Category Archives: Life

Happy National Squirrel Appreciation Day!

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Squirrels are assholes. They’re the only animal that sounds like they’re swearing when they make their “cute” little animal noises. I’ve heard stories about them stealing food out of people’s hands when they have lunch in the park. They watch. They wait. And in 2006, they went to war with me.

The first salvo began at our house in Bloomington, Indiana, when I was living with my wife. We had floor-to-ceiling windows that opened at the bottom, onto our front porch, and it was a warm enough day that we did just that. A squirrel descended from one of the majestic oak trees in our front yard to enjoy his tasty acorn on our porch, right out front of the open window. At the same time, we had three young cats, aged six, six, and two. They parted the vertical blinds and crouched, so tense I was worried they’d spontaneously combust, staring, glaring, and chattering in that way that they think is imitating wildlife. I don’t have the heart to tell them it actually sounds like a cat chattering. Eventually the squirrel strutted away, and they were so wound up afterwards, they started their own little war that permanently damaged parts of the house.

They weren’t done with us. I don’t know if this was the same squirrel. (I know, it’s speciesest to say, “They all look alike, but they do.”) This time, Kate ordered to get rid of it before the cats exploded. I grabbed our porch-sweeping room and stepped outside. An ordinary squirrel would have run away at that point, but this was no ordinary squirrel. This was personal. I poked it, and it didn’t move. So I charged it, and it fled. When I chased it to a tree that it shimmied up, I figured it was over. It was not. It circled the trunk and swung back over, inches from the bristles of my broom, swearing at me. After enduring the verbal abuse long enough, I backed away and retreated inside. Later, a friend would ask me what I would have done if it had jumped onto the broom. “I would have screamed in a very unmasculine manner, dropped the broom, and retreated inside.” I didn’t add that I’d probably go to the bathroom in my pants.

Then there was the kamikaze squirrel that jumped in front of my car one day. That “crunch” haunted me for years. I’m certain that instilling guilt in me was the purpose of that admittedly heroic sacrifice.

But the war climaxed one beautiful spring day when I left for work. Our porch wasn’t much of a porch, per se, but rather a concrete landing with a couple of chairs for smoking cigarettes and a canopy. That morning, when I stepped out from under said canopy, breathing in that pollen on a perfect sweater day, and a squirrel landed on my head. I screamed, and the squirrel screamed and scrambled off of my skull, leaving behind a scalpful of scratches.

It failed to kill me, which I’m not sure was its goal. I think it wanted to intimidate me. Well done, squirrel. After that, the hostilities ceased. I see them, munching on their snacks—a lot of them snacks left behind by the litterers that live in our neighborhood—planning their next move. Luckily, there are no trees near my new apartment (there’s a beautiful neighborhood about a block southeast, though), but I can never relax. I know they’re out there, watching me. Waiting.

Happy National Squirrel Appreciation Day! Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Schoolyard Haunts

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Something I’ve always wondered about was where the supplemental lyrics to “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” came from. I never hear them on TV (that doesn’t mean they’ve never been on TV), but I’ve been hearing them since I was too little to remember. Nowadays, you can’t sing “You would even say it glows” without someone appearing out of nowhere and adding, “Like a light bulb!” Where did it come from? How do I hear it from New Mexico to Oklahoma to Northern Virginia with few differences? And even if there are slight differences, the tune and rhythm is the same. I think this would be a better documentary than another one about Ted Bundy, so Netflix, call me.

However, that’s not why I gathered you all here. You are here because a chat conversation today revealed to me just how weird this schoolyard song was, and that it, from what I can tell, did not leave Woodall Elementary in rural Oklahoma. I’m calling upon you because, if you can identify the song, you would put to rest a mystery I’ve been living with for over thirty-five years.

The song, and I am not making any of this up, goes like this:

Yo momma, yo daddy, yo greaaaaaaaasy granny!

You got a hole in your pants, you got a big behind, like Frankenstein

You’re gonna beat beat beat down Sesame Street.

It was sung to me as kind of an acapella funk rap. The part where you’re introducing your relatives goes pretty slowly, like a train warming up. The rest of it chugs along at top speed.

I have no idea what this is. When the class clown who taught it to me was confronted by a teacher who said, “Where did you get that song, mister?” his answer was “Sesame Street.” Which is funny, but it is probably not accurate.

I don’t even know why I remember it, but I do. Is it from a song? That’s a possibility because I was not up on music in the eighties, unless it was by “Weird Al” Yankovic. And yet, I’ve never heard this song. Is it just a weird schoolyard thing? I have not heard it in any schoolyard I’ve been to, and anyone I’ve asked about it has usually given me a concerned look.

If I had the finances, I’d do a documentary about this, as well, but it would probably be lots of shots of people being puzzled by me singing to them. I’d be asking questions that would baffle them, such as, “How do you respond to the allegations that your granny is greaaaaaaasy?” Or, “Do you believe that this alleged hole in your pants might be related to your behind matching Frankenstein’s in size?”

Anyway, that’s why you’re here: does this ring any bells? Is this a song I’m not familiar with? I recently found out that accusing someone of having a “big ol’ butt” came from a song. I hope you have some answers.

There’s one possibility I hadn’t considered, and that’s that the class clown made it up whole cloth. Somehow, that would be the best origin for this strange little rhyme.

Live in on the Edge

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The guy renting out the room in his apartment in Jersey City had double-booked a roommate interview. Unemployed, I sat on a couch next to a professional (a doctor, if I can remember back twenty-five years) who was well groomed, while I looked like I had just rolled out of bed. Things were grim, until I saw his bookshelf.

See, televangelist Pat Robertson had written a “novel.” I am by no means a fundamentalist Christian, or even a Christian at all, but I had actually read this book. (I’d accuse it of being ghost-written, but ghost-writers are professionals, and this book was not.) The late nineties were the End Times, and I was getting a kick out of people being freaked out about it. Ironically, I read every book I could find about the coming apocalypse. All the fiction books had a henpecked president and his lesbian, Satanist wife, who may or may not be the Beast. They got old after a while.  

I pointed at the book and said, “I’ve read that!”

The guy looking for the roommate said, “What did you think about the ending?”

I said, “It was a great twist!”

The room was mine.

I lived there six years, then another four years in the home Kate had purchased before I moved in, and the next five years in a series of private and corporate apartments that Kate took care of, until the government took care of everything and set us up in a compound in Doha, Qatar. From there, we bought a condo with my father-in-law’s money.

After that, I lived in the apartment Nicole had been renting out for years, until we moved together to a two-bedroom. Even though we are both on the lease, Nicole did most of the work. It’s privately owned by a single landlord. We paid an application fee, a security deposit, a month’s rent, and a small pet fee. It couldn’t have been easier.


My new apartment, owned by a corporation and subsidized by HUD, requires proof of employment and a month of pay stubs, a signed twenty-five-page lease, Newcastle’s photo and medical records, an account with the electric company, two lease addendums, a loading-dock reservation, one month’s rent (pro-rated), an amenities fee, a pet fee, a security deposit, a pinch of paprika, and renter’s insurance (but not the policy I already have).

I turn forty-eight this year, and I’ve never lived alone. I’ve been insulated from this process, so I had no idea what a hassle it was. I move on Friday, but I can’t pack until Tuesday. It’s okay, everything here belongs to Nicole. I left my marriage with my clothes, my note-, sketch-, comic, and just plain books and some art supplies. I’ve acquired some furniture and some organizational equipment that had one job and failed, and a huge number of toys, mostly Doctor Who related. That’s it. It will take ma a day to pack. And then, it will be Newcastle, me, and a pile of stuff to sort through. Finally, I’ll be able to start MortalMan.

This is a pretty huge adventure I’m embarking on. I feel like, after all this time, I’m finally a grownup.

Creativity Is My Co-Pilot

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In high school, Pilot Precise pens were the Cadillac of writing instruments. They were hard (for us) to find, but they were as close to fountain pens that we’d get at that age. The most exciting thing was to get a new color. Black and blue were great, but there was also red. Red was pedestrian compared to green. Or freaking purple. When I was journaling back then, I collected pens to represent the rainbow, substituting black for yellow, and finding an orange felt-tipped pen. Those were the days.

In 2010, long after I’d learned to draw, I found a four-pack of Pilot Precise pens at the Government Printing Office, where I was temping. I swiped them out of instinct, but I wasn’t sure what I would use them for. I didn’t journal—I didn’t do much writing in general, and when I did, it was with real fountain pens. I put them in the Box of Misfit Writing and Art supplies.

Along the way, Nicole bought me a set of thirty Stabilo Art Pens. They were regular pens, not brushes, so I tried a little cross-hatching. After a few tries, I was able to create works of art like this:

My mind returned to the Pilots. I only had four colors: black, blue, red, and green, but even with a limited palette, I knew I could create art. Best of all, I had a character I’d never get tired of drawing, and red, green, and blue were her colors. I have a dozen of these drawings, and some of them are really awful (most of my drawings are awful—you’re only seeing the good ones), but here are a few of the best.

(I did this one yesterday)

Concerned that the four-pack was going to run out of ink (it’s not even close), I splurged on a ten-pack. In addition to black, green, blue, and red, it has magenta, purple, light blue, light green, yellow, and orange. I took them for a spin.

It’s been good to stretch myself out after working so solidly with watercolors while making Polterguys. These pens are indulgent, but they’re a lot of fun. It brings me back to the school days when Severian and I would hang out in the back of class, writing all over our notebooks, and being unbridled in our creativity.

Big Wheel Keep on Turnin’

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Sometimes a bad day doesn’t have to be a bad day forever. New Year’s Eve started really poorly, the kind of poorly that could have carried over into the new year. I won’t get into any specifics because they’re none of your business, but my life is going to change drastically, possibly as soon as this month.

I spent the afternoon kind of shock, but one of my oldest friends got my stunned text and helped talk me through it over the phone. I’ve worried that I don’t have many friends anymore because everybody has a life, and many of them were pushed out of my life while I was married. However, everybody I reached out to got back to me as soon as they read their texts, and I was able to process the events of the day.

The reason I didn’t have a bad day was because I got to hang out with the Nerdy Couple, a husband-and-wife duo I can trace back to Bloomington, Indiana. They had with them their Delightfully Weird Friend and another friend I could only describe as unhinged.

I told them all about my morning while trying not to editorialize (while editorializing), and after that twenty-minute conversation, we talked about Star Trek, the Star-Trek-adjacent fic I’ve been posting on AO3, but haven’t updated since October. We talked a lot about Star Trek. Nerdy Husband told me that there is a novel with some information on how Sarek and Amanda Grayson got together (a question that’s been plaguing me for a while), and we all agreed that the Kirk of the original series is actually a thoughtful, diplomatic man and not the horny cowboy everybody remembers him as (thanks, in no small part, to the JJ Abrams movies).

From there we gorged ourselves on sushi, cupcakes, and (for me anyway) Adderall and coffee before playing Cards against Humanity and observing ourselves becoming horrible people. I shared my favorite pick-up line (“You remind me of my pinkie toe: you’re small, cute, and I’m probably going to bang you on my coffee table later.”) which matched the tone perfectly. My bedtime is 8:00, though closer to 7:30 lately, so by ten o’clock I was feeling loopy, which only helped me win a few rounds. Taking breaks to show each other TikTok videos and to share horrifying medical stories, we wrapped it up in time for the ball drop. Delightfully Weird Friend dominated, followed by Nerdy Husband. The rest of us weren’t even close.

That’s how I’m going to remember New Year’s Eve 2023. It was the year I became an artist again and illustrated two-and-a-half comics. I saw Romania, which was awesome, and I kicked my marijuana habit. Newcastle came down with hyperthyroidism and arthritis, but once we put him on treatment, he’s incredibly healthy (for a cat who has those ailments plus kidney disease and cardiac failure). I finally made a new friend, at work, and we text each other all the time when we’re not being productive or going out to coffee. I lost the hearing in one of my ears, but yesterday it came back. I did put on a lot of weight, which I’m not happy about.

This year I’m going to illustrate the MortalMan story I’ve been dreaming about since 2000. I even picked up a new art board to do it with. At some point, I’m going to move to a new apartment, and I’ll be living solo for the first time in my entire life. I have a plan to take my weight off. Other than that, my year will be wide open.

This has been a very matter-of-fact post, but that’s because I’m probably going to hop back into bed shortly. Once upon a time I spent New Year’s Day nursing a hangover, treating myself to a greasy breakfast, and watching bad TV, sometimes with a girlfriend, sometimes with my sister, and sometimes alone. This year I’ve spend most of my morning in my pajamas, drifting in and out of sleep and reviewing my first round of proofs while Newcastle cuddled me. I cannot be happier at this moment. Twenty-four hours ago should have ruined me, but it failed. I’m filled with as much chill and hope as I’ve ever had.

May your year fill you with chill and hope.

The Best Things in Life Are Free, You Can Keep ‘Em

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I uncovered even more jobs I did (mostly) for money, including, Big Face Records in 2012, a rap label that never took off.

Wish Slap from 2010, a truly terrible idea for a TV show where you paid money to have someone slap your favorite celebrity.

The cover (actually used) for the 2014 fantasy noir anthology, Fae Fatales, where I was first published.

And finally, Li’l Dicky from a Bush Administration parody comic I pitched to the Unemployed Philosopher’s in 2004, rejected because “There’s no way Bush will ever get a second term.” This is the worst reason I was rejected.

i did a lot more commissioned work than I realize. There’s more to come.

And IIIIIIIIIIIIIII Will Always Love Yule

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I stopped celebrating Christmas a long time ago, around the time my parents stopped paying my airplane ticket home. After I moved to New York-adjacent, I had a lot of family in New Jersey, but I am a terrible long-distance relative, and I didn’t know any of them well enough to spend the holiday with them, except once, and that was awkward.

The second year I was there, my uncle Larry invited me to Linden, New Jersey, in mid-December, along with the extended families of himself and my aunt Christine. Christine is my mother’s sister, but I adored everyone there, even the kids and grandkids of Larry’s brother, Phil. Even though I was out of touch, Uncle Larry welcomed me into his home on Ainsworth Street as if I had always been there, and I visited them frequently on weekends.

I only saw Larry’s family once a year, though, and I watched the children grow up as I kept them occupied while Mommy and Daddy got drunk. Whenever my smoker’s lungs couldn’t keep up with them, we played the heart-attack game, which was me falling to the ground and all of them tried to revive me using their rudimentary understanding of CPR. My other favorite game was the monster game, where I’d chase them to a hiding place, safe from me, and then I went and had a beer. Eventually, they’d find me, then I’d just roar, and they split.

But that left the actual day, when my extended family celebrated with just themselves, and my found families all went home. You’d think that would be depressing, but it really wasn’t. You see, on December 25, I had plans.

My day would start out late, and I’d head into the city for brunch with Joshua. As this was Christmas, our options were limited. One or two years, he had a girlfriend from China, and she took us to a real Chinese restaurant, which was a lot like that racist dining scene from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Chicken with broccoli was not on the menu, but something horrible being done to a crab was.

From there, we’d see a movie, which was reminiscent of what my family would do when I was a kid, and we ran out of things to unwrap. For the latter, the movie I remember most was Home Alone. As for the former, the one that became my Christmas movie is Spike Lee’s 25th Hour. (All you Die Hard people are so cute.) And from there we’d go to work.

Working at The New York Post on Christmas was absolutely wonderful. Everyone there was Jewish, or without family, or hiding from their family. None of the hardcore news editors were there, so everyone was relaxed. Year-round, the sport we played at The Post was to make each other laugh, and never was it more competitive than it was on Christmas. Even though I saw them every week, there was something especially heartwarming about seeing Mike and Rob and Dom and my auxiliary dad, Barry, as well as everyone else. The magic of Christmas in New York is such a cliché, but when you pass by the tree at the Rockefeller Center and glance into the ice-skating rink on your way to an office with a sodium-heavy buffet and affectionate shouting from some of your favorite people, you believe.

I have no memory of the thirteen Christmases I spent with Kate because we treated them like normal days. Usually we’d spend the weekend before with her (but never my) family, and her family didn’t get me, so they had no idea what to do with me. The actual day was just like any other, except everything was closed. It’s not as special when you’re not waking up and unwrapping presents.

With Nicole, she has a side-hustle sitting pets, and Christmas is a lucrative day, so we’ve spent it apart, except for once, during quarantine, when we watched that smoking turd, Wonder Woman 1984. This year, she woke up at home, and we unwrapped presents together and went our separate ways, her making a dessert and me taking the new sketchbooks and expensive paintbrushes Mom and Dad got me out for a spin. Zooming with them and my sisters and my niece and my nephew-in-law was pure chaos.

Christmas is just a day. Sure everything’s closed, and there’s nothing good on TV, but the sun rises and falls, just as it always does. You need to eat lunch, you need to take the dogs for a walk. It’s okay not to do anything just because someone else is. If you really need to find meaning on December 25, you can find it. I found mine on a loud news floor, trying to think of a clever headline. (The best one I ever came up with had to do with a computer screw-up that cost New York teachers their December 24 paycheck: “The glitch that stole X-mas.”) And it’s okay to feel lonely. Boxing Day is just around the corner.

I used to be a humbug, including during my time at the paper before I realized what a holiday it was. Nowadays, I am by no means a Tiny Tim or post-ghost Scrooge. I still have a problem with how shallow this holiday is (i.e. the Black Fridays that last well into December) and how I lost the goddamned Wham! game on Christmas Freaking Eve! But even at my loneliest, I looked forward to this day, even if it is just a day.

(This essay has no thesis, it’s just a bunch of random and contradictory thoughts pouring out.)

To Draw or Not to Draw

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Back when I wanted to make action comics, I had a little vigilante with no name. His original story was five issues, based on Hamlet. I wrote the first five scripts, but they are lost to history (Newcastle destroyed my laptop), and my attempt to make a novel of it failed when I couldn’t make five issues drag on for more than 20,000 words. The book would have been called Tantalus. I modeled the character after Bruce Lee, and I gave him a cane he never needed when he was fighting or doing parkour (symbolism) as well as a scarf that would have been a good visual. The book was always intended to be in black and white. I decided, after fifteen years, to draw the character again, and I went a little more stark than he had been in the past. It would have been called Tantalus.

Here is the one I just did.

Here is one of my earlier sketches from 2002.

A more dynamic one from 2003 I would like to have used as a cover:

As well as a couple of dynamic pictures from 2008.

I think I’m done with this character, but I loved his look, and he’s fun to draw. The one I just did didn’t turn out great, but I should give it another shot.

He Works Hard for His Money

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It doesn’t happen often, but sometimes people hear I’m an artist, and they think they could get a custom logo for their businesses. They rarely ever used my art because my style doesn’t necessarily have that clip-art, professional je ne sais quoi that makes it look corporate. What they needed was a graphic designer, but they still paid me, and it is some of my best work. Here’s eight examples.

First was for a post-apocalyptic novel series that I think the author did actually use. It’s a pretty good logo, in my opinion.

Second and third are for a Southern barbecue restaurant that never took off. This guy was never satisfied with anything I turned in, but some of the sketches turned out well regardless.

A friend wanted to write a kids book about a misbehaving kitten, and I mocked up a couple of character sheets, fourth and fifth, and some pages, but the book was never written.

I can’t remember what the sixth one was called, but it was for an indy publisher. This was the one ultimately used on the only book he published, but it took a couple of tries to get it right.

The seventh one came about when a roller derby team asked me to make a figure for their flyers. My style would have been a great match, but they didn’t like my first draft because apparently this is something you’re never supposed to do in the ‘derb.

And finally, the owner of the salon I used to frequent asked me to help with a warning label. The figure chosen from the sixth picture would have the circle/slash signifying “no.” They liked the idea, but it wasn’t slick enough.

Of course, I used to do work for PPC Hero, but my art was never clip-arty enough, and they eventually let me go. The blog no longer exists. That’ll teach them.

I’m happy to be doing my thing these days, with no hope of making money. I may turn in some fantastic work, but it’s usually not good enough for what the client has in mind. As I said, I’m not a graphic designer. Even the ones that used my ideas tended to replace them as soon as something better came along, which is what happened with the comic I wasted 2004 working on, The Book of Jesse. The one I am good enough for is myself. There was a long period of about four to five years ago when I wasn’t, and my art was bad (even my birthday self-portraits), when I was doing it at all (my birthday self-portraits). My renaissance began with a pushy coworker demanding a portrait, but once I shook the rust off, I’ve been amusing myself, and if I can’t do that, then what’s the point?