Art Class

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!

Here is your present from me: A bitchy blog about my many mental breakdowns in Art Class! If the bitching about how stupid my classmates are doesn't hold your attention, then just skip down to the main stories in this post: One is titled "Being Good To Yourself" and the other is "The Exciting Conclusion."

The Class

So this semester me and Andrew decided to take a drawing class, for fun. I remember us thinking maybe we'd meet some cool girls. Oh we were so hopeful! There was ONE who is now friends with us on myspace (hey, are you reading this? COMMENT PLS), but I remember us envisioning just finding two girls who are exactly like us, and marrying them both.

So we show up to the first class, and we are introduced to a guy who we affectionately would come to call "Refund," because he is retarded and farts a lot. It's kinda cruel-sounding, and I can't defend it. But we stumbled on it and it made us laugh so hard we couldn't not call him that. But we were very supportive of him. He wasn't so mentally retarded as much as he just had bad motor skills and maybe was a little socially inept. He was actually pretty smart but pompous as hell. "This is a CLASSIC example of absurdism!" he'd say about a drawing. One abstract piece he asked the teacher to turn on its side. "Ah, now I see the flow!" He was probably the smartest person in the class, he just was dealt a bit of a bum hand genetically and needed to get a grip.

There was one hilarious moment during the first class when we did an exquisite corpse drawing and this one dude in the class started making fun of Refund's contribution. "You know that one dude who kept fartin? He drew all these blue squiggles and shit and I was like 'what the fuck do I do with that?'" We cracked up over how inappropriate he was. He said it, seemingly not caring who heard him.

So me and Andrew started the class loving it. I remember a lot of laughs those first few classes.

But then we came to realize that everyone in the class was a fucking idiot. There were a few grown-ups in the class, and a few mellow young people, but everyone else were stupid fresh-out-high-school bros and douchebags. Do you need me to provide examples of how stupid everyone was? Well, I'm not usually known for negativity re: the human race, but this once I'll make an exception.

Our Classmates

There was this one girl who me and Andrew absolutely could not stand. She was a big-mouth in a big bad way. In fact I couldn't even look at her without the Smiths song playing in my head. She would constantly give shit to Refund, and it drove me and Andrew nuts. Refund was a light-hearted fellow over-all; he would attempt to joke around. His jokes were a little lame, but pretty standard as far as bad, acceptable, social joking around goes. I remember the teacher one time brought eggs for us to draw and shade and she said "I wish these were boiled, but I only bought these on the way here." Refund jokingly says something like "You didn't boil them? Shame on you!" CLEARLY joking. Big mouth struck again and scolded him, "SHE JUST BOUGHT THEM! SHE COULDN'T HAVE BOILED THEM!" Something like this would happen every class, and it always bothered me and Andrew.

Another time, Refund was having trouble with himself and he did a fart. This one megadouche whose name I never learned immediately jumped on it like a high-school bully. It was really quiet in class, and he just pipes up, "woah! Unleash the beast!" I remember that moment as him going from being just a garden-variety dink to being a full-fledged enemy of ours. I remember one time, after he said something particularly stupid, Andrew did that mimicky-mumble thing, imitating his voice without saying any words? Kinda humming a really dumb-sounding apeish noise. You know what I'm talking about? It's hard to articulate. It was such a great knee-jerk reaction to this shithead classmate that it killed me. I remember running out of the room to finish laughing at it.

Andrew summed up the class perfectly: It's like having a job, and you need to learn a certain skill in order to get promoted. And to do it, you have to learn this valuable, important skill in a class full of 6-year-olds who are there to learn it for different reasons and don't really give a shit. It was really infuriating. People would throw shit across the class and stuff like that. It's like they all forgot or just hadn't realized yet that they are adults. One time I had to attend class by myself, and I wound up faking sick and leaving half-way through. I think the real reason I left was just as legitimate: I was having an emotional meltdown without having Andrew there to distract me from the horrible, horrible stupidity that went on in that class.

The teacher was so nice and sweet, and she wasn't much older than me and Andrew. You could tell she was kinda in the same boat as us, but she was way more tolerant towards their shitheadedness. That's why she gets the big bucks, I guess. She used to bring in music and she made an offer to the class: If you wanna bring in a CD to play in class, you can. Guess who decided to take her up on that? If you answered "a stupid jerk" you would be right. This stupid jerk in question was a bro, who brought in a horrible rap CD. It was completely obscene and not suitable background drawing music at all. I remember seething in my seat, but being the usually non-confrontational puss that I am, not doing anything. Then, Lindsay, my guardian angel and personal hero, got up and turned it off. She was as polite and apologetic as could be, and she laid it all out on the line in the way I was too a-scared to do. Just for that she became known to me and Andrew as "the good one."

So after that debacle, the teacher kinda downplayed that offer of playing brought-in music. One day she brought in a CD of Tom Waits, which I find to be perfectly acceptable background music in a classroom. This one girl, who still had the voice of a child, sneered and asked "who's THIS?" The teacher told her, "Tom Waits." The girl got a confused look on her face. "Isn't he DEAD?" I remember barking across the classroom "No he's not, and just so you know: When a person dies, their CDs still work." It was a triumphant zinging.

A little later, the teacher left. And megadouche (the "unleash the beast" guy, who was sitting next to girl stupid) took the opportunity to take a defiant stance on the music playing by pulling out his cell phone and improving the music-situation by playing, I shit you not, LIMP BIZKIT. "Yeah fuck this old people music! Let's listen to something horrible that hasn't been popular in a decade and is even worse now than it was when it was new!" LIMP BIZKIT blaring out of a tinny cell-phone speaker was him trying to make things right in the music department. What the fuck?

Another story involving stupid girl: one time, we watched a video about some artist. He was kind of an interesting character, and he was unpretentious and had certain traits that I could relate to (being a packrat and obsessing over old aesthetic that no longer really exists and incorporating stuff like that into his art) that anyone who is capable of thought SHOULD be able to at least understand, even if they don't relate to it. The teacher opens the floor to comments about the video. Stupid raises her hand. "I didn't like it." she said. "Okay, why?" "I don't know." she shot back really rapidly. And the way she said it was so FINAL, like WE AREN'T DISCUSSING IT BEYOND THIS, I remember letting out an involuntary rude laugh at how shitty she was.

So that should give you an idea of how stupid and infuriating our class was. I didn't even get into the stupid conversations me and Andrew had to overhear.

Being Good To Yourself

So, let's get off the subject of stupid people. Let's talk about me and Andrew, who are non-stupid people.

Andrew and me had this perspective drawing we had to do. His various attempts to finish his project were all thwarted. He left one drawing in Redding when he drew one while on vacation, and one got ruined by our shithead cat when she tackled a cup of orange juice Andrew had next to his drawing.

The third one, Andrew was a bit short on time. He was doing it the day of. His downfall is that he got cocky and started inking it right away, but he miscalculated the perspective and messed it all up. He was drawing the castle from Mario 64. He scrawled "I SUCK I FAIL AT LIFE" on it. He didn't wanna go to class, being that THAT was all he had to turn in. AND it was going to be CRITIQUED by the class.

I pleaded with him to come to class, because class is unbearable without him. It took some convincing, but he finally agreed. We get in the car and the song that comes on is BE GOOD TO YOURSELF by JOURNEY. Andrew started getting pumped up, and we decided that the song should be playing during Andrew's presentation. At this point, we didn't care about potentially making asses out of ourselves in the class. We just didn't care.

So we get to class, and we sit through a bunch of critiques. And Andrew goes last. I get up and say "Uh, actually Andrew had a request before we get started." and I put on the Journey CD in the stereo. So Andrew is explaining himself and his actions in front of the class, and journey is playing in the background. It's so great, because Andrew was his low-key self recounting the events that lead up to final product, while Journey played behind him. At the end he says, "and the only thing that kept me coming to class was hearing this song, getting pumped up, and realizing that everything was gonna be okay." The floor is opened for comments. Refund raises his hand:

"Uh, I'd like the drawing better if it didn't have those words on it. You have to understand that you shouldn't do that to your drawings. Don't EVER put down your drawings, NO MATTER WHAT! These drawings are your children! YOU WOULD NEVER DO THIS TO YOUR CHILDREN!"

Refund was very passionate, and even took a commanding tone. Everyone started to clap. Journey was still playing in the background. And Life was awesome.

The Exciting Conclusion

So for a final project, we all had to draw self-portraits, and we could get creative if we wanted. I decided to draw my head into a movie poster. But which one was the question. Andrew suggested Beethoven. I loved the idea, and committed to it. So I drew my head onto Beethoven's body from the poster.

I drew the whole movie poster, and I wanted to be precise, so I did it by photoshopping my head into the picture, drawing a grid over it, then transferring it to another grid twice the scale onto our regular art paper.

So I bring it to class on the final day, and we are presenting our drawings to the class. Now, I mentioned how Refund could be on the pompous side, right? And up till this point, I tended to defend him and be on his side, despite how pretentious or slightly rude on critique days. Usually he had SOME tact when he criticized other people's works. But this was the last day of school, and I guess the gloves were off, because he was critiquing everyone in the class real heavy, being snottier than usual. Just really trash-talking every drawing like nuts.

So we get to my drawing, which was unfinished because I don't care. So she had everyone look at it especially close before we continued. So everyone gets their good look at it, and it's time to critique. Refund raises his hand, and speaks with more aggression and anger than I've ever heard ANYBODY speak with towards ANY drawing in the class. "I HAVE TO SAY, THIS IS THE LEAST-CREATIVE DRAWING I HAVE EVER SEEN IN MY LIFE!"

I had a lot of pent up aggression to take out on this class. And I was betrayed by this guy who I'd defended, albeit privately. I was one of the few people in the class who didn't openly mock him. So after sitting through this guy give shit to everybody, and he is getting into it with me. And I shout at him, "WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU, YOU JERK??" It was a complete knee-jerk reaction. But I was honestly genuinely pissed.

"ALL YOU DID WAS COPY TWO PHOTOS! THAT REQUIRES NO CREATIVITY" he shouted back to me. The teacher intervened, trying to be diplomatic: "There's probably a good reason this drawing is the way that it is, lets let Luke talk about it." Damn straight there's a reason why the drawing is the way it is: I want it that way! Is there nothing to be said for a pure concept? Why bother drawing anything if it's not going to be something that you personally are interested in? And, if this is the concept you are going with, this is clearly the way to go about it. That's a reasonable defense.

But, instead of saying any of that, I decided to go with an improvised comedy monologue about wanting Charles Grodin to be my dad. And, I was still pissed off, and instead of changing my tone to a reverential one, I kept the same angry tone. So nobody had any idea that I was joking. I'd say 90% of the class thought I was going off my rocker. I said all of this really angry and defensively: "I’ll tell you right now why the drawing is the way it is: I want Charles Grodin to be my dad! But then I realized, 'oh wait, Charles Grodin wasn't the dog's DAD, he was the dog's OWNER. So that's why I didn't finish it! I realized I'd made a big fool out of myself in front of the class!" So nobody really knows what to think, and I'm sure they all think I'm a psycho (probably right).

So Refund's turn up at bat is this: he walks up to his drawing hanging on the wall, which is hanging hotdog-wise. He plants his pointer finger no it and goes, all smug "PERSON." Then he flips his drawing hamburger-wise and goes "GARDEN." And then stomps back to his seat all satisfied with himself. Whoopty shit, you've made the community college art-class equivalent of a Mad Fold-in.

So I raise my hand.

I've already made an ass out of myself as far as these people are concerned, so I don't give a shit. The teacher hesitated calling on me, but she does. "I think… (dramatic pause) his drawing (dramatic pause)… is the MOST creative drawing I've ever seen. And that's why I was so hurt when he came down on my efforts." I was just as proud of my zinger as he was his abstract fold-in job, but we both had the same reaction: stunned/apathetic silence.

The teacher asks me to elaborate, asking why I think that it's the most creative. I quickly respond with "I don't know." a call-back to dumb-dumb girl's reaction to the video. It occurred to me to answer with "I just wanted to zing the tard" but I could not bring myself to be that mean. Also, I don't think you're allowed to call your own comeback a "zing" if nobody laughs at it.

The whole class, me and Andrew passed a note to one another, a conversation, which started out with me saying "I bet Billy Crystal would like it if the MARK TWAIN AWARDS were renamed to THE BILLY CRYISTAL AWARDS" and it delved into our mutual mental breakdowns and the raging emotions inside of us. I turned it into the teacher for extra credit, and apologized to her for my whole life.

What we got out of this class: Well, we made friends with one girl, who we've yet to really hang out with or anything. When me and Andrews lives aren't in shambles maybe we will get on that. We turned a girl away from liking Dane Cook, and got her into liking Louis CK. And I have two pieces of original art hanging on my wall that I can be somewhat proud of (perhaps I will have three if I ever finish the Beethoven picture).

That is the story of Beginning Drawing at College of the Redwoods. Thanks, guys.

WFYB: The Two Mikes

Desert Blues 2008

So, I've been making a DVD of Desert Blues, with extra features produced by myself and some friends of mine.

Here's a comic book I made for it. I'd really like it if you read it and enjoyed.

Oh, if you want some background on these characters (which I assure you is completely and utterly unnecessary for the purposes of my comic) or have no idea what I'm talking about, this comic is based on this movie:



It was made in 1995 and is Johnny Knoxville's first movie.

Here is the comic! LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK!

Click to Read More!

Selected stories from an online survey

17. Do you have any really crazy relatives?
My aunt jane who had a hissy fit because me and my mom dropped by unexpectedly, WITHOUT CALLING AHEAD. My mom hates this, because anytime she calls ahead, Jane makes a big deal and forces company to stay for dinner and makes a big fuss that my mom did not have time for on this particular day. She just wanted to see her sister while she was in town! My aunt was really upset, and she had a mental break-down in front of a small child she was babysitting. "WHY DIDN'T YOU CALL FIRST?" my aunt cried, almost actually crying tears. "I thought you might be at church!" My mom said. "I HAVE NOT BEEN TO CHURCE SINCE SEPTEMBER 11th 2001, SUSAN. YOU KNOW THAT" My mom did NOT actually know this. Anyway, the story ends with my other aunt (Marty, who was with us) saying to the little kid "well you're a very pretty little girl!" and the kid replying "I'm a boy." and us leaving on that note.

22. When is the last time you ate Peanut butter and jelly?
I never have eaten jelly in my life. The last time I ate Peanut Butter, now there's a story. Me and Andrew were coming down from Redding to Eureka to look at apartments. We were determined to find a place, our jobs at Borders were on the line. I decided to eat a healthy meal. On the road you tend to excuse yourself from your normal standards of eating and you allow yourself to eat like shit, because you are away from your normal spots. Well, me and Andrew had been on the road A LOT, and I didn't like how I'd been eating. So I packed a lunch. I packed an apple, a banana, some carrots, a peanut butter sandwich, and some orange juice. I consumed it all in the car, while Andrew drove.

So we are waiting for the first apartment we are going to see, and as we are waiting outside, I get the rumbling in my tummy. I don't communicate this, because what the fuck am I going to do about it? Bail on this crucial apartment-hunt appointment? And also, I am not about to pollute a toilet that belongs to the apartment I am looking at. That's kind of a no-no it would seem like. I have to pretend like everything is fine while everyone looks at the apartment, then I tell andrew that we have to leave NOW. It's a real fight keeping what I have inside me inside me. I mean, I should have weighed my bowel movement and listed that weight as what my butthole could bench.

So we are speed walking to Andrews car, which is hard when you feel like you're about to give birth to a baby made of shit. I get in and mutter OKAY GO GO GO GO GO. Andrew starts driving me to the nearest toilet a few blocks away. He drives, I'd say about 3 feet, when I yell STOP. I get out the car and run around a corner. This is by the street bordering beach before the northcoast boardwalk area. I pull down my shorts in broad daylight and I let out what had been raging inside me: Some kind of peanut-butter butt-baby hybrid, that in my head is somehow alive and screaming. Somebody could have easily walked or driven past and seen me, a 23-year-old young man with a plant stem up my butt, as if it were activating my rectum's gag reflex. I was only a few feet from the sidewalk, against the side of a building, between that and a black pick up truck parked on the dirt. Not the most private of places to take what might be the worst shit I've ever hard. PS, a bowel movement like this can be extra horrifying when you do not have two gallons of toilet water diluting it. You really get a sense of how much was in you.

So I walk back to Andrew's car. I had nothing to wipe with, so I just have to be extra careful. Not to get shit on my underwear, I mean. I am covered in sweat and breathing heavily. I get in and kinda sit with my knees on the seat instead of my butt. Andrew asks, "so... you just had to pee really bad, right?" "No Andrew." I answer solomnly. He took me to the co-op where I shit in a toilet like a person.

31. What was the last thing you ate?
A handburger at some resturant in Willow Creek on the way back home to Eureka from Redding. It's a funny story: I WAS going to eat at Red Robin in Redding before I left, but opted not to because the parking lot was packed. So I go to this random place in Willow Creek, and guess who my server is? A GUY WHO USED TO SERVE ME ALL THE TIME AT RED ROBIN! PS: What does "funny story" mean again? I forgot.

41. Is your birthday on a holiday?
If you consider Jeffrey Jones' birthday a holiday, yes. So, yes. Because you do.

46. Do you like polar bears?
No

47. Do you like alligators?
yes

50. Do you have to get your wisdom teeth out?
I did already, and it was really kind of a great thing. It didn't hurt very much at all. I remember I asked the doctor about the anesthetic, what it was. He explained to me what the actual chemical was. I said, "no, I mean what actually is it physically? how are you giving it to me?" He said it was the IV. "oh wow, I didn't even know that." Then a split second later I was giggling like beavis or butt-head and being shown a video about how to take care of my new mouth holes. I ate pudding for a day and had gauze in my mouth. It wasn't nearly as painful as I thought it would be. I had bought Simpsons Season 6 and saved it for my day of bedrest and watched the whole thing, episodes AND commentaries. It was seriously an awesome day. I weened myself off of the vicodan really quickly and had a lot left over, which I finished off on days at the theater when I felt like shit (and later when I cracked my tail bone on my 23rd birthday carrying a broken laserdisc player down the stairs. Worst fucking birthday ever). Getting my wisdom teeth taken out is one of the best experiences of my life. I would do it again in a heartbeat.