who said monsters don't throw a good party?

many thanks to those of you who came by to see the cool illustrations for this week's "Skull Show." it was a great little gathering showcasing a variety of different styles.

for those who couldn't make it, here was my contribution:


i'm particularly proud of this one. (since i ink the lines first, sometimes i get so excited by the prospect of "coloring in" my work that i don't spend enough time picking a palette that works. but this time i was able to restrain myself and run a couple of color tests digitally before committing to the final watercolor fills. and i think the extra time made the difference.)

happy halloween!

the Buddhist sense of humor

I'm reading Jonathan Lethem's Motherless Brooklyn, a sort of off-beat crime mystery that takes place on the streets of my South Brooklyn neighborhood. the most endearing part of the story is the main character, Lionel Essrog who suffers from Tourette's Syndrome. his outbursts create some hilarious poetic riffs in mid sentence. for example, he can't say his name without following it with some verbal variation like "Unreliable Chessgrub," "Liable Guesscog," etc. it gets you to think about language and the juxtaposition of words and phrases.

Lionel's investigation leads him to a Buddhist zendo which spurs the memory of the following joke:

What did the Buddhist say to the hot-dog vendor?

"Make me one with everything."

i'm not a big joke fan but that one just works. interestingly, Zen Buddhism is full of koan, riddles that introduce simple yet paradoxical scenarios use in meditation. one learns how to solve them or learns they cannot be solved through enlightenment.

inspired by the bizarre juxtaposition of hot dogs and Buddhist practictioners, here's my contribution:

you are in the middle of a forest eating a hot dog. a monk appears before you holding a tray of condiments.
he asks you how you live your life. you say "relish."

and with that, all should now be clear.

the S K U L L show....

i'm participating in a little group show next week just in time for the Halloween season. my friend dave b., an amazing illustrator i met in Santa Fe at a conference a few years ago, has asked 14 artists to all create an original piece that must contain a skull somewhere in its layout.

this gonna be a really cool show. these are some super-talented illustrators so i'm honored to be part of the group.

it's always the quiet ones

i volunteered with Free Arts, a nyc based arts outreach group, to do arts and crafts with kids in Harlem this weekend. i got buddied up with 12 year old Joshua who seemed to open up once i got him going on some projects. we got to build models of bridges, make large scale graffitti drawings, and create our own designer baseball hats. Joshua decided the "theme' of his hat would be "I am not nice" which he scrawled across the front with black marker. i wasn't buying his claim he was all that bad, but hey who doesn't do a little fronting now and then? at least i got him to draw focus away from his "mean" mantra by having him add a nice little portrait of his cat at the top.


and just when you think they're not listening, he surprised me by creating his subway mosaic project in honor of me. not nice? nice try.

my brain in Maine

i spent last weekend up in Maine with my brother kickin' it old school Nature style. it was a much needed respite from the self-imposed schedule of projects and keepin' up with the pace of cityhood.


we rented a canoe and paddled down the Sheepscott River near Wiscassett (1 hour North of Portland) and camped on some islands. i didn't think about much at all which surprised me. and there were long streches where my brother and i just sat and stared at the campfire. i suppose that's just my brain's way of telling me it needed some time off too.

and it wouldn't be time with close family if we didn't get to act like a total goofs:

fun where you can find it

when my brother was in town a few weeks ago, we walked around Red Hook, South Brooklyn's former busy shipping port turned ghost town. it's cut off by the highway and pretty far from the subway which gives it a desolate feel but it's already starting to be tapped by the hipsters as the next big thing.

we saw a kid on a bike pulling his friend in a shopping cart down the quiet street. i thought this was hilarious. when they stopped to untangle the rope we walked over and asked if we could take their picture. they said sure. i warned them to be careful but they assured me they knew what they were doing . the kid sitting in the shopping cart showed me his leg in a cast and said "i already got a broken leg, from basketball."