This car was parked across the street. It's some kinda Lexus, probably $70K. And it looks just like an R Crumb car! I can't believe it! Didn't a design supervisor somewhere up the chain say, "Um...guys...don't you think this looks kind of like an R Crumb car?" By the time it gets in production, it's already too late. Yr average investment banker is going to say, "Hm, $70,000--must be a great-looking car!" Wouldn't it be cool, though, if the Lexus design team were a bunch of bitter, cynical pranksters? "yeah, sure, guys, I like the rocker panels stuffed with human feces, but what if--what if--we designed a car that looked just like an R Crumb car? And get this--we make it our most expensive model!! It'll be like making those moron investment bankers wear Larry Fine hairdos!" That would be pretty cool.

Enclosure

Back to business as usual. Kind of. You never quite go all the way back, and when you do go back what was there isn't the same anyway.

Fair warning: anyone who is not comfortable with hearing about my loony meds stories, and I'm advised there are a few of you out there, go ahead and take a bathroom break or something. Like it or not, this is a signficant part of my life right now, and if I can't share it with a few hundred thousand internet friends, who can I share it with? Besides, there still have to be a few laughs left to be wrung out of the topic.

I had a world-class weekend. Everything that has made my life richer in the last few years was present: old friends, new friends, good food, bad music, things I never saw before, thoughts I never thought before, hysterical laughter, mild laughter, friends I saw again for the first time in years, friends I may never see again, friends I've never seen and probably won't, friends I thought I'd lost but probably didn't, hidden treasures in a vibrant city, more good food, more bad music. Because I stopped my anti-depressants a week or so ago, for financial reasons as much as anything, I believe I've enjoyed these things more--certainly the bad music. I also think my postings to this blog have gotten closer to what I would like them to be, even though I seem to have scared the shit out of some people. But the other side of the coin is that the moment the festivities ended, I was awash in sadness and loss. There's nothing to hang on to, the moments are gone. And worse, the floodgates are open to re-experiencing all the loss of the last several years, an ocean of loss, did I really forget it was there? I don't have a clue if other people experience this, or how strongly, but my overriding thought is where the FUCK are those fucking PILLS?? I am going to go out and find a pharmacist at his fucking HOUSE watching the fucking football game and force him at gunpoint to open up the fucking store and GIVE ME MY PILLS! But those pills, and I know this for a fact, do not fix anything, they just paper over things. Please understand, I know that for many people they're a necessity, they're crippled without them, and more power to them. But for me, at this point--at this juncture - they're just postponing the application of courage. I want the intensity back, and I can't choose only the positive part of it, so bring it on. But shit it hurts sometimes. Okay, I'm done. Invite the others back in the room. If you made it this far without a surreptitious eye-roll, you're my pal.

'kay, I promise the next post will be chock full of the snotty facetiousness you've come to expect. I shit you not.

Enclosure

...so we wind up with an artist's depiction of the biscuits that weren't there. Accompanied by scintillating conversation on the topics of art, comedians, boatbuilders, assholes, western African nations, retro Spectives, the passing of darkrooms, and missing biscuits. Altogether, not a bad weekend.

The day was capped with a celebration of Dan Ballard's continued good health, and he's shown here with a healthy representation of his creative team at Lawler Ballard. Also here, but not shown: a spectacularly ungifted piano player in a velvet jacket, Dan's brand new wife Melinda, an inebriated gent who told Wayne he looked just like a lady friend of his who calls everyone Lovey, and "she's not a bad-looking woman," and a contingent of women who were comparing mushrooms in their yards to male genitalia, and cackling about what a lawn mower does to these poor tender appendages. Males in the vicinity didn't seem to see the humor in these anecdotes. But it was generally agreed that this was a watershed event, and to underline the perception, Nancy Mansfield drove us back downtown in reverse. And I would be remiss if I didn't mention that I got to see Wayne's wife, the lovely Catherine, again after 10 years or so, and her lovely son Alan. Catherine comments regularly on this blog, usually consisting of futile attempts to correct my eating habits.

This was the Chinese Moon-Something Festival, but I knew that purity of concept was not the driving factor here when I heard bagpipe music over the loudspeakers. Plus the food selection was depressingly the same as other festivals. Belgian Chinese Waffles?

Next stop, the Mariners' Museum. The drive up there turned out to be one of the most thrilling parts of the visit, thanks to Dr. Research's libertarian approach to road rules. Apparently "One Way" doesn't automatically mean "in the direction of the arrow" to the doc, an interpretation which took me by surprise, an emotion which seemed to be shared by the drivers of oncoming cars. The museum itself was mind-boggling in its largicity.

First stop, Vorwallerville, USA. A few words of explanation are in order: first of all, Marcus is not that tall at all. He insisted on standing on a stool. Kind of embarrassing, actually. And before we arrived, Jenny thought of a fun game for the family to play. Each of them was to guess how old Sparky was and write it on a different part of the house. That's Jenny's guess on the door frame. Finally, I'm pretending to perform the Heimlich Manuever on Max in order to demonstrate some of the possible consequences of trying to feed worms to guests. If it looks like he wasn't getting the message, that's cause he wasn't.

I leave little post-it notes to myself all the time*. And about half of them, by the time I get around to reading them, make absolutely no sense to me. I'm looking at one right now that says "hand brake." WTF? It's my handwriting, so I can't chalk it up to some deranged intruder. Thing is, one day a few years from now, I'll smack my forehead and say "oh, SHIT! The hand brake! Well, too late now..."

*Is that a gay thing to do?

I added Number 8 at the last moment in order to appear humble to you lot. God, I love that "you lot". We're here in the richest country in the U.S. world, and we have to borrow such a fine epithet from the threadbare Brits.We have to wade through mouldering piles of benjamins to get to work, we crack our teeth on silver dollars accidentally left in our Prime Rib Catastrophe sandwiches, and yet we can't own a couple of damn words. The best we can do is threaten to open a can of whoop-ass, and who ends up looking worse after that? Not your Brit, who would break into a great Cyril Richardish grin if it weren't for his stiff upper lip, which forces his lower face into spasm, and he ends up looking alarmingly like Renée Zellweger, which is some kind of poetic justice, I suppose.

These things happen--sunspots or whatnot. In the meantime, today's fun discussion topic. Did this ever happen to you? I don't mean this in every particular, because then you could answer "no" and go about your business without reading any farther. I mean something like this, okay? Jeez, you guys.

One time I was walking down the street, and I stumbled on a sidewalk edge that had lifted slightly in relation to its predecessor. Probably an underlying root or the first intimations of a region-destroying earthquake, but that's neither here nor there. Wherever it is, those are two place where it's not. By my decree, evidently. Okay, command-z.

And at the very moment I stumbled, a tall green trash can across the street tipped over. No proximate cause. It just tipped over. No gust of wind, no raccoon jumping out, no jilted pizza joint worker taking out his frustration at the nearest inanimate object. It just tipped over. And I had to conclude that it was related to my stumble. I had to, right? This messed me up for days afterward. What was the connection? I wracked my brain. I pounded my forehead with my fist. I asked co-workers to slap me in the back of the head. Although it was entirely unnecessary of me to do so, since they do it pretty much regularly anyway.And then a test occurred to me: if there was a causal relationship here, then if I hadn't tripped, the trash can wouldn't have tipped over. I named this The Torta Conjecture, and it appears from time to time in scholarly publications. so I tested the thesis, and one day when there was a trash can across the street, I purposely avoided the stumble-causing sidewalk edge, I just stepped right over the fucker without losing a beat -- and the trash can didn't tip over! It didn't budge. Well, as you can imagine, I was stunned by this confirmation of my conjecture. So there was a direct connection! Of course I took a stick and swept the area for ultra-fine nearly invisible strings, and keenly scoured the street for the tell-tale signs of one of those forests of laser beams that are constructed to prevent the theft of giant jewels from museums and which are woefully inadequate to the task, since they are overpowered on a regular basis by any old team of criminals that comes down the pike, the majority of whom seem to be led by the actor Gene Hackman, but that's neither here nor there. I decree.

So the Torta Conjecture remains a mystery, and has since become a litmus test for Unified-Theory Deduction types. What do people in the Litmus-Test industry say when they want to refer to something like this? There's another riddle to add to the list. It's one of those watershed moments when you suddenly realize that Life consists of nothing but mysteries and bafflements and contradictions, and they really only appear that way because we think they should make sense. Whereas in reality, as a learned colleague told me once, Shit Happens.

Now does this sound like the ramblings of an Older Gay Guy in San Francisco? I ask you.

Okay, they're coworkers. "How have you managed to stay in business?" you may exclaim after glancing at these mugs. The truth is, I'm carrying them. Were it not for me, they'd no doubt be about 20 feet due south, lounging against the outside wall, cadging change from passersby. I'm being easy on these guys, too. I shit you not.

It has occurred to me that in my life I haven't said "I shit you not" nearly enough. I have some major ground to make up. I shit you not.

This is so laughable it isn't even funny. First of all, you don't go insane. What happens is when you're walking down the street, a black limousine cruises up beside you and keeps up with you as you quicken your pace, and finally a rear window rolls down and a voice from deep inside the lush interior rasps, "32imv 0pkj sdfweo lmloii oop@$# %&I* LNKJ^4 IU kyg347" And you suddenly realize that you have been visited by insanity. And then the window rolls up, the limo jumps off with a shrieking of tires, and rams right into a bus full of schoolchildren. Or so I'm told.

There are those who will tell you that I haven't posted a drawing worth a damn in over a week. They will point out that this post, for instance, is not accompanied by any drawing, good OR bad. They will tell you that this in itself is an incontrovertible sign that I am certifiable. There are others who will tell you that meatloaf is the spawn of the devil. Who are you to believe? If you want incontrovertible, i can get you incontrovertible. Here's something incontrovertible: each of these letters is a tiny drawing. This is not fact, this is fiction. Oops, nope, other way around. The truth of this truth is so true that the County Attorney of Gwinnett County, Georgia, carried it out onto the courthouse lawn and swung a sledgehammer over it again and again until it was gravel.

Finally, if I were insane, could I have the wherewithal to send these letter/drawings-- hundreds of them-- to people who may or may not exist? Don't THINK so.

Shit, no, I don't write poetry. But I do like to watch the way strung words spark against each other. And once in a while the spark will illumine a wavering image I had no clue was there. That's why I'm known as Sparky in San Francisco's gay community.

from Idiotic Semiotics: The Legend of Sparky Donatello, by Diane Ripley

My webmistress at my old site, wallytorta.com, has been having all kinds of trouble with the hosts, and has temporarily (maybe) suspended the site. What I didn't realize (duh) was that my wallytorta.com emails have also been disabled. Hence your problems sending mails that way. So please send any future correspondence to wallytorta@gmail.com. Sorry for the inconvenience.

I don't know why I didn't think of this sooner. Friday afternoon, as we unwound from a demanding week, we (okay, I) taped a plastic cup to the outside of one of our windows, and put a label on it that said "TIPS". And darned if people didn't leave tips--including a boy who could barely reach high enough to leave his dime. Okay, we didn't make enough to significantly alter our lifestyles, and at any rate Harry made off with the entire plunder. But it just reaffirms my faith in human nature. No, really, the enthusiasm with which people played along made me realize how willing people are to engage with something a little oddball in their day.

Administrative Note: If you look over at that right-hand column, you'll see that I have started to categorize the entries to this blog, which, when completed, will allow you to head directly for the swill of your choice. Just another service from your friendly Sparky Industries team.

I woke up at 2:30 this morning with the idea of doing this or something like it. Don't know what was so compelling about it at the time, but it sure shot the hell out of my night's sleep. Before I went back to bed, I discovered a wiry white hair growing straight out of my forehead. I took this as a sign that I should never, ever learn to speak German. In retrospect, I now take that as a sign that I should stop messing with my meds. But at this juncture, I can't tell whether "messing with" is defined as stopping them or resuming them. After all, as a friend pointed out, the natural state is a medless one. But after all, it was a doctor who thought meds would help correct an imbalance of something or other. And I can see the merits of each point of view. When I'm fully medicated (I can hear some people gritting their teeth over my broachification of this topic, but they have to understand that for this blog to have any value (for me), the unfettered outpouring of whatever festers in my interior skyways, whether sincere or jinking around for yucks, is a necessity, and let the chips fall where they may. This can sound incredibly selfish to ears tuned to a particular station, but we're all always incredibly selfish, even (or especially) when engaged in incredible selflessness, and while the assessment of the tangible results of our continual solo wrestling match is a legitimate undertaking, the bemoanization of our wretched, heartbreakingly ambivalent motivation is a mug's game.) So where was I? Ah yes, meds. Do I even know if they're in my system? I need to have the mental clarity afforded by my meds or by their absence even to be able to answer that question. If I had 65¢, I'd buy a Snickers.

The monthly bandwidth fees on my various accounts are costing more than I ever anticipated. So here's my deal. I'm going through all my loose sketches (those not in sketchbooks) and throwing them up here for sale as is, meaning not matted or framed, on whatever paper was handy at the time. What you do is click on the mart link over there to the right, make your way to the gallery, click on thumbnails to see larger, pick one (remember its 3-digit number), email me, receive an email from me with a snailmail address, put a crisp new $20 bill in an envelope (or a ratty old $20 bill, it must be cash), address the envelope, put it in a mailbox, and wait. You will promptly receive the requested sketch via US Mail, and we will both be happy. This obviously requires a bit of trust on your part, but I figure the paltry sums involved will reassure you that this isn't a giant scam. I'll try to post new items to the gallery regularly. Everything will always be twenty bucks, because I'm making you jump through a few extra hoops on my behalf.

in German:
Die schlimmste im ganzen Bezirk. Mietshäuser mit Briefkästen, an denen die Namen abgekratzt waren oder die überhaupt keine Namen trugen, und das unter winzigen Glühbirnen in dunklen Hauseingängen.
Alte Tanten, die in allen Strassen in den Hauseingängen standen und stets die selbe Frage stellten, als seien sie eine Person mit einer Stimme:
"Briefträger, haben sie keine Post für mich?"
Und am liebsten hätte man geschrien: "Woher zum Kuckuck soll ich denn wissen, wer Sie sind oder wer ich bin oder wer irgendjemand ist?"
Schweisstriefend, von einem Kater geplagt, unter dem unmöglichen Zeitdruck, und da drin Jonstone in seinem roten Hemd, der genau bescheid wusste und seinen Spass hatte. Was war er doch für ein feiner Mann!

If you ever wondered where all the old hippie/biker/burn-outs went to, they're all working at the Norva Theater in Norfolk, Virginia, USA. Drop in and say hi, I'm sure they'd like it. Be sure to bring some weed.

Everybody at the concert was "texting". This is like talking on the phone, only a lot slower and without the added benefits of hearing a human voice. Myself, I was "sketching". This is a hot new technology whereby you use a stylus-related input device to record "lines" on a wood-pulp based graphics tablet that roughly correspond to what the inputter sees with his "eyes".

You probably think this is a humorous exaggeration, but it really happened just the way I drew it, I swear on the grave of Baby Jesus.