Well, the big ol’ arty comic book convention MoCCA is on it’s way, and that means that we here at Rarebits are busy as shit. Really. I almost don’t have time to play Zelda II at half speed on an emulator so that I can feel like I’m all good at hard games and stuff.
But I digress. Point is, tonight you get filler.
But good filler. Every one of these videos made me laugh in the past week, and I want to share that with you, sweet reader.
Enjoy.
Sometimes I get in the old funk where I don’t really know the point of it all. This usually comes at the end of a long set of days or weeks where sleep is short and work tremendous. It’s a trance state, like a spirit quest, only the wilderness I wander is between my ears and the fasting involves a lack of shut eye. I remember reading somewhere that the Sioux believe(d) the waking life is the unreal realm and our dreams hold the truth about the world. I kind of like the notion that perception, more than anything, defines the world for each human.
So, why the odd quote to title this rant? When I need some grounding in my trance-funks, I don’t reach for Thoreau, Emerson or Nietzsche; I go straight for the train-wreck of Charles Bukowski. Why? Well, because he was living proof that the life of the artist isn’t all it’s cracked up to be by those fortunate few who had friends in colleges, publishers and journals to ensure some kind of “fame and fortune” (although, late in life, he did feel some of both). It’s not a romantic existence. It’s often brutal, leading to early deaths or late crack-ups.
Now, the other, more true reason I turn to Bukowski is to reflect on what I think of myself. Am I a mad poet? Nope. Do I consider what I do as art? No. Would I consider myself to possess something of the literary spark? Sometimes. Am I living in a half-rotten apartment with a radio blaring Wagner and drinking cheap wine until 3AM? No. Thus, I’m doing alright. As long as I don’t follow the path of Bukowski, I’ll be fine. Modest Mouse (the band) has a great song about this very feeling.
To get to the quote (finally): “To make art, one must be crazy always/and alone.” An interesting thought. One that some folks take to heart, even some who have never read a line of Charles “Chinaski” Bukowski. But I don’t find this to be true in my own work. While, I don’t consider myself an artist in the way Chuck meant it, I do consider creative expression to be something I do from time to time. I do this best within a group of like-minded folks where we are all a part of the creative and critical process. Without the input of others, the work that is done could easily become a navel-gazing, dime-a-million piece of cultural crap, speaking only to the person who made it and very few others.
True, to be a cartoonist, one must often be alone and a little crazy, but in my opinion, it can’t stay there. Even Robert Crumb (someone who illustrated several Bukowski stories in his time) have other cartoonists to work with and had to get out and sell Zap out of a baby carriage.
But it doesn’t end with just artists helping each other, the life of a creative person is defined mostly by those who enjoy her or his work. It is to you, reader and friend of the Rare Bits that I blog. Thank you for reading, and please feel free to comment, good or bad, on our little posts. More than craziness, it’s why we doe what we do.
So, I really like bagging on the things I have derision for. I can’t really help it – I hung out with indy-rock snobs back in high school and never quite recovered. Problem is, hating is hard work – and I can’t always hate on everything I hate with complete, first hand knowledge of the source material. Not everyone can sit through Transformers 2, or stomach whichever boring ass art-comic is popular this week. I’ve got fucking duck comics to read. That’s why I sometimes have an extraordinarily inverse level of invective for things I’ve only experienced through osmosis. I don’t feel good about this, no one should criticize these kinds of things without knowing what there about…but really – do you want me to read Twilight?
Oh shit…
Dear god no.
When I first came up with the idea for this series, Twilight was the first thing that popped into mind as the ultimate example. I bag on it constantly. I had never read the book, and never seen either of the movies. Yet somehow I’ve managed to wax eloquently on it’s shortcomings ever since I first saw it mentioned on facebook flair. I know the gist of the thing – sparkly vampires, misogyny, mormonism – but is it alright to really hate something you’ve never read? Probably. But I’m a guilty man, and this allows my conscience to sleep at night with the rest of me. Which generally sleeps pretty well. Keep in mind, this is coming at you in segments spaced out by my ability to actually read the book.
So far I’ve made it through two chapters.
I guess it’s not as bad as I expected. But then again, there hasn’t really been any sparkling or staring as of yet. What it is so far, is a pretty aggressively mediocre book. The writing is bland, but clear and serviceable. The characters are, well – boring. But they’re not annoying to the point of angering me. Well, Bella’s getting pretty close. I’m a bit too old to enjoy reading about such a petulant, arrogant teenage girl. She’s somehow simultaneously self-depricating and superior, sharply intelligent and stupidly unaware.
Actually, so far Bella Swan is basically the equivalent of literary astrology. She a big bag of good qualities every teenage girl would like to be, a few manageable negative ones, and nothing unique or specific enough to keep her from being a mask for the reader to wear and say “she’s just like me!” Hell, even I can put myself in her place. I’m clutzy. I’m smart. Unfortunately, I like snow and rain, so the similarities end there – because all she ever does is complain about the weather.
On the other hand, Edward Cullen is basically an Edwardian stereotype filtered the hot-gentleman-jerk lens. Well, at least that’s how I read him in the two pages out of fifty that’s he’s actually said something. I’m finding myself motivated to read more just because so little information has been given out so far. I want to read about sparkles, and anti-feminist ramblings and all the things I hear everyone talking about, but so far it’s just a medium boring book about how much rain sucks and old trucks rule.
Which I guess is a positive thing for me to say about twilight.
I’ll keep you posted.
Left: How I picture Edward Cullen for maximum erotic effect. Right: Casting directors – you're doing it wrong.
Twilight’s equivalent to a joke: “I never looked a gift truck in the mouth — or engine.”
Bella describing the vampire kids when she first see them during lunch: “They were faces you never expected to see except perhaps on the airbrushed pages of a fashion magazine. Or painted by an old master as the face of an angel.” Does anyone else see the dissonance in lumping these two examples together? Anyway you slice it, these are the kinds of comments that make me dislike Bella.
Deviation into mixed unnecessary metaphors: “Last night I’d discovered that Charlie couldn’t cook much besides fried eggs and bacon. So I requested that I be assigned kitchen detail for the duration of my stay. He was willing enough to hand over the keys to the banquet hall.”
Bella on snow: “Sure it was drier than rain — until it melted in your socks.” My dear, I’m afraid that if you’re stuffing snow in your socks, you have bigger problems than the weather.
The science teacher’s name is Mr. Banner. I keep hoping for him to get angry about being in this book, hulk-out, and smash all the annoying teenagers to goo.
Dear Daisy Fuentes Target Pumps,
It is not your fault I lost your mate, perhaps deep in the recesses of my closet or in a dumpster the right shoe awaits you. I do know that I bought you to match the one suit everyone dreads donning. The suit meant for funerals and interviews. Bought hastily the day my dad died in 2006, your metal studs are understated club attire but that is no matter. My short punk hair cut and rhinestone snap shirt surely directed attention away from you. Is it coincidental that you are all alone now? Merely half of the bipedal DNA left to support this aging beast. A ghost of you exists: the right to my left, the father to my mother.
So let’s just hope for the two of us that I never have another proper interview again.
