Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Happy Halloween Sasquatch Lovers of the World!

Peering out from the darkness

Bearing her TEETH

Do I detect a hint of vulnerability?

I have again found true love...Ah, but it has been there all along...

Last night I drafted what must be a fourth, fifth? sixth? letter to Robert Crumb. It is always initially a bit of a trite exercise, and then, usually after the first page and a half, it all radically devolves into a feverish, ecstatic scribbling of staccato burblings of praise and adoration, all peppered with mad, barely legible, child-like sketches (which are some kind of compromise between lack of words and an inability to friggin' squeeze the guy to pieces).

And then I usually put it down out of frustration in my apparent shortage of adequate communicative expressions and revisit the letter again in three weeks, or three months, or something. At which point the cycle starts all over--I'm like, what the hell was I thinking? And then I work myself into the exact state all the hell over again.

Last night I had an especially exciting psychological after-party, as I had a[nother] full-fledged dream about meeting R. Crumb, his wife, Aline, and me being totally unpuffed when he crawled onto my back during church, after I skipped communion (as my whole family was sitting in the pew next to me, mind you). (There was more, but I'd say that was the climax)(...cluck).

Ok, Freud, chew on that one for a bit...

The miracle of it all: I slept the night, unmedicated, for the first time in months.

And the thing is, I really do love Crumb in a very real way. No, really. Really! We met one time, and it was, honestly, the best day of my whole life. I drank four glasses of wine, and exited the building where he was about three and a half times before I could even stand seven feet away from him....

And then...

we had our moment...

It was a great moment (I'll tell you about it later).

And then I left, floated away, with a crystal-clear mentality that I could sincerely die happy.

His books are always close to my bed, as is a letter to him in semi-comic format, which I'm writing/drawing, but also hesitating to send, out of pure vanity, a vanity which is only the bi-product of total investment in my fantasy world.

He is why I am what I am in so many ways. Why I am oh, sasquatch. Why I am ok with my hefty thighs and my height. Why I am secure in the validity of my paralyzing shyness, and the depth and intensity of my INNER FEELING. Why I'm fine with the occasional rant-like outbursts. And my clumsiness. And my self-loathing. He is in many ways the reason why I make the artwork that I do, and feel the way I do about other artists, about myself as an artist. Lines on paper, folks. He's made me laugh, he's made me cry. And now--he's made me sleep! I love him, I love him!!!!

Here's to you R. U R. my sunshine. Ahhh, how I silently suffer in my endless, unquenched longing for you; bliss.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009