in honor of a rededication to a sort of rigor in my life (scheduling things out and so on), here’s a scan of the excellent self-help comic “visualization and concentration”, by justin green. this three-pager, on the subject of mental gymnastics, originally appeared in “occult laff parade #1″, 1974. careful readers will note that the copyright on this piece has been waived by the author for reasons of world betterment.

justin green is the fellow who wrote the excellent “binky brown meets the virgin mary” and as such is blamed for inventing the “autobiographical comics” genre. which i don’t think is entirely true. anyway, he remains my favorite of the 1970s underground comics set. yes, cheryl the k , “moreso than crumb”. a book of binky brown reprints is available and recommended. oh hell, here’s the amazon link:

also from IWAF, i did the layout, greg greg wrote it, i retyped it.

going through old files… here’s a scan from my old old zine “interview with a frankenstein”. click for large.

• what demon possessed me while i behaved so well?

• the vital heat is not to be confounded
• rich as a savage
• DO NOT EXCHANGE YOUR WIGWAM

also, dmo points to this recent ripley’s. this is printed in newspapers, which luckily, children do not read.

the new zine is pretty much done, i’m making copies now. i just have to throw together a cover, a process that involved me saying (earlier, to myself) “i can’t believe i threw out that bag of hair”. the zine is kind of about a boxer, in that there’s a lot of pictures of a guy boxing. it’s definitely inspired by my war (the record, not my actual war), and it’s called “I MIGHT BE A BIG BABY”.

i’m pretty psyched about this comic book convention, mainly because 1,) hanging out with jamie is fun; 2,) it made me make a new comic book; 3,) i think i’ll be able to find a half-price copy of the KAMANDI collection.

the show tonight was fun, i sang with a microphone, which was nice for a change but i still prefer without. i had a special song medley prepared, then people got so rowdy during it that the mic got unplugged, and i couldn’t do all the super special shit (which is totally nobody’s fault). next time, maybe. also when ghost mice played they eschewed the mic and it just made me wish i had done it, not to be like them, but, well, to be louder than them. i mean, they’re from bloomington, and like everyone in that crowd, their voices come from their heads, not their lungs. i had to split before the end of the night, because sometimes you just have to split for a hundred tiny reasons that you don’t ever talk about ON THE INTERNET. oh, and as i suspected, there were a lot of teenagers at the show.

our wednesday HBML volunteer caught a flu so i went in yesterday and shuffled some stuff around and worked on some projects, most notably a series of mirrors with different mustaches drawn on them. it was pretty good, i drank tea all day.

tonight two high school girls (one of whom i know through the store) are performing my song “japanese pen pal girl tattoo” at an open mic somewhere in worcester county. i’m told it will be taped. actually, the only reason i know about it in advance is that in the lyric sheet to foreign policy, that’s the song that gets truncated with a curt “the rest of the words are perfectly audible”. and evidently, that is not the case, which works out quite to my advantage, as i had to be queried. how many other teenage open mics have i been a part of unawares? oh, yeah, and speaking of lyric sheets, i don’t know if i mentioned this but i finally accidentally looked at the lyrics to Dry Bones after so much vigilance only to find out that i was right and they don’t say what i initiallly thought they said, which just means now i’ll have to record my own version with my own serendipitous words. oh, and it turns out that what i actually say is “pretty much what [the girl who emailed me] thought”. anyway, from now on, all lyric sheets are vague or introduce untruths.

oh, and i’m playing a show in providence at meg turner’s falls (meg from summercamp’s new place) tomorrow with the terribles and j9 bressner. oh, i’ll play my version! and if you can’t tell from teh infographic, i’ve been working on some new songs, some of which i will play, and will probably have to read off a piece of paper like a hack.

well, i didn’t get that cultural commission grant, which is a bit of a bummer but my understanding of such things is that the first few times you apply for a grant you don’t get it, but you do it just to get your name out and then it’s more likely you get it in the future. still searching for weird funding streams.

yesterday we had another silk screening day at the store, this time it was an image from the movie “zombie” aka “zombi 2″ aka “zombie flesheaters” aka “the one where the zombie fights a shark”. the screen came out pretty awesome, under the zombie it says “we are going to eat you”, and again, i used the crass font for this, because the crass font makes everything into a political statement.

totally snowed in again today, which is kind of awesome.

jean (and anyone). thursday (today)’s show in providence is at Lee Buford’s Bob Evans Family Restaurant, in pawtucket. it’s me, darkling plain, “a very manbeard christmas”, and something else, i forget. what time? i never knew! i was going to work on something special for this but now i have a headache so maybe i’ll just go to bed! welcome to the lifestyle!

UPDATE the weather is inclement as a MF, the buses stopped running, i don’t have a ride, i can’t get to the show, i can’t play at the show, i won’t be there! ssorry!

today during the day i didn’t really do a lot or get a lot done, so when andrea asked everyone at the table this evening what was the best thing that happened i didn’t really have an answer. in retrospect the best thing up to that point was reading this in a book, and copying it into the little notebook i always have:

the white chrysanthemum
even when lifted to the eye
remains immaculate

of course it’s bashõ, quoted in the article “haiku and the democracy of poetry as a popular art”, which is the only part i intend to read of “sources of japanese tradition vol 2″, which doesn’t even have pictures, but looks like it does, which is why i picked it up in the first place. i’m feeling no shame about not making headway on any one of a vast horde of half-started projects. let’s face facts– the best thing to come out of a system based on guilt is the exorcist movie, and the exorcist 3.

i’ve been reading a lot about the musical communication systems of neanderthals. i’ve been listening to tapes at night and then the tape stops and i listen to crickets in the field. i gave myself a haircut but i kept the top long, partly so i’d have more to cut later. there’s been a decent hubbub over renewed interest in the simulation argument, which addresses the theory that our reality is someone else’s computer program; it’s funny in that it doesn’t really “change the game”, but it does introduce a good and interesting argument for a creator, one whose interests are possibly deducible, one whose goals are a sort of entertainment and curiosity, possibly “hands-off”, possibly “cold messin’”, one whose reward criteria (if rewards even exist) is quite possibly interestingness rather than goodness. also “turtles all the way down“– i love shit like that.

in the evening me and sylvan and sarah and penny purtle walked to the seben eleben for sodas and candy bars and ended up hanging out on the curb watching tons of water pour out of a huge hole in the street for a very long time. we were all waiting for the street to buckle and a huge truck to fall in, but this did not happen. when we all really had to go to the bathroom, that’s when we left.

oh, sylvan, i still owe you a dinner. i really want that dinner to be cereal, and not because i’m a cheapskate, although i am a cheapskate.

the george st race was great– heavy reppers included baby bear, the flash, neil and christina, cschubs, white tiger, papa houston, mike bike, and many others. total cheer factory.

i’ve been writing all day today for a new weird project, which is always good. i had to call matt carroll lazy genius for some technical historical information, and i felt like kind of a fool when i was asking the question (which was pretty arcane), but of course he had a good answer and led me in a good direction. god bless the trivia lifeline!

i always feel like i have to make up for a few days of not writing, so here’s a flyer i made for the store that presents our origin story in a comic form. tra la la, i’m still coasting on the good feeling of finally finishing something (the comic book).

next saturday, august 4th-

• matty popchart

• best friends forever
• jacob berendes
• special guest

at discovery channel– forbes st. 9:05pm. bring money.

“special guest” might be a food item or a mix tape or a dog or something in the same category as a food item, mix tape, or dog. MPC and BFF will have new albums out. i’ll try to get some new songs together, but i ultimately won’t be able to if history’s any judge.

this sunday, july 29th-

• major taylor hill climb

this is a bicycle race up the steepest hill in worcester (the sidewalk has stairs). it’s a time trial, meaning people go one at a time and the best time wins. this also means that you can cheer for every single person, and everyone gets their time in the sun. it’s $15 to enter, but you don’t have to enter the contest to hang out and drink free polar soda and be rowdy. it’s fun. the race is in honor of major taylor, the first african american sports star, who lived in worcester and indeed, raced up george st.. major taylor on wikipedia

also, i’m printing out the comic book now. i’ll have some at the store tomorrow and if you see me in the next few days i’ll probably have a few on me.

continuous somethings have lately been alwaysing in pretty flagrant ways, but i’m rolling with it– today’s little things not entirely lining up means that tomorrow will tell if the new comic will be done on time, which only matters in that i kind of have to print it before i get into the next one or it’ll just keep getting put off.

last night to continue a theme, sitting up until the wee hours with skittles (back in town for a good month), shooting the shit and listening to young “three points” wasserman relay her awesome suburban woes. again, i’m not trying to be rude or say that i’m better at life (i’m not), nor am i trying to (as cha cha once said) logic anyone’s experience out of existence, but it was totally fun. fire makes a sharp spear strong, so i didn’t tell her not to worry, but i did tell her to follow her instinct to learn to play the bass guitar– that’s good strategy for being a gay teenager in suburban florida in the first years of the 21st century, right?

no joke, this is the last panel of today’s “classic peanuts”:

good night!