won't get scared off, and keep on lurking, you lurkers ^_^

Cheers,
Auntie C.I.

Uncle Tex

Moving back home with the parents has

• Made me eat healthier than I had when I was living on my own (although I do cook, it's nice to have two chefs for parents).
• Renewed the need to get the HELL back out there again, maybe out of the state or country. Go visit Shoko in Osaka. My 20s shouldn't be spent worrying about those damned student loans I had to take out just to finish my undergrad.
  
• Increased my chances of running into not one, but two kids from my graduating class of high school AND my 5th grade teacher all in one grocery store within a 20 minute span. One worked at said grocery store, and the other I recalled being an uptight gal who I don't remember even having conversations with. From the back I gawked at her FuckMe slingback white heels and rose-patterned strapless summer dress, and suddenly there was a face attached to it that I recognized. Awkward(turtle).
  
  ... Christ, all I remember from my 5th grade teacher were those godawful giraffe print dresses (not the pattern of giraffe hide, but actual giraffes just walking around on an otherwise perfectly nice dress. She had one with zebras, too) and the fact that she made us spend 3 months of our U.S. history on the Puritans. Therefore most likely solidifying my distaste for any kind of Puritan/Manifest Destiny dogma.
  

• Reawakened an obsession with 1950s cartoons, namely those done by Chuck Jones (directed "How The Grinch Stole Christmas", "The Dot and the Line", "Phantom Tollbooth", various Looney Tunes and Tom & Jerry), and good ol' Tex Avery ("Droopy" and "The Howling Wolf", co-creater of Looney Tunes, and the nameless redheaded siren). Thank you, Direct TV, I don't pay for you, but you've kept me up many nights with recorded caches of cartoons, movies, and Criminal Minds. ... The priorities in my life are astounding.
  

You may remember this from your childhood along with other various banned cartoons.
I think I blame Tex Avery for wanting to do various voices, facial expressions, and secretly wanting to be a redhead, ha.

In other news, I don't care if the online classes are eco-friendly, they're a pain in the ass. That is all.
Cheers,
c.i.

Balls on your forehead

I'm not sure why it took me so long to see Garden State, but I kind of love it.

And who doesn't want a Dick Cheney Desert Storm trading card?

I can die happy

CAUTION: SPOILERS Do NOT open if you haven't seen the movie yet, and don't come bitching to me.

But my GOD. The love for this movie continues.

Anger dwells in the bosom of fools

Thank you Jacob for sending me the Helmetfish. May Wisconsin treat you well in your last year of college.

Yesterday marked the last day of my summer of discontent, surgeries and debauchery, and I mean that in the best possible way.
There are few places I can name or think of that are more comfortable or serene than laying underneath a pine tree around sunset with a good friend. Although we were pursued by an elderly Indian gentleman on a tricked out tricycle (only in Fremont ...), just the general feeling of goofing off brought about recollections of childhood summers where our biggest concerns were sunburns and mosquito bites.
When I woke up this morning, the gray reality of my location, situation and disposition slapped me upside the head: I was running late for school and didn't have time to shower, the coffee my father made at 7:30AM was lukewarm and tasted burnt, and one of my family friends, a Dr. Alan Zacharia, had passed away on Saturday from cancer. The service is today in Daly City, my parents left shortly after I had left for class.
September never seems to be a good month for anyone close to my family; this month marks the 10 year anniversary of my uncle getting killed in a motorcycle accident outside of Mammoth Lakes. The only time I've ever been down there was on a family vacation my freshman year of high school, and I kept straining to see the exact place he died, like I would recognize it just by intuition. I couldn't, and still don't know which blind curve he and his friends went around just to find a Toyota 4Runner with a driver blacked out behind the wheel veering into their lane.

It's about this time that I believe I should take a nap, and upon waking draw some comics, and eventually get back into the responsible routine of (ugh) doing math homework.

Cheers,
c.i.

Herzlichen Glückwunsch zum Geburtstag, Fraulein Trudeau

Album cover & tattoo design: completed.
Images to post for my portfolio AND your viewing pleasure? Fail.
Next investment? Obtain one or all of the following: A drawing pad, Adobe Photoshop/Illustrator Suite, a large scanner, and some sanity.

Cheers,
c.i.

Canned Heat

After seeing "Inglourious Basterds", I realized I would do very degrading and morally compromising things to get with Eli Roth (consequently the director and writer of such slasher films as "Cabin Fever", "Hostel", and was kicked off the set of "Meet Joe Black", star of which is to our right, Brad Pitt) and Mélanie Laurent.
Laurent pretty much steals the show, is ruthless and drop-dead gorgeous.

I have to say, after the disappointment that was "Death Proof" as part of the "Grindhouse" double feature, this was a welcome, blood-filled, 180º dubya-tee-eff, going-to-wield-a-baseball-bat-and-fuck-this-shit-up-MY-way.

That's all you get.
Now get off your asses and go see this movie!

Cinq

1. Not having a cell phone has been very quiet, and actually very liberating. Also, however, really inconvenient for trying to arrange to meet people
2. The phrase "flaccid earhole" somehow best describes this week.
3. Sadly two goals I have for when I am actually employed will be to go see my brother and his fiancé Melissa and my soon-to-be niece via train. The second is to buy a proper corset just for the hell of it.
   
4. "You gave up something and got something else. Or you worked for something. You paid some way for everything that was any good. I paid my way into enough things that I liked, so that I had a good time. Either you paid by learning about them, or by experience, or by taking chances, or by money. Enjoying living was learning to get your money's worth and knowing when you had it. You could get your money's worth. The world was a good place to in. It seemed like a fine philosophy ... Perhaps that wasn't true, though. Perhaps as you went along you did learn something. I did not care what it was all about. All I wanted to know was how to live in it. Maybe if you found out how to live in it you learned from that what it was all about" Hemingway (152).
   
5. I have watched Triplets of Belleville probably fifteen times this week alone, and I have yet to get tired of it. It's beautiful.
   

Stars know why we fall, I just wish they were thinking out loud

The meteors we end up seeing in the sky like this are actually about the size of Volkswagen bugs or washing machines, but burn up to about the size of a bottle cap or a pea. I'm guessing ours shrunk down to beer cans, or maybe that's too poetic to assume from last night.
Fremontians, Newarkians and Nile-ites all piled in cars and we took the back roads (Ian Long, if you're reading this, you're a shitty person to follow in a car, k? thnx) along Skyline Blvd through Montara.

In other non-awkward announcements:

• almost done with Carl Flynn's album cover art
• Alternative Press Expo '09 may still happen!!! with the help of Paul Barron, granted that his broken wrist heals eventually.
  
• Congratulations to Elie & Emery Wasser and welcome to their son, Evrin Lansing Wasser.
• The squarenose helmetfish painting has been done for weeks now, perhaps the recipient can scan it and send me an image for my portfolio -bats eyelashes-

Silly me for not scanning it before giving it as a gift.

Onwards to food. Until next time, fuckwits
Cheers,
c.i.

私は彼を欠場

1. I would defend my honor if I knew where it was.
   
2. America defends the right to free speech, apparently alcohol just makes it that much more possible.
3. Tomer Hanuka is teh sex. See giant watery-tart.
   
4. Gentlemen, BEHOLD!! I need to move the fuck out of my parent's house. See list items 1 & 2.
5. Falling for someone is like quicksand; easy to get yourself into, but it really fucking sucks you in the more you try to get out.
   

Finding Bibi

I think Bita Haidarian is doing a courageous and beautiful thing, and I encourage you, dear reader to follow this project. It will lead to great things, I promise. I've put a permanent link to the site that is following the film, contribute to it, follow it, or else -shakes fist-

31

General Trudeau and I won tickets to go see The Painted Cakes at The Uptown last night in Oakland. My comrade is moving down to San Diego and soon I'll be stuck to suffer through community college by my lonesome.
And now for something completely different: a bottle of red and the start of the album art as commissioned by Carl Flynn.