Draw, Charlie! Draw!

Draw, Charlie! Draw! turned 13 today!

I guess that's as good a sign as any that I really need to start using this platform more, again; being one of the few still generally untouched and open to open content.

A Bedtime Tale is not a dream.

Well, okay; technically I guess it is. But maybe I should back up a little, first.

A little after 7am on Tuesday, September 26th, 2023 I lost consciousness and collapsed at work. This would be my second congestive heart failure in ten years, brought on by the long-term effects of cancer treatments from 1990/91. I had already developed pancreatitis in 2021, which had also been attributed to the resulting long term radiation sickness I had, until that moment, managed to keep at bay.

Through multiple discoveries my care team would discover the cascading organ system failures happening throughout me, but at that moment they determined the immediate course of action would be to install a valve clip into the mitral valve that was currently blowing blood back into my system, and into my lungs.

Still with me? Good, because yes; it’s as bad as that up there sounds. Which was in October. My surgery had been scheduled for January of 2024, and in between there’d be a whole lot of other procedures and physical therapy and even hospital stays.

And for the purposes of this post that’s about the end of all the waking world reality because something very... peculiar happened in the intervening months. It started the morning I found myself walking a wide country road, heading north, through some beautiful farm country; full of grassy fields, cattle, fences, huge trees, and a gas giant and two moons trapped in the haze of the bluest sky.

What?

A Bedtime Tale is a very large, coherent, and complete journey I took at the end of 2023 through a place I would come to call The Realm of Dreamwalk. From the middle of October 2023 to – and quite literally – the operating table on January 10th, 2024 during the 5pm hour I would close my eyes in the waking world, and find myself, lacking much of my memory of who I was and where I was from, heading north through this place, meeting its people, and fighting its monsters until the quest of The Traveler was complete.

It's a completely upside-down thing of an adventure, and for my part all I’m doing is recounting it, which is why I can write it all down so quickly. But while all the major events are big, bold, and bright some of the connecting moments are more... hazy. That’s when I have to go through all my notes and sketches and sit me in front of this creative space thing in mediation to unlock the other tidbits.

And when that happens sometimes little things get revealed that explain why people started behaving differently, or things happened along the way in the progressions they would. Like this, for example, when it finally got put together why some of my friends were handling things much better later than before.

It happens a lot.

But for me, in retelling this, there’s this huge fascination with the whole process of discovering the more mundaneness behind these events. Who are these people? Why are they like the way they are? What is this place? Where did all this history come from and what makes these places important?

A Bedtime Tale isn’t a dream, it’s a dreamquest, like those that seekers go on in mythology; a crusade of good versus evil that touches on issues of identity, communion, morals and philosophy, all wrapped up in a love story. Except I had no shaman guide, and I’m left with only my word processor and art supplies to uncover its meanings and symbols. It’s the last quest of a dying hero through a world in need of saving, and I made a promise to do what I could to share it with as many as I can because somewhere someone’s own heart needs to share this journey with me.

For the last several years I've enjoyed sharing my love of music with the world on Mixcloud with my show No Genre Needed which features curated shows around an hour - give or take - full of indie and big label bands and artists from around the world and, like the show title suggests, with no particular focus on any one sound.

And every single second is free to listen to with nothing to sign up for if you don't want to... all for the sake of music.

This week's show is a focus on the music that goes into keeping me inspired as I write my storybook fantasy A Bedtime Tale; which just broke into the global top 100 for Mixcloud.

So let me invite you to spend a couple hours, musically, in the dream realms of adventure, joining a quest against an evil force, grappling with themes of identity, fellowship, and morality... all wrapped up in a love story...

I've shown off a few things here about the illustrated book series I'm creating, A Bedtime Tale. But I've never really mentioned much about the story itself.

As The Traveler moves through the realm he crosses into many different lands. And each land is actually a kind of genre. While the first three books show this in a subtle way, the cover for book four - Electropolis - is a huge departure and a kind of jarring switch up; which further covers will begin to explore.

Here's the cover for A Bedtime Tale Book Four: Electropolis. See if you can tell what I mean...

Alphonse Mucha...

I imagine that's about all I have to say and just about every art lover and serious artist will be nodding their heads, knowing exactly what I'm saying.

And while the period and style have remained vibrant, and so full of works, it's Alphonse Mucha who is the poster boy for the movement.

And I would be remiss if I didn't, myself, find me a little Mucha in my own work. So, here's a little ditty from my storybook fantasy adventure...

It may have romance, comedy, and tackle issues of identity, time, fellowship, and morals, but at heart A Bedtime Tale - my storybook series - is still a fantasy adventure quest.

While I #write my book my art gets stronger I want some illustration to reflect the story's core elements...

Here's a small sampling of the show...

If you're in The Seattle area the show opens March 8th and is worth the time if this is your thing.

Work continues on my storybook fantasy series, and I feel like showing off the covers for the first three books.

Not sure how married I am to the loose watercolor look, yet. But I imagine as I get better with the technique it'll start to look good.

Anyway...

Today's sketch is titled "Foolish Lover's Game. My Storybook fantasy quest is about identity, ethics, justice, and good versus evil... all wrapped up in a love story. It's been a joy to write & illustrate so far as I soul search the end of my life; hopefully to share with others.

Big issues, I know; but if the story reaches just one soul who needs to see it, then worth all the effort to write this book. I'm doing all the #art by hand. Well, the ink, anyway. I'm old(ish) and I prefer the look for the feel of it. I mean I grew up with this in the 70s and 80s, so...

Naturally there's a song that goes with this scene, and as part of the theme I have for the music for this series it'll be a cover song.

As I write my fantasy storybook I like to keep my art hand loose by sketching to use for the illustration work to go in after it's writ. Sometimes it bounces around from where I'm writing. Tonight's sketch is in Book 8: The Wilds, at a low point for the hero.

While writing I've been stumbling on music that would make an amazing soundtrack if this were ever to be filmed. (Or, you know, to keep me in my zone, at any rate.) This scene is set to "Far from Home" by Sam Tinnesz (The black bird is a reoccurring image throughout the story.)

Why, hello there. Yes, I know this account as been rather quiet for a spell now, but as is with the dead and dying there's been a lot going on at the end of my days.

Not least of which is the progress of reconstituting my art skills which have gone virtually untouched for almost seven years.

Seven. Years.

And how's that going? Well, here's an image for toward the end of A Bedtime Tale that's been revised four times since starting this very serious path to getting the story published; about sixteen months now.

Titled "One Last" it represents a return to skill, composition, and style.

It looks like it'll be a nine book series. As they're illustrated they won't be terribly high numbered page counts, set up in a square bound comic book format. (Never forget your roots.)

Writing is done up to book four and the first two covers have been did; which I'll show off soon as soon as I've polished off the book three cover.

It was a nice South Bay October in 1991. At least I had to take their word for it.

Early that morning, about two weeks before Halloween, I entered what was then Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Gatos, Ca and was prepped for surgery. All of this I can remember was laying in a pre-op room watching an episode of The Jetsons, waiting a sedative to begin to take effect.

That was the morning; big and blue with those fluffy white clouds like waves across the sky. There were two moments going into the operating theatre. The first was a small baby crying as it was also being prepped for a go. Well, at least I remember it being definitely under two. In a mush-mouthed mess I tried to console the kid until I was encouraged to go back to sleep.

The second was a single moment when I came to for a blink as they moved me off the gurney and onto the operating table. Straps were being laid across me and I thought to myself; “That’s a good idea, I may jump when they cut me.”

Tears are the next thing I remember as I started to come out from the anesthesia. It was a crowded elevator and a couple family members were not handling my situation well.

I was aware I had been out for several hours, which the sunset out my window confirmed. And I am wholly truthsome when I tell you that, to this day, that was the most amazing sunset I have ever seen. I still hold sunsets sacred.

The operation was… visceral. I was, for all intents and purposes, spilt open down the middle, pried open, had my spleen removed, lost several lymph nodes off my spine, had my liver biopsied, and had several other samples taken from me in order to ascertain if the cancer had spread anywhere. Then everything was sewn back up.

Through my dulled senses I was quite aware of the damage. My liver would later let me know how angry it was when I vomited bile. And finding out your liver is one of at least three organ systems that can vomit is very interesting at seventeen. In fact, it would be several weeks before I would be able to stand upright or do much else.

But the next three days would be… a trial. And it started the first night I woke up completely to the burning pain; even through the piles of morphine they insisted shooting me up with. The hallucinations were bad enough, but what was really rough was not being able to ignore my senses, which were already a little more hyperactive than most people’s. (I’ve come to find out, much later in life, that I have Autism.)

This became an absolute nightmare because kiddie corner from my room in pediatrics was the newborn nursery. And the babies in there didn’t just cry, they screamed. They screamed relentlessly day and night. They’d scream until they passed out and then would wake up and scream some more. And this happened in waves, so even if there was any peace it was short lived.

As a nurse would tell me, they had babies born in special need; born either with AIDS or addicted to crack. Keep in mind, this was still the very early 1990s, where this was still a common thing. A common, tragic thing.

For three days, the entire time I was there recovering, they did nothing but scream. Day and night. And because of the nature of my surgery they couldn’t shut my door. So, they screamed. And I heard it. Every minute. And unable to shut it out. (My senses were so out of control that I had to have them warp my IV machine in towels because it ticked, and that ticking was like a bass drum to me.)

During that second night it was so bad I needed nurses to sit with me and hold my hand so I knew I was… no, so I could feel I was still alive and I was going to get out of this. Me, at seventeen; all black wearing bad assed, dark proto-Goth teenager and high school sophomore. (Hey, I was a very angry, troubled kid from an extremely broken home.)

I have heard a lot of very bad things in my time in the waking world. And I mean some bad stuff. But I have never heard anything as horrific as a baby in agony screaming. The sheer amount of absolute pain a baby goes through – which is their entire world at that point – is unfathomable. I don’t care how tough you are, or you think you may be; you do not know pain like that, I’m pretty sure.

And it wasn’t just a baby, it was several babies. I never knew if it was all of them, most of them, or just some of them that were triggering others because they couldn’t stop, but that’s neither here nor there to the fact of it; they screamed. They couldn’t stop.

And to this day they haven’t.

In my most quietest moments, when I am lost in nothing particular, I can still hear them. I hear them when I see any baby cry for any reason. I hear them when I see people suffer. I hear them when people hurt. And I hear them when I see the evil others inflict on each other.

I hear them right now as I type this.

I don’t care how tough or how much a bad ass you pretend to be. You sit in a room, unable to drown it out, and listen to the suffering of newborns – easiestly the most innocent of people – and you see if it doesn’t affect you. Because let me tell you, it will. And it will never stop. And if doesn’t then you certainly have no soul to which command.

I have strayed many times from a better path. Every time I do there they are; screams of the truly innocent suffering from the acts of others, of the situations astronomically not of their own making. And even when I get my hands back to righteousness there they still are, in pain, screaming for relief.

My scars run deep from my battles. I bare them even now. But none so deep as this. And this has been my secret horror for three decades. This is why I will gladly tear myself to shreds to help others. Because I have been witness to suffering. True suffering. Suffering on a scale you could probably not imagine.

Eight years can be an excruciating time, especially in the absence of the revered.

Accolades and celebrations aside, Carrie Fisher represented something greater to those of us in our generation. And to those of us who struggle with the same mental health issue she was sometimes a beacon of hope and joy.

I was one of those. I still am.

She was her own kind of The Force; wild, passionate, enraged, flailing in the dark like an untethered blade desperate for a target. She could be violently vengeful and compassionately sweet within the same form. An inspiration as well as a cautionary tale.

She took a haphazard role as a space princess and became an icon of strength and growth for so many. A role she would return to that, tragically, would end her. Though, if she could, would probably have a laugh at it and make a life lesson out of for the rest of us... while flashing us the no.1 salute.

Goodnight, Carrie; you traveled well and took our hearts with you, becoming Space Mom to inspire us on to better things, and showed us it was okay to laugh at ourselves through our tears...

Goodnight, grandma.

It’s a pretty loving, innocuous thing to say, and for the better part of three years, as I lived sequestered with my aging and ailing grandparents in the family home in Campbell, California I would close every night by checking in on my grandmother before bed; recounting the day, and chores to be still done the coming days and weeks.

But on the evening of Friday, April 15th, 2011 “Goodnight, grandma” would make the first of two radical changes to me; and one later on for my family…

I suppose it’s best to start more toward the beginning, and I’d be happy to, if it weren’t such a convoluted mess to here from there. Of the entire thing I can say that, as the black sheep of the family – trying to be a man of reason, education, and all that – growing up in a conservative fundamental family bore a great deal of emotional weight. Ours was not a loving, nurturing family, but one based on superiority of righteousness and shaming of those perceived lower.

So, I was targeted a lot by my grandparent’s Christian love.

I would later come to find that my entire immediate family was at the receiving of their gracious and tender affections, but I think those are family traumas best left to us for the time being.

But, to the end of it, I spent my entire life seeking the love and affection… and most of all the acceptance… of the patriarch and matriarch of my mother’s family, who pretty much controlled most of how our lives were supposed to be led. Which they dished out from on high, with a bible in one hand, and judgmental condemnation from their mouths.

As a quick overview, my family were the exact kind of people who would come to start “religious deconstruction”; a social movement in which younger generations would reevaluate their Christian upbringing, and eventually leave the church. This movement continues today, to the worry of the religious power structure, to the point that some of the newest generations don’t even identify with ever having been religious at all.

The idea was quite simple, really; when younger church goers start practicing what they were preached at with they find themselves at odds with those who did the preaching. I mean, you can’t – with one hand – tell people to be accepting, charitable, giving, and to give care and shelter to the immigrants and then turn around and barf hate, greed, racism, and classism.  

So that was my family. And it was doubly odd since my grandfather had left NASA to get into the family business of his family’s god as a minister; with just about everyone in my family active in “the ministry” except me. So, to my confusion – being decades ahead of the deconstruction movement – that a NASA engineer and a medical nurse… and a family of talented engineers and thinkers… would so unabashedly abandon the mind for… well, for everything that wasn’t.

And, as the first-born grandchild, there was this level that was expected of me in my part of this family that not only did I opt not to take, but actively spoke out against.

I guess it’s fair to say that I spent my entire adult life at odds with my family, and in an awkward, often painful, adversarial relationship with my maternal grandparents.

Despite all this I did love my family and my grandparents, even though not being able to get them to even ask me about my life, rather than just damning me for it. And so, in 2008 – as the economy took yet another dive (Because life in America, amiright?) – I found myself living in the family home in Campbell, Ca, trying to get back on my feet and making my keep by helping out around the house. (I guess it pays to have a grandson who is a professional maintenance tech.)

There’s good and bad memories in that time. But it was supposed to be a temporary passing. Until their health began to slip. My award winning NASA engineer grandfather had developed Alzheimer’s and my grandmother developed a hear condition. And when I finally managed a place equidistant from them and work, they told me they’d prefer me to stay at the house. Which I did.

For three years, telling no one.

I don’t know exactly why I felt I had to keep this a secret, but I felt I should. I don’t know if my cousins even knew, but as the rest of them – four, plus my sister – were married and had families, me being without those responsibilities seemed like a no-brainer perfect fit; fulfilling my duties as the first born grandchild.

Between work and their needs my hands were full through the week. Weekends the two aunts who were running the show would let me slip out for a break (Which would be one of the very few kindnesses they’d ever show me.) and I would run off to see friends at clubs at other activities, or spend a night or two in a nice hotel with the horrible mistake I was seeing at that point in my life. (Bitter? Nah, not me.)

And so, on that Friday evening in April I was in the house washroom, which was across from the door to the master bedroom, washing up and getting a few things together for a short outing when my grandmother called me in to talk. We did that often, as they had both – in that final year – actually stopped blanket condemning me and had started actually inquiring about my beliefs and motivations and the other things that made up my life. (Shocked the fuck out of me, let me tell you what.) And that’s what I figured it must be as I stepped into the room to talk with her.

It was, of course, not.

There was no chit-chat, no nuance, no subtlety around it, it just dropped out of her face; I was a disappointment. More to the point, not only was I a disappointment, but I had no relationship with her god, my health was always bad, I hadn’t accomplished anything, and I was going to die alone, which she found most troublesome strangely enough.

I remember standing there dumbfounded in shock. I had just given up three years of my life to care for them. During that time I had recovered my career from an economic recession, and was still occasionally performing on stage, as well as making my own comics and getting actively involved in that community. I had already survived cancer and had left my childhood infirmaries behind decades past. I had quite literally beaten all the odds my pedestrians had laid out for me and was a tough, outgoing, and pretty self-sufficient man.

It was an awkward minute of silence before I could make words; to which all I could say was, “I’m sorry I didn’t turn out to be the man you wanted me to be, grandma.”  At that point her face said something I couldn’t read. So all I had was my customary “Goodnight, grandma,” and added something to the affect of loving her and would se her when I got back.

Goodnight, Grandma. That would turn out to be the last words we would ever share.

I got home on April 17th, 2011 to find grandma unresponsive. My aunts had informed me her condition deteriorated over the weekend and tonight might be it. And it was.

A handful of us sat with her until she finally past. We then excused ourselves so grandpa could be alone with the now deceased love of his entire life. (This would begin the year from hell that would be his final year in the waking world. But that’s another story.) The only thing of that night I can recall with any veracity is watching the stark white van of the county coroner driving off with the body who had once been my grandmother. I stood there alone, outside, on the curb way longer than the van was even on our street.

I also remember the two distinct feelings going through my mind at that moment. The first left me feeling guilty in that I had now outlived my life’s greatest adversary, and that felt wholly righteous to do so as her unwavering devotion to her god gave way to the fear of dying. To this day I really have no explanation as to why that came over me, but there it was.

And, of course, there were our parting words. I sometimes think back and wonder if she had, in that moment, regretted what she said. She so rarely admitted anything to be a mistake, that maybe that’s why I couldn’t read her face that night. And maybe that’s why those words hung in the air after stabbing me so deeply. I wonder if she even thought about apologizing, waiting for me to get home that weekend so we could talk.

I very much doubt it, but I still wonder.

Those words would find their way into the air only one last time. Family and friends had come to the wake to speak to the account of my grandmother and say one last goodbye. In circumstance alone, after everyone had passed the coffin, it was only my first sister and I left. In her weakness she refused to leave the pew. So, with the eyes of generations on me, as well as church leaders, friends, and associates I, alone, approached her.

I have no words that wouldn’t stain the confused mess of feelings I was, looking down at the body that once was Dorothy Maxine Yaggy. It was an empty shell, and it looked wrong. I know I held back a tear being aware that an entire church had their eyes on me. So I smiled, turned, and begun to walk back to me seat. And then that’s when it simply slipped out, like a reflex…

“Goodnight, grandma.”

I’m numb after that. I remember hearing I think my mother start to cry. To be truthsome on it, I vaguely remember anything else of that day. I know some people spoke to me, someone tried to comfort me despite my insistence I was okay. But the rest is just a commotion of voices, colors, and stories. And hugs; lots, and lots of hugs.

My grandmother’s words and deeds in my life have made lasting scars on my soul, as her influence still reaches out from the grave to tighten its stranglehold grip on me. Worse still is seeing her very being now emanating from my own mother as she approaches the age of her mother when she died. (Which has caused me to build a safety wall between us; fortified by 3000 miles of continent.)

But what haunts me most, as I make my own way west to the gate that leads to The Afters is that she was right; I will die alone not having accomplished anything. And of all the things I do not fear this is the one I do; even though my life holds a trove of laughter, friends, found family, lives saved, problems solved, and my own mind expanded in ways that grapple understanding in ways that impress even the spirits. I worry most, now, that I won’t… die well.

I had thought these things all done and buried until late this year, when in the soundtrack to Arcane act 2 “The Line” by 21 Pilots became the runaway smash hit of the album; Tyler Joseph having had penned it around the death of his grandmother. In listening to it, I can hear the love he had for her, and the uncertainty in facing mortality. But quietly, privately, I think his lyrics hit me in a hard way he couldn’t have foreseen. And freely I admit to you here that I cry a little hearing this song and those words “Did I disappoint you? Will they let me over if I cross The Line?”

Goodnight, grandma; hopefully you traveled well. In your life you taught me how to be great by your example of how you weren’t. In your death you showed me courage to face my end in how you didn’t. You left the biggest scar on my soul that would never heal… and it was the greatest gift you could ever give me.

Dressed in his finest, Scrooge made his way hurriedly down the road toward his nephew's home; eager for his first Christmas with his family. Unseen from the shadows, Jacob Marley watched, his jaw still clenched in its bounds, managing the smallest, briefest of smiles if even in pain for doing so. His former partner was even now becoming free of the chains he had, until that very morning, been forging himself for his own damnation.

"Well, that was a kind of thing, wasn't it" asked the voice over his shoulder. Marley, still laden in the tangle of his chains, weights, and ledgers, labored to turn and face the voice, and was taken by a handsomely dressed gentleman who, to Marley's shock and surprise, appeared to be looking right to him. He mumbled quizzically at the smartly dressed fellow.

"I'm sorry," the man said, straining to hear Marley. "Ah, I see, give us a moment." And he reached out to the bindings of Marley's head, actually taking hold of them. His fingers began to work loose the catches that clamped shut his mouth and, for the first time in which felt as though an eternity, Marley became aware of a sensation; warmth.

"There, that's better," the man said, as Marley's bindings fell loose and dropped to the stoop where they stood. "You were saying?"

Marley was at a loss suddenly, only able to stammer. "H... How? How are you doing this? How is this happening?"

The man smiled like a springtime sun at noon. Marley wasn't sure, but felt as if the world was suddenly brighter around him. "Jacob Marley, your sins against your fellow man were many in your mortal life. In your greed you ignored the needs of those around you.'

"Yes, seven years long have I been cursed to walk unseen among them. I could not speak, let alone help them. I was bound in the chains and tangles of my own ambition. Had I only known I..."

"Such is the folly of many; 'if I only knew'. And yet, in spite of yourself, you breached the veil of your purgatory, found the spirits, and set to free your former partner of your own fate." He gave pause for a moment. "That's quite the undertaking, indeed. I am curious, though. Why?"

Marley gave thought on his question. "I don't know, really. I... I thought that if I could only reach him, I might save Ebenezer my fate." He gazed intently back at the gentleman. "Have I?"

The gentleman turned to watch the now shrinking form of Scrooge, as he disappeared into the streets of London. "He will still have much work to do, if he can save himself. But even now I see links falling from him as he goes."

Marley smiled at this news, surprising himself at how he had missed being able to do so.

"That just leave the matter of what to do with you, Jacob Marley."

"Me? I am suffering my fate; doomed to walk unseen all the days of man, am I not?"

"Jacob Marley, there's not much a point to a punishment when one has learned their lesson, now is there?" Marley, confused, pursed his lips to respond, but found his words frozen, as the gentleman before him continued. "Therefor it is decreed that upon this Christmas Day of 1843 that you, Jacob Marley, having been found learned in your ways, are absolved of your punishment and are free."

As he spoke, the gentleman touched ever so lightly Marley's chains, which fell to his feet around him. He moved his limbs, unencumbered for the first time in seven long years, feeling light as a feather. His tattered and faded clothes were replaced, as if new. And he took in a deep breath.

"I'm free?"

"You are, indeed, Jacob Marley."

He gave the gentleman a quizzical look. "Then what is to become of me now?"

"Well now, I suppose that is entirely up to you," he answered. He threw an arm over Marley's shoulder, and began to lead him down the street. "But if you'll indulge me, we are in need of spreading charity and good will to all man, and I'm thinking you may just be up for the challenge..." _____________________________________________________________

Just wrapped up watching 1970's #Scrooge starring Albert Finney, and it struck me that, as nuanced as it is, like every adaptation of the story, or the story itself, we never do find out what happened to old #JacobMarley. I can't believe that, in finding a way to save his old business partner from a horrible fate, Marley didn't earn some form of redemption.

At least, I like to think he did.

That's probably because I'm a hopeless optimist and really take to heart the notion of the changes anyone can go through to righten their path. I'm funny that way.

I won't dwell on the ironies of the story and how its timeless message is going unheeded in today's America. I lack the cynicism for that; another one of my failings, I suppose. Instead I will only speculate as to the fate of old Jacob Marley and revel in my notion that he found redemption for his singular good deed and, just maybe, found a way to aid those in the life after that he didn't in his life here.

And, I wonder, if there, too, might not lie a hopeful lesson for us all; that there's always another chance to do right, to be good, to spread hope and cheer.