POP GRATITUDE

The only way to give credit to anything exploding with creation and the bitter-sweetness (the sort we’ve all become accustomed in order keep our lonely natures floating) is to examine the relationships that have stimulated us along this yellow brick trail of broken hearts, and polished arrowheads. If English is inherently illogical, then it seems I’m ill equipped to properly explain the gratitude I have for all my fellow drunkards and lovers and how I owe to them every spoonful of stardust in the infinite for how they’ve brought me up and fashioned me out of sweet smelling woods and other earth grown products, but I’ll do my damnedest to give it a shot. Let us rejoice and be glad that we’re constantly touched by all the inconsistencies and “far-out” qualities of the masculine/ feminine kids who rock with us into the very light of day we fight with tooth and nail to avoid. I don’t mean this in any sort of folly-filled spiritual way, but in that “human-all too human” prettiness that causes us wake each morning with dual feelings of dread and exuberance.

Being overseas has left me split down the middle, something close to a recently divided papaya- smashed with a dirty machete…and all the pale meat splashes juice into the air and you feel fine for only a moment, but then your fingers and shin-bones are sticky and it all grows irksome. On one side of the fruit I have my love for strange adventure, far-off people unusual countries, the possibility of death by gypsy stabbings, etc…but then there’s my heart and the people who created my personality from shit and ash and the acrid smell of nowhere, southern USA (chicken fillets fried in peanut oil- delicious and deadly.)

Of course, I’ve never split a papaya myself, but I reckon the experience would resemble something like the scene I’ve just described. Where does one even get a machete outside of Southeast Asia? I’ve lost my way again. Raise your wings, goons and goonettes. Slice the air with all those pretty colors and fight like tequila drunk roosters in the dwindling, summer sun.

Madly in love with you all, K

Jul 12, 2009 | Categories: K. Hartrum | Leave A Comment »

The Sea Light goes out a bit…

The Sea-Light Goes Out a Bit

Cooper hadn’t quite lifted the freshly lit cigarette to his mouth before it was knocked away by Edward’s swinging right arm, shooting up flamboyantly to better explain the inner workings of a proper karate punch- the burning cigarette butt spinning in the air like some kind of Chinese firecracker, and then onto the the carpet, lost in a stampede of ragged dance steps.

“You son of bitch,” Cooper said, his long black hair covering his eyes. “I just lit the thing.” Edward was too involved in the exhibition:

“You gotta put your hip into it, of course,” he said, “but then there’s the opposing arm coming back, like a lever or something.” He threw the punch, pushing himself off balance. “Clearly, I’ve had a few.” He was talking to a young blond couple sitting on the one, long orange couch in the living space of the apartment. They were both extremely blond-headed. They’d been listening to Ed go on about karate punches for some time, and either one of them was bound to change the subject. Edward was sweating on his forehead, taking sips from his tall glass of bourbon. Finally, he finished the drink.

“I’m gonna go freshen this up. You guys want anything?” He turned and walked to the kitchen. The blond couple shifted in their seats.

Kids stood around dressed in fish scales and aluminum foil turtle-shells under blue lighting. It gave the kitchen a nice, secret feeling. The blue was very prominent around the tall lamp in the corner, but faded, and into the hallway was just dark-the dim strings of decorative Christmas lights running along the low ceiling. Edward thought to stop and mix a drink, but decided to go to the bathroom.

He stood against the wall and thought about smoking a cigarette. He knew most of the people standing, but didn’t talk to anyone. A girl in a black hooded sweat shirt, made to look like the head of killer whale, went on about the absurdity of star signs. Charlie Clap walked by and threw a couple of fake jabs into Ed’s gut.

“Where the fuck have you been, man?” He asked “I’m outside with Brutus. He’s talking my ear off about the future.”

“Yeah? Brute’s concerned like the rest of us, I guess,” Ed said.

“You gotta come out there and have one.” Charlie put his hand on Ed’s shoulder and left him standing against the wall, waiting for the toilet.

Charlie Clapp walked out to the living room, past Cooper and the blonds, and out the door to Brute, looking up at the half-moon.

“Did you find Ed?”

“Yeah, he’s standing in line for a piss.”

“Why doesn’t he just piss out here?”

“I don’t know. You want to go inside?” Charlie asked.

“Hell, I don’t know.

“What’s your deal tonight, buddy? You’re acting mighty introspective,” Charlie asked.

“Just drunk, I guess.”

“That’s the idea,” Charlie tossed his beer bottle over the fence. The glass bounced against something, ringing quickly as it fell.

What the hell’s gonna happen after all this?” Brute said.

Charlie leaned over and picked up the last beer from the box. “I don’t know. What do you want to happen?” Charlie continued and told him that nothing would happen, really. Charlie said that they’d all get up and get old and take shits and have a couple of kids. Charlie wore an old-style fedora hat. His thick beard made you forget he was not a large man. He smoked rolled cigarettes.

“I don’t care, I guess,” Brutus said. “I just want to put my dick into something tonight.”

“Yeah.” Charlie turned and looked through the window, but Brutus was looking way up at the blue wooden fence, and past the dirty creek where the moon had set on a patch of dark pines on the ridge.

(Short story that takes place during Bastards of the Infinite #1 just before Brutus’s run-in with the Sick Girl. Originally released in Matador Sequential Presents Issue 2.) ——-THE MATADOR RIDES FOR FREEDOM ON THIS 4TH OF JULY. HAPPY INDEPENDENCE, FRIENDS!

Jul 03, 2009 | Categories: K. Hartrum | Leave A Comment »

Thus WE have acted….or dreamed of it

Celebrated photographer, part-time prize fighter and dashing prince of friends Daniel Herbertson built this space for the few (those of us generally involved with comics and possibly other irrelevant, creative projects) who possibly needed a friendly kick in the genital area towards the direction of modern media exchange. I’ve been blessed with many talented friends- each with their own unique ability and substantial potential for more and endless forevers. Hopefully the lot of us will be updating this space with digital-devil trombones, announcing the return of The Bastards of The Infinite and all her cronies.

We had taken a brief vacation from the book, because of the common tragedies and missteps of contemporary living. I recently recovered from a lost wander through the slick, firefly, dog-eared streets of America (now having positioned myself back in urban Japan) and my brother in arms (Joseph Colt Tenney) has now returned with his life intact, from the old town of sliced (switchblades behind shell-stations) through hearts, infinitely the hopeful romantic, that one. “What good can two worthless, lofty drunks do in a quickly changing global economy and competitive “(f)art market?” I’ll tell you: We can team up and take arms with the incorruptible Sadie Rebecca Starnes, the absolute darling of the NYC visual arts community. With her tumbleweed heart at our side, I imagine we now resemble something not dissimilar to a bionic rhinoceros who’s dropped out of film school to fight crime and turn tricks in Central Park. Of course, he lies to his parents and tells them he’s working for a respectable production company in Arizona. “What?!?!?”

Let us fold our hands and pray that we can stick it to the void of non creation and draw out the sap…sweet syrup for yellow cakes and stories that will dazzle the children of the rhinoceroses to come after us, elbowing pathways through their own limitless hornedfaced futures and little children dance around, out near the cherry-red fire hydrants drinking pineapple soda pops in the pretty golden sun.

-K

Ossu

May 25, 2009 | Categories: K. Hartrum | 2 Comments »