In a further stroke of madness, I’ll be exhibiting my Untold Tales at San Francisco Zine Fest this coming Saturday and Sunday 9/4-9/5. Stop by and say hello!

San Francisco Zine Fest

Saturday, September 4 from 11:00am – 6:00pm
Sunday, September 5 from 11:00am – 6:00pm

SF County Fair Building
(formerly the Hall of Flowers)
9th Ave. at Lincoln Way. (in Golden Gate Park)

http://sfzinefest.com

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Lutefisk Sushi D closed last night, so I now feel at liberty to share my art from the show.

View my comics from this year’s Little Funny series.

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Nalchik was a good place to recover. I spent several hours each afternoon in the hot springs with my nose above water and my hair freezing into icicles. The pool girls brought me tea. Every few minutes a bubble of carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide or nitrous oxide farted up to the surface. I made no attempt to pursue the nitrous bubbles because I was there for healing, right? Healing.

I ducked my head under the water to un-freeze my eyelashes. When I came up a young woman with milk-white skin and hard brown nipples was waving for me to get out of the water. A banya partner! I could do with a good scourging!

I followed her swaying buttocks toward the steam shack, droplets of ice falling from my skin. At the halfway point she turned, smiled and punched me in the eye. Her fist left a circle of something sticky and warm that I took to be blood. Her other fist came up under my ribs. I coughed and lashed out, catching her on my shoulder. My fist sank in and pulled away with a sucking sound. Her eyes glistened and she smashed her forehead into my face. I heard bone and cartilage break, and my world filled with the smell of rotten eggs. I fell forward with my arms outstretched and we tumbled to the ground, her elbows and knees swinging in and up, heavy as sandbags. I squeezed as tightly as I could and felt her torso separate from the rest of her body as though unconnected by bones or ligaments. Her hands continued to squeeze my skull and I saw red and slowly sank into her dissolving remains.

When I was finally able to open my swollen eyelids, Doctor Kaitouk was staring down at me.

“I have a question for you,” she said. “You were brought to my hospital frostbitten and covered with mud. But of course it is winter, and there is no mud. Your injuries were consistent with a fall of twenty to thirty feet. But of course there are no buildings of that height near where you were found. You smelled like a manure pile, or an oil refinery, or a particularly vile geyser. So my question is,” and she clicked her pen against her teeth, “what exactly did you do to make horses, Gazprom and the earth itself want to kick the shit out of you?”

I will never tell her that.

_{Image CC-BY by Alaskan Dude}

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Who would have guessed that I could make a living selling Panasonic R-70 “Panapet” transistor radios to the natives of Santo André, the smallest island in the Azores? The island’s population (excluding me) was descended from a stone soup of the original African slaves (mainly Ewe and Fon), their Portuguese overseers and a batch of mutinous Scots tossed into the sea and (legend has it) rescued by turtles. In the three-way genetic wrestling match that resulted, the Portuguese lost outright and the Africans and Scots fought to a draw in which their descendants ended up with dark skin and nappy red hair. They subsisted on fish, taro roots and hot sauce and couldn’t be bothered to emigrate.

I was living there as the punch-line of a mid-life sulk in which I had set off from Gloucester, MA in an open rowboat with an ass-load of PowerBars and three carboys of tap water. By the time I washed up on Santo André I was delirious, forty pounds lighter and sick of traveling–so I moved into a hut and sent over to the big island for some gear.

I had been living there six months when Martim walked up and offered to trade me a carved eucalyptus Kawasaki ER-6N. It had freely-spinning wheels and appeared to have been carved out of a single chunk of wood. I took some photos, stuck it up on eBay and immediately made a couple hundred bucks. I bought Martim his Panasonic with the first forty bucks and tried to give him the rest but he told me to keep it and walked off with the radio.

After that it turned into a several-times-a-week thing. My neighbors would bring me carved iPads and Tesla Roadsters and Dyson vacuums and I would buy them R-70′s and keep the change. Strange system, right? Pretty soon everyone over thirteen had a Panasonic. They wore them on leather thongs around their necks like demented 1980′s rap stars.

On June 21 Martim came and got me. A couple of his buddies had caught and slaughtered some forest pigs and were throwing an all-island barbecue. I stuffed myself with spareribs and cane liquor, and when my speech started to slur João and Martim took me by the arms and staked me to the ground in the middle of a clearing. By craning my neck I could just make out the radio-wearing islanders forming tight concentric circles around me. At a signal from João, they all switched on their radios. The tiny Panasonics bleated out mid-Atlantic static that blurred with the sound of the wind and the crashing of the waves.

Everyone was staring at the sky, so I did too. The high clouds were coalescing. The radios began to hum. The clouds swam nearer and nearer until finally they resolved into a migratory herd of turtles, flying low with stately grace. Each island family mounted one and was borne away until the transistor hum faded.

After a few hours I was able to work my arms loose and free my legs. I sat very still until the stars came out, and then I walked back to my hut and fell right to sleep.

_{Image CC-BY-NC by MaryEllen and Paul}

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1. Add contents of Packet 1 to fire.
2. After 24 hours, add contents of Packet 2.
3. You should see Live Fire-Monkeys within 24 hours. Fire-Monkeys need food! Feed Fire-Monkeys one yellow spoonful from Packet 3 every five days. Enjoy your Fire-Monkeys!

_{Image CC-BY-NC-ND by Edson Martins}

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I have a new mini-comic in the LSD bento box and four new Little Funny micro-comics in the cigarette machine.

Here for your enjoyment are my Little Funnies from last year’s show (click images to enlarge). Thanks again Mozhi for the great Science Comics art!

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My great-uncle Milton was one of the last living residents of Freeport, Kansas. He had made a fortune selling bibles to bible-salesmen, and he kept it all in cash in a bunker under his barn.

On a hotter-than-hell July morning in 2000, Great Uncle Milton rubber-cemented eleven three-cent Charter Oak stamps from 1933 on each of two letters: One to an address in Argonia and one to an address in Anthony.

Five days later two strangers came walking into town. One was a morbidly-obese woman of indeterminate age with bright orange skin carrying a two-liter bottle of carrot juice. The other was a scrawny old white dude who needed a shave and looked like Pappy Yokum. Neither one of them looked fit to walk; certainly not in this killing heat. Great Uncle Milton sent them to the cellar with a couple of Picnic Paks he had me buy for him at the Wal-Mart in Wellington.

Two days later the cellar door banged open and the strangers climbed out with bloodshot eyes and slept-in clothes. Great Uncle Milton handed each of them a suitcase full of cash and they wandered back out of town the way they had come. Ol’ Milt went and took the seat off the tractor and bolted it to a skateboard my nephew Brandon had abandoned the summer before. Then he went down to the cellar and came up with his arms bent out way in front of him full of a big bale of nothin’. He unrolled the nothin’ out on the dirt in front of the skateboard and spent more than an hour making sure it was nice and smooth. Then he stripped naked and sat his skinny ass down on the tractor seat and I swear to god it actually sizzled.

“Uncle Milton, you look funny naked,” my daughter Ashley said.

“Can I have a suitcase full of money too?” I asked.

“Look at them billowing,” Great Uncle Milton said, pointing out at the waves of heat rising off the dirt. “Ain’t they pretty?”

“Come back inside and drink some water,” my wife said.

Great Uncle Milton just laughed. “Good luck with everything,” he said.

The skateboard began to roll forward. Great Uncle Milton wobbled on his seat, still laughing and clacking his dentures. Ashley ran after him and threw her arms around the empty air as she fell in the dust. Great Uncle Milton was rising into the afternoon sun. My wife folded her arms and looked disapproving.

Soon Great Uncle Milton was completely out of sight.

_{image CC-BY by benclark}

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I fell asleep in bed last night with a wet cigarette in my hand. By the time the water alarm went off and woke me the room was already knee-deep and full of choking spray. I could hear the curtains begin to sluice. I crawled to the door and felt it with my palm but it was already deadly cool. I picked up a chair and threw it against the window but it bounced back, hit me across the shins and knocked me into the rising tide. I heard shouting from outside. An ax blade crashed through the sill and a gloved hand reached into the room. I grasped at it with the last of my strength. The waterfighter pulled me through the hole and carried me down the ladder. Then the rest of the squad let loose with fire from the hydrant and slowly, painfully extinguished the water. My house is now a steaming ruin.

_{image CC-BY-NC-SA by azrasta}

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You know what a suitcase party is, right? It’s a surprise going-away party. Everybody shows up with their suitcase packed, pays twenty bucks at the door and puts their name into a hat. The hosts pick a name out of the hat and use the money to buy a one-way ticket to wherever for whoever gets drawn. At the end of the night the hosts announce the winner and that person flies off to wherever the hosts picked and spends the next few years getting drunk, getting a job, getting married or whatever as an illegal alien in whatever unfamiliar country.

In the summer of 1986, after I dropped out of the U of M for the second time, I was sort of friends with this party promoter named Kurt who made everybody call him Phil after Phil Graham, and Kurt knew this chemist named Dave who made everybody call him Eulenspiegel because he wanted to be the new Owsley, and Dave was cooking all these variants of Ecstasy and his runners and acolytes were retailing them at Kurt/Phil’s parties. You’d get this big wave of emotion washing over the whole party as the drugs peaked. One after another people would giggle uncontrollably, or burst into tears, or tear off their clothes, or get the hiccups, or whatever. One time everybody got déjà vu.

But anyway one morning about noon I was on my way to the Wienery for some franks and eggs, and I ran into both Kurt and Dave, fired up and running in three different directions. Kurt had found a new DJ with great taste, great tits and her own PA, and Dave had a new molecule that was a big secret that he couldn’t shut up about. Both of them wanted me to work the show, probably because I was the only guy they knew that they trusted with money and guns. I told Dave I didn’t feel like dealing that week, but I told Kurt I’d work the door and he could pay me in Dave’s new product. (I had a bunch of side jobs going that had already paid the rent that month, so what the hell.)

So it’s Saturday night and Kurt’s hot DJ is spinning all these supposedly-stolen dubplates some girlfriend of hers just drove in from Detroit. The floor is packed. Half the crowd is already down to their underwear because the AC is on the fritz. I’m standing at the door holding down ten thousand bucks with a Glock 17 that’s pulling my Levi’s off my butt. There’s a girl about five-foot nothing dressed like hell in bike shorts and a wifebeater who I want to give some urgent fashion advice to in the back room but who won’t meet my eyes. I’ve dropped Dave’s big purple pill same as anybody but it hasn’t done anything except make my forehead sweaty and my nipples hard. Best I can tell, it seems to have done that to everybody.

When the bass break drops I’m in the middle of the floor and the money’s gone. I grab for the Glock but it’s gone too. I start running for the door but I’m right there, staring at my gun like I’ve never seen one before. I look down and I’m wearing lycra shorts. My bra itches. The guy by the door sticks my gun in his waistband, picks up the bag with the money and walks out the door. I run after him but my geometry’s all wrong. I keep crashing into dancers who spill their vitamin drinks on me.

By the time I get out the door the guy who looks like me has found my bike and is trying to start it but he kicks like a girl. I turn out to be a good sprinter and I’m about to take him down with a flying tackle when the engine turns over and he squeals out into the street. I’ve got my arms around his neck and I’ve got scratches all over my thighs from where I hit the bike. My toes drag on the asphalt for a few seconds until I get my leg up and over. Now I’m riding bitch on my own bike behind some asshole with my gun, my shoulders and my money. I’d choke his ass if it wouldn’t kill us both. Dude rides like the insane. He’s going seventy back into town on 55, ignoring all the lights and weaving around cross-traffic, then up East Lindale and over on Plymouth and then some scary shit with alleys and Dumpsters and then he’s the money and he’s tearing around front of some sandstone apartment building. I’m chasing him and screaming in a crazy high voice. I’ve got my hand on his belt before he can get through the front door and I’m trying to take him down but he drags me up two flights of stairs and into an apartment that’s even dirtier than mine but with more throw-rugs and smells like stale perfume.

The money bag hits the floor and he’s got my shirt off before I can get loose. I pull his jeans down to his knees and I’m laughing because I can see the stains from changing the bike’s oil, and he’s got my bra off and his hand down my shorts and he carries me like that into a bed with flowered sheets and I’m going down on him and his dick looks just like mine.

I wake up sore and stinking. The guy, my pants, my money, my dick? All gone. I spend most of Sunday cleaning the apartment. On Monday I take a shower and drive the girl’s car to the girl’s job, work all day and come home to an empty fridge and an unpaid cable bill. After a couple weeks I get horny and go looking for a date. After a couple years I move in with Craig. A couple years later I move out. First of many. Life-long pattern.

I get lonely, but at least I have my work.

_{image CC-BY-NC-ND by Curtis Gregory Perry}

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When I finally pulled myself away from this guy Matt who said he was an amateur film editor, and I got done tactfully explaining how contemptible it was to have one’s life’s passion to be editing someone else’s life’s passion, I discovered I was the only woman left at the party. In confirmation of my life-long hypothesis, none of the men seemed to have noticed.

When I got out to the parking lot I saw Lise Novacek trying to un-park the Infiniti her husband Brian usually drove. (On my way out I had seen Brian by the stairs engaged in some kind of liars’ duel with a guy I didn’t know.) I had time to get into my car (a ’98 Hyundai Accent hatchback, which should have doomed my dating life but never seems to have) and pull out before Lise finally got the Infiniti pointed toward the street. I don’t know why I followed her. I suppose it was one of those combinations of Red Bull, dark rum, nicotine cravings and late-night hypomania that sometimes grabs me towards the end of a party. My gas gauge was riding the empty line so I was hoping we didn’t have more than forty or fifty miles to go.

We dodged drunk drivers all the way through the godforsaken (and probably eight-tenths-abandoned, in this economy) northwestern commuter suburbs and out into the (until late 2007 soon-to-be-ex-) cornfields and farm towns beyond. The gas light came on as we passed through Brocken (a diesel station, two bars and a house) and we made five lefts on three gravel roads and came to a stop at the edge of a bare field. I waited for the dome light to come on in Lise’s car. And waited.

When she stepped out into the moonlight she was naked. She’s frighteningly skinny when clothed but naked she looked like a seedling of some fast-growing softwood, or like she had been drawn in ballpoint pen. She had tiny breasts and shaved-bald pubic hair, which further decreased her resemblance to a mammal. She walked purposefully into the field.

I wanted to congratulate her on the eccentricity of her suicide staging. From her, I always expected something girly and banal like Valium and vodka—certainly nothing with this degree of flair. I followed her, planning to save her at the last minute but dying to watch the foreplay. (I know how sick that makes me.)

I followed her over the rise of a contour-plowed hill and started to revise my assumptions. In the low spot below the hill were several dozen naked women, all busily and silently applying sunscreen—some to each other’s backs. I stuck my hands in my pockets and stared at the moon for a few seconds while I let the shock wear off. When I finally took a second look, Heather Schierke from work was waving me over. I remembered seeing her at the very start of the party and then losing track. She looked pretty great naked, as I would have expected and probably should have envied. She was holding out a tube of sunscreen and staring at me with a sort of curious smirk, like we were all fifteen years younger and this was some kind of high-school dare or prank. Well hell, I’m not proud. I stripped down and smeared sunscreen on my too-short legs, too-wide hips and too-long torso, hoping to god I’d be able to find my clothes if things went sideways or the moon went behind a cloud. The sunscreen burned a little—like porn shop novelty grease (not that I’d know)—but I was sure (sure enough to take my clothes off) that this crowd didn’t have that kind of vibe. I wondered who the leader was.

An older lady lit up for a second as she turned her phone on. God, I hoped this wasn’t a photo session. She clamped the phone under her butt and lifted off into the air.

My whole body felt great! Better than the first Red Bull of the day on an empty stomach. This suntan lotion was good shit! Soon all those skinny, chunky, toned and saggy buttocks were perched sidesaddle on tiny Apples and Blackberries and Samsungs, drag racing and playing chicken. If they had had baseball bats they’d have been knocking over mailboxes. I sat on my phone and hovered.

Some girl I didn’t know came diving at me from three hundred yards in the air, all calves and breasts and bared teeth. I waited until the last second and swung just out of reach, then fell in behind her and shadowed her all over the sky. She tried all the kung-fu and fighter-pilot moves she’d ever seen on film—hairpins and zigzags, top speed and sudden stops—but she couldn’t shake me. All those years of Tai Chi had taught me a thing or two.

She raced upward, on her way to a makeout party with the man in the moon. I flew behind her, close as her spine. At the very top, when the moon was the horizon and the ground was out of sight, we suddenly lost reception. Two women, hair streaming, butt-naked and ripped to the tits, fell from the sky with our arms extended, gripping our phones like the strings of two busted balloons.

It took six weeks before they let me out of the hospital. Heather Schierke won’t make eye contact at work. I never did find my car.

_{Image CC-BY-NC by Trypode}

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