The Story of Metz

I’m going to start writing again on a regular basis.  But I don’t want to recap.  Part of the problem I’ve had getting back into this is that the longer I waited, the more it seemed I would have to do just to catch up.  The snowball effect paralyzed me.

So this is my unapologetic statement that if you missed something in the past few months, you’ll just have to pick it up by inference, or ask questions.  Until that happens, enjoy the blog.

It’s amazing the tricks that a mind can play upon itself.

This morning at the moment of 8:15, as agreed upon by previous orders, my cell phone began to beep its alarm. Hearing the alarm, my head instantly shot up and looked accross the bed to determine the source of the noise.

“That’s my phone alarm,” I thought to myself.

“No wait, that’s not my phone alarm. That’s not the Verizon alarm clock ring. That’s the ring of another phone company’s alarm.”

At this point, I got miffed. “Why is another phone company’s alarm ringing on my phone? This is ridiculous. My phone must be having operation problems or something.” I decided that I would call technical support about it later that day.

Then I went back asleep until my real alarm went off.

About 8:45, what had actually occurred finally became clear to me.

My friend and I are driving through Costa Mesa. Her cell phone with high-speed interned access has directed us to this place, insisting that there is a car wash nearby. It is positive. It has even drawn a map that in its expert opinion leads us directly to said carwash.

It has lied. We are in the midst of a business park, with no sign of commercial enterprises anywhere nearby. It is a red herring. But in faith, trusting the verity of the internet, she ambles on. Her car is dirty, she says, especially the inside, and it needs a good vacuuming. In deference to her needs, I oblige.

It is at this time that I see the sign and construction barriers surrounding a hole in the ground, bearing the epithet: “CAUTION: MANHOLE REHABILITATION. Take care, do not enter hole.”

I know, intellectually, that they are restoring and maintaining the sewer system, and likely preventing an eventual leak or other sanitation disaster. But I can’t help thinking: isn’t rehabilitation what happens when you’re treated for drug addiction? Or for prisoners? Or for wetlands?

Wetlands. There’s a thought. In order to sustain our lifestyles, we have created entire secondary ecosystems beneath our cities. Fungal blooms, bacteria, marine and mammal life advanced enough to bear vertebre live beneath our streets, teeming with an unnatural order of their own. Who knows what creatures may lie in our filth?

Perhaps then, this manhole rehabilitation is not the relayering of concrete, but a restoration of the delicate septic balance of our underworlds? Highly trained professionals in environmental suits spelunking into the caves, trying to unclog a drain that native species have filled with their nest. Restoring the presence of an endangered bacteria. Planting seeds and waiting for new biodiversity to grow.

What if, in their studies, these explorers came to understand a new and frightening fact? That the sewers, like the vines of a plant, have developed a growth cycle of their own? New manholes, grates, tunnels appearing where none had been planned; not man-made expansion, but the spontaneous generations of a system so vast it has gained a rudimentary sentiency? The expansion of the undergroun networ as its own willful contribution to urban sprawl?
We never find the car wash, nor are any of the now-abundant car washes we pass on our way back open. We stop for pizza and Ice cream. As is inevitable, I have to use the bathroom. I stare at the porcelain bowl too long.

“Give my inadvertant creations life” I say softly, with a smirk on my face. A sarcastic benediction to the world below.

I’ve been doing a lot of work in India Ink with digital coloring lately. But I decided (partially due to the fact that one of my friends has offered to give me a couple of drawing lessons) that I should go back to the basics and learn a little bit about pencil drawing before I got too far ahead of myself. The results have been pretty good.

This is one of several studies (I’ve done 3 so far) of a picture of my friend Lizzie.  In this particular iteration of the sketching, I attempted to create the sketch without any guide lines (more on those below) and paying a bit more attention to line than shading.  I think it’s a much better attempt than my first two studies (I’m too embarassed to post those), but it still has some flaws compared to my source image.  The nose is off in this picture, as is a little bit of the chin, and the glasses are doing wonky things because I still haven’t figured out how to put them into proper perspective.  Also, I’m having trouble capturing the smirk on her face that makes the picture lively.  My first gesture/caricature drawing got the emotional feel of the image dead on, but the proportions were just…off.  I suspect I’ll have to hit this one a few more times before I’m satisfied.

In contrast, this picture of Nina was done with far more attention to initial shading and shape than to line, after getting some advice from my friend about how to build an image.  I made my proportion guide lines a little too dark, so they were difficult to get rid of in this sketch.  You can see how they divide up the image into several triangular sections.  That’s to help me with proportioning them properly, which I think I accomplished rather well in this particular case.  I think I also managed to tap into the emotional moment a little bit better on this one than the previous picture.  Angst is easier than smirking.  Who knew?

I have some great ideas sitting in my head.

I have an epic I’m about to adapt into an ensemble play with a bunch of other people. I have a rough outline for a 36-chapter graphic novel. I have an art project that I started with Keenan last Christmas. I have thirty-some pages of a play I wrote at the beginning of the year which has now evolved into something that needs to be rewritten to make sense. I’m thinking about how to draw my other friend. I keep mubmbling the base lines and rhythm sections of new songs to myself on the way home. I have half-finished comic, draft pages, and conceptual sketches for a comic about cooking fish. I have the beginnings of my next one-man show. I’ve been thinking about getting a degree in performance studies. I’m trying to figure out how to draw my other friend. I’m thinking about ways to create a post-modern adaptation of Crime and Punishment.

This morning, I woke up with a sharp chest pain. It was right along my sternum. a very noticable bite into my sternum every time I tried to move my chest. It hurt to breathe if I wasn’t paying attention. At first, I was scared to get out of bed. The pain receeded slowly over time, and finally went away about 45 minutes later (15 or so after I had taken Ibprofen), but there’s still been some sort of dull sensation there since the pain started this morning.

It’s only ideas I’m having. They’re half-finished. The short comic will end in May. I’ve set a deadline. I know that The Decameron will come together over the summer, and I’m almost finished reading it. But that only takes care of two, two in a tumult of creation that hasn’t even begun to solidify itself. Despite my best efforts, I cannot convince these ideas to coalesce. Many of them remain ethereal and platonic, leaving me grasping only at the shadows that artistic ideals inevitably represent. And on the fringes of my incubation maelstrom are the fallen ideas, the ones that didn’t make it far enough to be considered in the final product. With so many thoughts pouring out of my head, plenty had to get left in the wake. It’s frustrating as hell.

Last night was very restless. I slipped in and out of a dream, with a lot of tossing and turning. I’m not sure whether or not it was related to the chest pain. I was involved in a community theatre production of a Shakespeare play (I think it was Much Ado?) People were being shot from cannons. At one point, the company passed around a collection basket for the individual company members to donate to the Guest Artist Stage Manager’s salary (The stage manager was Union). Nina, who was standing next to me, assured me that I didn’t have to contribute, since I was only living on an intern salary in the first place and that wouldn’t really be fair to me. I realized then that I didn’t want to rely on the theatre to pay for me.

Maybe it’s the weight of all the unfinished projects and anticipatory stress that’s causing me to develop the chest pain. Panic attacks are certainly a possibility. Or it could be the assault of Art itself. There’s such a strong desire to create and to realize within me that when I can’t deliver on my thoughts, my body manifests my inability to contain those ideas with a vengance. The ideas are fighting their way out, spinning an anvil and shield for when they pop out of my stomach, ready for battle; godlike in their imperfection. Oh that they would.

I move home in less than three weeks. At that point, I can begin to piece together my life and assess what I’ve done for the past nine months. Currently, lost in a swarm of my own half-realized thoughts, the signposts are vague. Ideas sitting in my head. Sitting. Waiting. Sitting. Waiting.

I am slowly but surely learning how to market myself. I’ve already sent off my resumes to a few small theatres in Denver as well as the big company (the Denver Center Theatre Company), and I’m currently looking into more ways to handle transitioning into a more real-world environment. Right now though, I have to admit that I’m getting to be a little burnt out on theatre, thoug it may be because of the lack of money in it for me right now. Right now, a 9-5 with two days off a week sounds very alluring to me, and it’s going to be hard to resist the temptation (if I want to resist it) of avoiding finding something like that in the fall. But for now, I’m still trying to consider theatre jobs over any others. It’s probably better, for now, to keep my dreams alive.

On a related note, I got a gig today. It’s not much (I’m managing a week-long rehearsal and performance of a staged reading for the Pacific Playwrights Festival at SCR), but it is a non-intern credit, and it is at a major regional theatre. Which proves, resume-wise, that I’m good enough that the theatre wants to hire me for side jobs. This can’t at all be bad!

What was bad, however, was how I chose to spend my evening. Watching my friend doing karoke. At a gay bar. On a Monday night.

As I have mentioned before on this website, I really don’t like karaoke. Brandon does. It’s his element. He loves to sing and to show off in front of a crowd of half-drunk admirers and subsequently charm the pants off him, leaving me alone in a corner while he flirts with anyone he finds vaguely attractive. I know this, and I go because friendship is a two-way street, and I’m sure I’ve forced him into doing several things he’d rather not in his lifetime, so I can take a hit now and then.

The night was made a little better by the presence of one of my friends from middle school, who now works in LA as an Assistant Art Director. We got to spend some time talking shop, and I learned a little about the Television world. But after a short while, he had to leave, and I was left wallflowering while Brandon played social butterfly with the world. The music was loud, and bad, so I secured an “After my next song” agreement from Brandon. Left to my own devices, I went out for some fresh air. It was a nice evening, and the weather outside was ok. A hell of a lot better than taking in the Karaoke. So I leaned against the wall…taking the air in.

About three minutes after I decide to lean back, a small black sportscar drives past on the street. It stops about a hundred feet past the club, then, ever-so-slowly backs up to the curb. “Huh.” I think to myself.

For a moment, the only sound in the world is this car’s window rolling down.

“Excuse me.”

It takes me a moment, though I was the only person on the street, to realize this guy was talking to me. The car is so low to the ground that I can’t even see his face from where I was standing.

“What?

“Excuse me?”

As I walk slowly toward the car, it triggers a flashback. All of a sudden all I can think of is the series of low quality, early eighties videos from elementary school. A small black boy lying in his bed, the same balloon-salesman nightlight that I had as a child on his nightstand, staring at an unseen villain off camera who says in a eerily caring tone, “Now don’t tell anyone about this, Marcus. This is our little secret.” With perfectly innocent eyes, he says “Yes, uncle Jeff.” The ones that warned kids “Don’t talk to strangers” and “Remember that no one should touch you under your clothes.” While I don’t recall any scenes from this particular video, I remember its message with alarming clarity: strangers in cars will try to kidnap you, look out!

Almost immediately after this first, fear-impulse washes over me, my stubborn, rationalizing mind kicks in. “You’re also not seven anymore.” I say to myself. “He probably just wants directions. Don’t be silly, you can handle yourself.” Brazenly, I squelch my fear impulse, though I do move forward just a tad more cautiously than the last time.

“Yes?”

“I am wondering if the place I am looking for is around?” He has a very apparent but surprisingly unplacable European accent. It makes me less secure that I don’t know what country he’s from.

“I’m sorry?”

“There is, is there some sort of Gay club somewhere in the area?” Gay club pronounced with remarkable clarity. A brief flash through my head “Well in case you missed the corrugated steel with rainbow lighting behind me.” This guy is dense.

“Yes. This is the gay club.”

Something unintelligable. I take a step closer to the car.

“What?”

“I am here? The gay club?”

“Yes.”

His expression looks pained for some reason. I’m nervous again. “Are you Gay?”

It is at this point that I am illuminated. The truth of the situation, in a split second, becomes surreally clear to me. That he didn’t stop his car. That he’s talking softly. That he can’t make out the obvious “Gays on Parade” atmosphere. It’s calculated.
The guy is trying to pick me up.

“No, I’m not gay.” I answer nonchalantly. All my mind can manage to squeak out to itself is “Oh dear. I really don’t want this to go any further.”

Disbelief. “You’re not gay.”

“No.”

I’ll hand it to the guy. I’m sending out signals. I mean. I’m standing out in front of a gay bar after midnight. I’m alone. I’m not smoking or on a cell phone, so I have no excuse to be there. I ‘m even posing to some extent by the way I’m standing there. It’s pretty clear. I’m a gay man trying to get action from a drive-by.

This is also, to my knowledge, the first time anyone has ever tried to pick me up.

What gets to me now is not that I didn’t figure this out sooner. I’m at terms with my stunning ability to be dense about basic social situations. What gets to me is how secretive the man is being. How worried and guilty. As if it was taboo. As if he was the only man in LA to be crusing for other men that night, and if people found out his world would liquify before his eyes. Real fear that he’s going to get caught and punished by the universe.

And I realize that I have never been in that position. Where what I wanted is that wrong. Society is built for me, it works for me. Even though I’m on the fringes of the majority, I’m still a world closer to it than he was in that eternal minute. It is a concept so foreign, I have to intellectualize it for basic comprehension before I can understand it in my gut. And for a flash, I understand what tyrrany might really mean.

He gets a look on his face that says I’m a cock tease. Disgusted. The window rolls up even as the car shifts into gear. In response I back away from the car, then quickly turn around and head back into the club. It’s not a recoil, but it’s faster than I’m proud of.

Back in the bar, barely ten minutes later, a guy holding his boyfriend tight smiles at me and grabs my ass affectionately as he walks by. It doesn’t bother me in the slightest. I listen to gay boys butchering pop songs that deserve it. They stop playing before my friend’s next song. I can afford to put up with the irony.

Click for a larger image

At the request of one of my friends, I’ve tried to work a little with two different types of shading in this piece.  There are gradients at work here as well as what I refer to in my uneducated glory as flat-tone shading.  Hopefully they provide some interesting contrast.  Again, new skills learned this time.  I’d consider this picture much more complex than the last one, and not only is my line quality better, but I managed to finish this piece in about a day’s less time, which means my hopes of being able to color comics this way are  not entirely in vain.

Huzzah for growth.