Sorry I was late by uh, 2 weeks. I got waylaid in homeTown, and made a mess of my self. Here’s 4 tomorrow.
PartTwo, Dade comes to hear a Story...
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FLOWERS OF HOMECOMING
RETURN:
Kazushi Sakuraba battles Marcel Duchamp! By Fireball Lee
Tokyo, Japan– birthplace of the sun, and a land of complete civility. I cannot express my gratitude for this location, having just returned from a 2 week jaunt through the beautiful and harrowing social jungles of Thailand, out the back-door of Shanghai (thought I’d have been slaughtered like a duck), plopped back (sickly) on my sweet-smelling grass-mat floorboards and restless nights ahead.
There are no words to describe the level of surface kindness tucked tightly around the solid heart muscles of the casual Nihon-Jin. I battle the desire to shake hands with strangers as I shuffle through Narita airport. “Praise Buddha for blessings upon Tokyo! I’ll never leave your warmth again.”
I carry myself from the NEXpress train to the cozy cove of Shinjuku station and I am relieved to inhale the familial scents of it’s comfort and convenience-slow-witted and delirious from weeks of drinking, travel and sleeplessness. Dry-mouthed, I approach a vending machine, colorful lights blinking, etc… Cold, bottled green tea at my disposal with the swipe of a train card against it’s smooth surface–the clinking sound of falling beverage greeting me at the flap.
“Okaeri,” it murmurs, rolling–label face-up. “Welcome back.”
“Thanks, vending machine. You are a pillar of modern comfort in this garbage heap of a planet.”
Freshly delivered, I sprint, taking two steps at a time. WAS AN ADVENTURE, I think and consider my exit, slightly baffled to be back. 24 hours in the Bangkok International airport: paranoid thoughts breeding unhealthy actions and movements. Nodding off with eyes open. Sweating onto hard plastic, all the while avoiding any sort that might seem overly helpful (bastards all). I had it comparatively easy.
Plenty of the others swore they’d been marooned in Bangkok’s tyrant clutches for nearly a week. The toils of flying standby on this side of paradise during the busy Japanese Obon holiday–a Buddhist ceremony to honor the dead turned familial reunion. Ball-ache of the decade.
“Never again”, I whisper looking towards the rafters and through the glass to the dead air above.
“Where are you trying get to?” I ask a young man standing nearby. He is in line, looking to get on the same flight.
“Iowa. I’m from there.” He is dark-skinned and very tall. He talks to me like we’re bros. “Everyone is trying to get outta here on standby, man. No way back. Fucking sucks. Might just have to buy a ticket.
God damn standby,” grumbling.
Everyone flying Delta has to get back through Tokyo. Fuck me. I live there. Just let me on the plane, dammit. I’m nearly broke. Bought two packs of gummi-worms and a cup-ramen–stomach all twisted up.
My cookie crumbles and I’m forced to buy a ticket on credit. What an inconvenience. I haven’t paid for a regular ticket in years. Been flying off of Grandfather’s buddy passes since I was a kid. Bite the bullet.
40,000 yen and 20 hours later, and I’m on a Chinese airline to Shanghai. The flight is relatively short. I arrive at Shanghai’s immigration counter and am surprised by their level of congeniality. A control panel on the desk of the customs agent which reads RATE MY SERVICE blinks green and red. I mash the button under KIND AND HELPFUL and he smiles. I exit and am quickly convinced I’m to stay at the nearby Shanghai hotel.
“I’ve only got 4,000 Japanese yen,” I say. “No Chinese money.”
“No problem, no problem,” the guy says and snatches the wad of blue and sand-colored bills from my clenched fist and leads me outside and into an old teel van. The driver speaks no English. There is one other passenger sitting in front of me. He looks to be about 50.
“Hello, my friend,” grasping my hand. “I am (something unintelligible). I am from India.”
“Hello,” I say. “I’m Kris…an American.” A young couple on a motorcycle rides by the window, drowning me out.
“I guess we’re both in the same boat,” he says. “I missed my flight this morning. Now I’m in this van.”
We’re both in the van. This van will carry me to my execution. Through the window I see twisting highways, roads and street signs in Chinese characters. In the distance, the heart of Shanghai.
The hotel is an old, 2 floor building along the highway. The carpet is stained. A plump woman is working the lobby, eating pan-fried pork fat and drinking a coca cola. She is sweet and smiles the whole time. Loves her pig. I am thirsty, but I’ve got nothing but an empty check card. Graciously, the Indian man buys me a bottle of water. I give him a snack cake. He is hungry and a vegetarian.
“Good luck, son. Safe travels,” he says.
I retire to my room, shower and fall asleep hearing people screw in the room next to me–paper walls, Chinese TV drama, dreams…
POST-SCRIPT:
Do not allow the above tone convince you that Thailand was anything less than delightful. It was Colorful and dynamic, with a fiery cuisine that matched the sincerity of it’s people, but near the end of the second week I had to make a dash for door. Here now and slightly departed from the beautiful loneliness of brief and intense travel, I gather my rosebuds and convince myself to a swelling for production. Nothing but drinks and laughs for the past 3 weeks. The spirit of summer rolls on. How many more? 10 before it’s all washed out?
About a year ago, I told of few of the boys that we (Goons, Bastards,etc…) were losing our Summer Culture, which was a way for some of us to explain a prolonging of freedom from the shackles of some unnamed suffering. It appears as though we continue to grip the rope for for our sweet lives. I cannot honestly decide whether or not it will lead to a wasting. As they say, time will tell and the curving backbone of it will whip through the snow-white foam towards the top of the break like some monstrous megalodon and the gnashing of razors on meat at the end.
For now, we will continue to argue the the value or lack there of in authorial power, the undeniable importance of the mother we call NARRATIVE and the nature of flying leg locks– pitting the great IQ wrestler of our hearts against the surrealist behind our eyes. It is an exhausting forever war. It carves us into into pleasing shapes– sliced pears, gold leaves.
I Recently heard a few of you are searching for the heart of the world. Like the corpse of Dracula it was split into 5 parts. Reawaken the warmth of the heart to lift a curse.
Kometkind, all of you–K
Genisis web_ComixTheCurseoftheGreenMatador.Joseph
Some of you might have read my post over the weekend, and noticed that I was thinking about Web comix and what not. And after a thrilling weekend, and finding out, btw that we are on the list of indie folk who are part of this War of the Independents thing that I love so much. Check that out! Well I said to myself, I need to make a web comic and thus from this very point on, this point at 4 in the morning when I finished my 3 panel comic strip, I begin the Curse of the Green Matador to the web, and will once a week every week from here! If this goes over well that is. So Hearts to you all, we are infinite!
Ch.1 intoductions.
Of late with Joseph
So Ive been really winding down the summer with some kind of quantum calculated success, mostly my life isn’t feeling crummy beyond words. Hmm at the moment Im feeling very inspired to get to work even harder, Ive been spending a lot more time drawing. And Ive taken a very strong interest in indie publishing, characters like Johnny Saturn come to mind I love that guy! Scott Story is an amazing artist and his story telling has kept me drawn to Johnny Saturn, I don’t think Scot would mind if I was tell everyone that JohnnySaturn is a dot com. Im actually catching up on that today I think I need to start reading from book eight. Ive been so excited about this. I even pulled out some old ashcan I had for a comic group called 5th panel comics. Loved that Dystopia series they produced. Im really excited about indie publishing again. Kris and I are getting ready to finally print a book, and its itching in me. The Komet of course is still being drawn, its such a huge deal to me. But Im about ready to snap it done. The we can move on with Bastards! And PrettyBoyComix… that’s.. I don’t know if I mentioned that yet? Did I Jameson? Huh..well I am too excited about that to talk about it now. Mostly, just letting everyone know we are brewing them up stormy, and Kris is in Thailand this week, I think. Doing something cool I bet, with some cool kids like Duncan and Dan Herbertson probably Tal and Paul too. Maybe even the illustrative Sadie Starnes. Not me though Im holding down the western Carolina mountains mostly alone in my buggy old shack in the woods. But the reading is good. Take care everyone!
FROM THE GOLD OF TUNES YOU GO OUT WHISTLING
a short recording of an early morning…
THE DAUNTING CROWDS walk at varying paces past the bronze statue of the once loyal Akita dog below exit number five of Shibuya train station in the thick Tokyo evening air. I’m waiting for friends near an old green train car as nearby youth burn down cigarettes, beer, and cocktails. A young man wearing thick rimmed glasses and a tiny dress dances and sings a poorly practiced karaoke in a tree until
two eerily calm police officers gently ask him down, the crowds of eclectically dressed night-hawks clapping and hollering unintelligibly at his departure.
Recently I was asked why I love the city of Tokyo. What is it about this giant machine of peculiarity that keeps me enthusiastic about its possibilities? Considering the question, I’m surprised at my lack of creative response. Something more than cool, I think. Like most modern cities, the efficiency of Tokyo is as dazzling as it is nauseating. Over 39 million people live and work in the Tokyo prefecture which, by most standards, makes Tokyo the largest metropolitan area in the world. People have uttered things like “a blend of old and new,” and other overused ways to try and build a simple mold of what makes this city so fine. The question is full of traps—what makes the beating heart of a true megalopolis pump its hot life-blood through the streets and its (often) disenchanted people?
Now it’s just before midnight in Shibuya on Saturday night. People, young and old, scurry through the streets like so many of the well fed rats that live as kings through the garbage along the sidewalks and back alley shadows of the night.
After wasting plenty of time standing around and cracking wise, myself and others walk through the busiest crossing in the world, a five way “scramble” cross-walk beneath massive 2-story video screens blaring neon-lit advertisements, marking the entrance to Center Gai. A path used by locals and tourists alike, the 120 foot long Center Gai is one of the major veins through which to reach some of Shibuya’s most idiosyncratic night-time delights. A four story video arcade stretches up ten floors next to a photo booth shop where girls dressed in school uniform and fake tans drink lemon chu-hai (cocktails) on the steps. People sit and stand along the curbs drunk, passed out, shopping, and scamming one another until there’s nothing left, which rarely seems to be the case.
We stop at a convenient store called Family Mart for beers, opening them in the street. As an American, I consider it one hell of a luxury to drink in public without being hassled, ticketed, or worse.
“I’d get my head busted open for this back home,” someone says.
Two young men approach us and offer a deal on karaoke.
“All you can drink,” he says.
I ask him how much. It’s 3,000 yen for 2 hours…everything included.
“Not tonight,” I tell him. We’ve decided to skip the ceremonial singing to reach a party at a place called Echo. I’ve never heard of it.
I am reminded of our usual nights at karaoke: 4-10 people pile into a tiny room and pass around an electronic remote, irrationally belting out Springsteen, Queen, Bowie and plenty more in a disillusioned stupor of rock n roll glory and too much booze.
A big rat scurries out from under some garbage past my foot, dragging a greasy wrapper back to nowhere. We continue up the road, passing high-end places, western pubs and yaki-tori stalls. There is no shortage of hustlers doing their best to get you inside anywhere and everywhere that costs a buck.
We reach the evening’s destination: a tall building near an oddly placed Outback Steakhouse. There are maybe ten or more pubs, cafes and hostess bars stacked on top of one another, all the way to the roof. Everything is crammed and smashed up against the next. There is no surplus of physical space. We take the stairs to the second floor. A man named Kato-Man runs two places. One is a small 12 seat bar called Beat Cafe, and the other is Echo: kind of a private party room with a small but adequate dance floor, a short bar and dark ceilings. There is nothing marking it’s location save a piece of torn notebook paper with the words “ECHO” written in green highlighter taped to a large, square door. We pay the 500 yen entrance fee to man at a round table near the door.
The inside is mostly reflective gold. The ornate vinyl floor is sticky and adorned with attractive patterns of blue and white, cigarette butts scattered about at random. Two Americans mix old soul and rockabilly classics. People stand at the bar and take shots. A pretty Korean girl in a aquamarine skirt and cream blouse snaps pictures of young couple sucking tongues on the sofa. Kids from New Zealand, Australia, America, Korea, China, and Japan drink, dance, and shout about nothing over the sound of the music.
One of the DJs approaches me. He has long blond hair, and he’s wearing a white t-shirt marked with perspiration.
“Where are you from, man?” he asks.
“States,” I say.
“Me too.” He says that he’d first come here planning to stay for a year. That was seven years ago.
“Same old story,” he says. “Met a girl just before I was supposed to leave. Now I don’t know what the hell’s going on.”
I head upstairs to Beat Cafe for a quieter drink. The place has around 12 seats in total—narrow and dark. These kind of tiny places are quite common in Tokyo. It’s the kind of atmosphere you would expect: warm, relaxed and intimate. Kato-Man is running the bar and choosing songs from his laptop. A muted Ziggy Stardust concert plays on a television at his back.
“You know my friend, huh?” I ask him as he pours my beer into a plastic cup.
“Who’s your friend?” He asks.
“You’re dating her, I say. Roz, right?”
He shakes his head up and down affirmatively.
“These are some real good places. My friends are having a lot of fun,” I say.
“Thanks.” He smiles big and goes back to the music.
I drink my drink and head downstairs. Night blurs into morning and we’re back out in the streets as the glorious rising sun comes up over the metallic buildings, smashing out the darkness and rolling can drink mayhem into day.
We’re stumbling through Yoyogi park. It’s early morning and I’m holding a flat, warm beer. I’ve no idea why we’re in the middle of park. Kids in their early 20’s are asleep next to a public toilet on the ground. It’s the beginning of a possibly beautiful day, but I’m destroyed so I hail a cab back to Shinjuku, climb the steps to my old apartment building alongside shit side of Kanda river and fall to sleep on my flat, floral patterned futon.
SHORT REGARDS………………………………………………………………………………………………….
With a weekend spinning down like a dying star, I sit with a cup of coffee, healthy as a broken horse and genuflect at having been blessed with my surroundings—living and inanimate.
A kubuki man moves in color through unnatural directions as the sound from the back of his throat rings in a high yodel –the dangerous, cutting sound birthed from the ill-behavior of wild ronin turned bird-painted ninkyō dantai (noble organization).
Dreams like these are cloudy and stick to me like rough peanut butter to the underside of a dry tongue. There are new waves always approaching. New writing and new art = NEW BOOK. Collect yourselves, and we’ll be sure to do the same.
-K
Await the return of the Spaceman
Sick of Waiting
So it’s the early part of July. We just threw a big party last Sunday, stateside. The girls that live down the hall from me at the Coburn building were all doing their own thing in the street. Dismissive as usual one of them opened a 40oz for me and drank the head of it. I lumbered back into my sweltering two busted fan apartment and continued about work. Im planning to have my first public showing downtown this summer- a large series of illustrations. With that mirth like thought on the brain pan, I am happy to announce that we are planning on printing a new book. Im hurriedly trying to get that in order and ready, I plan on having a few copies out at the reception. This dream of mine is becoming my adult Christmas, Im starting to think this showing art in galleries is a good thing.
Oh and that’s not all Ive been up too, Ive had much on my plate. More to report about that when I got it in my king-fu grip of passion. Something has managed to slip out of that grip recently. The Komet! I see his form streaking in strange dessert patterns across my dream scape skies. As he glances closer he smirks and grins like a madman. I feel like he knows I could reach him if I knew how to follow him, HIM like some kind of Peter Pan of the galactic infinite. My soul wafts like the grand old flag, a golden eagle clutching its tiny milky way block, the eagle rends its giant precious wings in screaming sounds of glory every time I think of The Komet crashing to earth. How many times has he crashed here? In my dreams TheKomet bends time like a straw, jamming his slender fingers into its openings and flexing the neck, preparing to slurp heavenly from the creative goop of life! Oh but the summer is burning on, and the good magneto sphere is still capriciously deflecting Sol’s deadly radiation. And the good earth waters are refreshing and cooling our crust and core. We still have the night sky. We have this immortal coil, we have our lives.
Listening to: Oasis, Wonderwall. Mission: Recycle something into art. Reading: Warhol the biography Eating: El Chapala’s Admiring: David Flores “don’t give up, we got the dreamers disease.”New Radicals
PUNCH THE SANDBAG
MACH by J. Tenney. Original Photograph by Dan Herbertson.
The beat, and heading out fighters of passion have always weighed heavily on my mind. As a young boy I felt it necessary to walk hand in hand with these sorts of fictional men like my great affection for characters like Wolverine and Rocky Balboa who alongside the ninja turtles drug me through a relatively wondrous and happy, yet forever geographically transitioning childhood. Great men! golden men with far more to lose than their imperfect teeth;like pearly bullets guarding tongues from the world past their wonderfully sad, hacked apart chin-flesh. Pro wrestlers, boxers, karate boys, street brawlers and Judoka- all with an alternative notion of existence, competition and a striving towards the treasure of victorious. What in their star-filled heads drives these men and women to battle their lives away like noble piñatas gently rocking under the shady branches of an elm? Could it be something fictional? There are multiple reasons of varying degrees for each individual, but I know there must be a meeting point…some connection or mind changing dream-tub in which they were sleepily baptized in by their private, sacred waters and they’re shared under the veil of dreams, or something else fantastically pretty to think of.
On the eve of my 27th year, I was fortunate enough to spend a rainy day with one of my old prize fighting heroes in Hayato “MACH” Sakurai, at his gym here in Tokyo. I wrote up a 2,000 word piece on the experience for Tokyofivejeans.com, which has received some moderate thumbs up. With some luck and a dash of my own cool hand I’ll continue following these gifted mashers of muscle and bone, so that I might find something resembling an answer to the reason why I find them, simply put, so beautiful.
EXCERPT FROM TOKYO FIVE ARENA:
“THE MACH DOJO is a small rectangular room on the bottom floor of a short building North of Shinjuku at the Sugamo train stop. It is a damp afternoon. There are piles of shoes, sandals and boots scattered under the awning of the gym and spilling out into the wet street. It has just finished raining. Two older Japanese journalists stand at the door looking up at the sky talking about the weather. “It’s not going to stop raining,” one of them says.
Today the iconic Hayato “MACH” Sakurai is doing a live training session and press conference at his gym in Tokyo, Japan. It is a one room gym with low ceilings. The floor is bright yellow padding and the soft walls are lined with beat-up training equipment, photos of fighters and popular Japanese animated characters. A signed picture of Kinikuman, a popular wrestling comic book hero sits above the glass doorway. It is quiet. I am talking to a young, attractive interpreter about Sakurai’s mood as of late. He has been grumpy, apparently, from having to cut weight.
“He hates cutting weight,” she says. “Makes him testy.”THE MACH DOJO is a small rectangular room on the bottom floor of a short building North of Shinjuku at the Sugamo train stop. It is a damp afternoon. There are piles of shoes, sandals and boots scattered under the awning of the gym and spilling out into the wet street. It has just finished raining. Two older Japanese journalists stand at the door looking up at the sky talking about the weather. “It’s not going to stop raining,” one of them says.
Today the iconic Hayato “MACH” Sakurai is doing a live training session and press conference at his gym in Tokyo, Japan. It is a one room gym with low ceilings. The floor is bright yellow padding and the soft walls are lined with beat-up training equipment, photos of fighters and popular Japanese animated characters. A signed picture of Kinikuman, a popular wrestling comic book hero sits above the glass doorway. It is quiet. I am talking to a young, attractive interpreter about Sakurai’s mood as of late. He has been grumpy, apparently, from having to cut weight.
“He hates cutting weight,” she says. “Makes him testy.”
A resounding call to all the lamp light angles. Demons!
Lyrics:Sublime
Ive been off to the side for a while now, about 6 weeks ago I did a little painting to post with a blog, I scrapped the blog and the painting is somewhere with my table I guess. I ran away in the night drunk on cheap Irish Rose and malted beer. I ran as far as I could and I keep going for as long as I could too. I crossed comet trails with Kris in Shelby where the House Hartrum raised their glasses to Jameson, the future is in his eyes and the present is under his adept weight. We were starling and darling and nothing was missed as all the eyes were dotted with pride and passion. The T’s were V-necked. Tunic in the sun and pollen spore afternoons. It was good to take a break from our subtle jihads and make merry. And from that ebbing storm a wave made off with me and found myself under dueling rainbows setting across from the Matador spirit himself, Jack Grasyon. I witnessed his grace, flashing the blood stained and garish cape of chivalry and charm, tempting the bull. And leading the perils around his loins, a Man with infinite stamina and seed. Nature has not waged justice in Charleston in so long. And into the fray!
I made my way back across the land, and Touched the swirling mass of creative goop once more with the dearest master, Gant. He spoke of a desert people and tanks of water. Pressing his noble brow against the vesper spirit of companionship. The music in him has made towers in his mind. I saw the nothing lands of central Carolina. I … The journey came to a close as I zombie walked into the tiny dirty room I would be sleeping in for the last 11 days. The howling of the youth down the hall, the constant Spanish serenades from across the hall. Shuffling geriatric feet, bound together by a psychiatric age older then the numbers of man. The cadence of broken rap, the blips and wails of the pager. Fire drills and the constant burst of shower stalls, only running in 60second intervals, no shower curtains to protect the wet floor. The call for meds. The Chinese speaking overjoyed I the cafeteria at the sight of all the food. The Spanish vulgarities and chants of ‘punta’ evoking the most basic sense of humor among men. Late at night I would walk the halls with the saintly RN and talk about the soul and the spiritual womb, the virtues of good men. And on the last day I realized that I wasn’t here just to get my meds and make the family happy, No when I stop drinking. The drink to me is the poison mélange, in that time I would make the world happy. My world. I realized that I was there in those dirty crazy halls to learn that I had found my people.
I rode in a cab to the GreyHound station, I rode the bus into Asheville and I was home. I went down town to see the people, and I had noticed that nothing had changed. That all the world was mad, upsetting and depressed. I noticed how it all made my feelings of ‘flee from here’ swim like warm minnow, I remembered missing the spermatic laughter of the schizophrenic the burst of profanity form the terrorized. These things are the flaws labeled by the mad folk that handle our money and food.
The Komet has come again.
With Love, Joseph.
The Slipping day-Clouds overhead: BASTARDS OF THE INFINITE #4
After no sign of anticipation, Matador Sequential has released part 4 of Bastards of The Infinite. In our first full color issue, the bastards meet the dazzling possible figment of everyone’s imagination in a live, talking Unicorn vision. Joseph and I had this one resting in the bowels of non-production for months and months, but she’s finally alive and her silver-sonic heart muscle thumps rhythms to our sleep walking adventures. Please give it a read and let us know what you think. It’s time for large slabs of hanging cold beef. You take your fist, crumbling your fingers to the size of a stone and throw into it everything you’ve got. A title shot is just around the bend.
Go for broke!
script by K. Hartrumart by J. Tenneyletters by Daniel Herbertson
Wet your whistle by reading a short prologue to bastards of the infinite #4 as the Unicorn makes a garden visit in the comfortable hours of the afternoon.
Love, K
***
Heaven last.
The Garden
The large, white horse wearing a single gold-dusted spiral in the middle of his forehead walked happily through his garden of roses and tomato plants in hopes of plucking one of the maturing fruits for eating. It was sunny. The light came down from the afternoon sky in such a way that it did not hurt his eyes. A warm breeze gently pushed the plants. Insects flew in great swirling trajectories.
While inhaling the redolent odor of the blossoms, Unicorn saw a long black scorpion resting immobile on the flesh like petal of a rather healthy looking rosebud. The Unicorn leaned over the tiny thing, its black-knight armor showing the bending reflections of green from the surrounding foliage. It was basking. The scorpion raised its heavy tail, suspicious. A gunshot echoed in the distance, overtaking the the chatty movements of the plants around them.
“Who goes there in my garden, brave one?” Unicorn asked.
The Scorpion turned a full circle and opened it’s claws.
“Nothing to say?”
Unicorn delicately nudged the shinning thing onto his hoof and lifted it to his face. He could smell the lingering sweetness from the rose.
“I’m waiting for you to do something, you know? I’m in need of a battle.”
The scorpion leaped with sudden ferocity down to the ground and scurried off beneath the horse’s view. He exhaled deeply, his thick lips flapping from the intensity.
The flower-stems were very thin. Unicorn pictured lustful pollinators sliding oiled wings along the soft blossoms and then down the erect stigmas to the delicate female parts.
He turned towards the old house and started back to meet them. They were sleeping. They’d be that way for a good while.
“You got a real friend here…and don’t you forget it!” He yelled to the scorpion.
Feeling guilty at having lost his composure, the Unicorn grabbed an unripe tomato from the bush and drove his long, lemon-color teeth through the skin, red bits of fruit and juice spraying out to meet the sun and onto the dirt in front of him.