AESTIVATION NATION

(NOTE: Some elements of this story have been augmented for dramatic effect. Others, such as the 4 day car chase across North America in a 1985 Chevy Celebrity wearing nothing but antique doilies are entirely true.)

“We need the art now!”

It’s one of the hardest things that a lifelong procrastinator and internally-synced artist doesn’t want to hear. Nevertheless this was for good friends & clients after using my art for their first album. I didn’t want to let my boys down nor the label. So I pushed everything to the side and crammed to get the artwork done. My original idea being way too controversial due to current events I had to scrap it and start from zero. 

I knew I’d keep some elements from the first album’s art but would expand on it. And like most people when overly caffeinated made several bold claims that my inner critic assured me were impossible to deliver and wouldn’t it be nice to hop on a plane to Honduras or maybe just toss myself over the bridge at high tide. I did my best to ignore these thoughts, slap the inner critic back into the dirty plywood box it lives in then get drawing, erasing, drawing and erasing then inking then scanning then coloring. In between there was a lot more coffee, pastries, swearing, whining and second guessing. When it was all together there before me looking even weirder and wonderful than I’d imagined it could I was so happy.

But such happiness seems always so short-lived.

The inner critic - seemingly inexhaustible, ever present, jacked up and ready to rumble - rose from its box on the dirt floor of my memory palace’ basement. It began to dance and sing a terrible tale.

“They’ll hate it, it makes no sense! It’s made from 100% weak sauce!” The fiend said as it danced naked under a dim light. “You are in fact the biggest baby idiot ever as a middle aged man and why won’t you just admit you suck once and for all! No way you can send it to the band & label without notice. Perhaps you should write a short paragraph explaining and justifying your art and choices?”

(I wish I was lying but it was actually worse. That thing’s got a mouth on it like a Reno brothel madam and a 1970s Bayonne, NJ longshoreman combined). 

But a newer voice emerges when that inner critic gets rowdy.

This other voice in my internal monologue belongs to a large silverback gorilla which first swiped the inner critic away then sat on its screaming head, straw stuck to its ass and all. And the silverback roared like Kong looming over midtown Manhattan: 

“Fuck that noise! Send it and let the chips fall where they may!”

So I did. And guess what? They loved it. Everyone loved it. The label, the band and everyone I’d shown it to as I worked on it (a small, select and very critical group) loved the final version. I told my friend Rob, the label head, I was terrified of what they’d think.

“Why the fuck why?” he asked.

“Because it’s so fucking weird, man!” I replied.

“Why do you think I asked you for album art again?” He said.

And it was then I got it.

~*~

I’ve been drawing since I was a kid. I stopped at some point then, convinced I’d never be as good as my artist friends. I started drawing more when my daughter would ask for notes before bed. I’d draw the cat or her or a funny animal. It was never more than fun. I also write for work and my own pleasure. Have since I was a kid. At some point I remember having trouble describing an alien or something so I started to draw it and soon I’d drawn not only several examples of their race but their homeward, palace and a spaceship or three.

Still the drawing wasn’t for anyone else. 

Around 2015 I took a job where I was on the phone a lot so I needed to do something while listening to customers. So I doodled. Helped lots and I began to draw more and more intricate stuff. My co-workers liked what I’d tacked in my cube and some were also artists who offered tips & tricks and insights. 

I drew more and more. I got better. I drew every night and day sometimes. To this day it’s one of the few things I’ve done consistently as an unconscious discipline. Over the years I’ve shared more and more of it. A few years after I began I started a graphic novel called Bunnyhead. People bought it. Then someone asked me for album art. I drew it and they loved it. This happened a few times. I got the job done each time with no complaints.

Yet something always lay in wait, be it the old inner critic or some other internal demon. As I worked they’d creep out and up my back, across my desk chair to perch on me with a weight as ineffable yet oppressive as gravity. It spoke in many voices but the message was always the same:

“YOU SUUUUUUUUUUUCK!!!!” It says as it grips my heart with filthy hands. “NO ONE LIKES YOU!!! GIVE UP!!!”

Nevertheless…

My fingers always return to the keys, wrap around a pencil or plug in a cable to make magic from nothing. 

This is the way.

~*~

It took a while - there was no diamond bullet in my forehead showing me the light - but when Rob said that I realized in that moment something that eluded me all my life: When people ask for my art or music it’s because they want me and my art not someone else.

That’s a bigger thought than it may seem so I will repeat it in typical America fashion: 

WHEN PEOPLE ASK FOR MY ART OR MUSIC IT’S BECAUSE THEY WANT ME AND MY ART NOT SOMEONE ELSE’S.

This was such a game changer I cannot even begin to tell you. It’s been rattling around in my head since then. What a concept! That I’d dare to think anything else is just astounding. What’s crazier is I know others reading this now still think that way. And you know what?

I don’t care. I have work to do. People want my art. 

So fuck your critics, inner and outer and get cracking. No one that wants it knows they are waiting for it. Show them what they need to see. 

Be well. And destroy all monsters.