I’m at the public library again, although I may have internet when I go back to the apartment. I am so sensitive to noise that I am wearing earplugs that I typically use for construction. Hey, it’s a public library; where else would people bark at each other and incessantly crack gum? I’m 51 years old and I’m tired of constantly pointing out the millions of ways people annoy me, It’s their fault. Not mine. I was raised in an era where kids were struck for being obnoxious in public. It was a better time in every conceivable way and anyone who tells you different is lying or stupid. Practically everything that sucks about modern life comes from the fact that about a billion people should have had the taste slapped out of their mouths as children. Almost everyone in the 2020’s acts ignorant and entitled and I’m long since over it.
Imagine spending every single waking moment of your life stressed to insanity and aggravated. Imagine having to trick yourself into being able to stand other people, every single day. Imagine having no choice but to live in a town where the mayor and comptroller are on the news because they openly hate your skin color, and they caused five police officers to resign for that reason, leaving your precious “mOsT dIvErSe sQuArE mIlE” even more of a dangerous shithole than it already was. Imagine having to spend time around supposedly intelligent persons who couldn’t care less about the matter. Imagine working a laborious, dead-end job because the country you live in constantly points out how much they hate you and how worthless your life is to them, up to the highest political office.
The attached video is something I’ve been working on for, if I’m being accurate, about two years. Normally it should have taken a fraction of that time, but for a multitude of reasons, the most crucial being a lack of internet (which makes the monthly Adobe Animate subscription totally useless), but also the fact that for five years I’ve tried to operate out of a 10′ x 8′ eighty-five degree bedroom situated above one or more women who, in the past, have jabbered for eleven hours straight at outdoor volume. Even working construction for eight-hour days in 90 degree weather isn’t helping me make rent. I’m not stupid; I can tell when the deck is unfairly stacked against me. I owe hundreds of dollars to other people, and with the way things are with people in this country and others, I have no confidence that life for me will ever improve.
The video is 30 seconds long. So much time passed between conception and completion that there were periods where I forgot the project even existed, This is the only way I have been able to function without sublimating to a nefarious corporate agenda. Do not fool yourself into thinking that the world we currently live in is receptive to independent thought and ideas. Without question it is the opposite. I suffer because I refuse to toe the regime’s party line. Anyone who says different doesn’t remotely have the balls necessary to be a real cartoonist.
Thirty years ago, if I were somehow able to fabricate the above animation, I’d be at least a grand richer. You tell me why I shouldn’t be mad at the world right now. Literally the only people I don’t currently hate, aside from family and close friends, are the people who’ve supported me in the past few years. Without them/you I’d have given up. I HAVE NO ONE ELSE IN MY LIFE WHO ENCOURAGES ME. NO ONE. Naw man, I get lectures about how I should just work a regular job and how I just make things harder on myself “trying” to be an “artist”.
Meanwhile, look around and tell me how many independent creatives you see enjoying success right now. The answer is zilch. Now that everyone fancies themselves some sort of armchair-crusading socio-political butterfly, independent humor and art are either dead or censored to death. Check out The Simpsons, Family Guy and South Park in 2023; they all suck shit. I won’t waste words pointing out the responsible political ideology; NO ONE CARES. The adherents to said ideology are hypocrites who lie with impunity and literally get away with murder. I’d sooner sit on a grapefruit knife than engage in their pusillanimous mockery of “discourse”. Their form of debate means one thing only: either I submit, or they insult and condescend and prop up enough straw-men to choke a hay-baler, They only tolerate ideologies that don’t threaten their own (as far as they can surmise with their limited intelligence). They are the proverbial hogs on ice, and as far as I’m concerned they can die there.
So yeah, for all intents and purposes, I’m done. That doesn’t mean I quit, it means that sooner rather than later the money will dry up and they’ll win. It is inevitable. I lead an existence that by description is more of a punishment than any kind of artistic career. There will come a time where I will have no means to do anything, I can’t make it any plainer than that. I can’t even maintain my eBay store anymore, unless my roommate has been able to pay to have the internet back on (this is month 2 of no wi-fi), because I haven’t been able to pay for it since June. I was charged for an Amazon item I couldn’t return because it is impossible to access the Amazon website away from home to print the necessary label. Not that I could do it at home; my printer no longer works, so that’s “Taps” for my eBay business, unless some miracle happens. Ha ha ha.
Maybe tell your friends that their beloved corporate creature comforts will be around long after they will, whereas I may not even make it to 2024. Pretty much no one listens to me as far as I can determine. It’s very tiresome. Hey; how come cartoons/movies/comedy/art/every-single-aspect-of-entertainment is/are so terrible?
Gee whiz how would I know. It truly is a mystery.
Thanks as always for your support. It’s all I’ve got aside from my health and my hamster.