Comicbook Rockstar . 7 – Seventh Street

No apologies.

Ive been busy changing everything once again. The brief hiatus of this column has seen me through some strange times. I left for the Boston Comicon last September as a vegetarian, non-smoking, New York boy. I had just made my NYC status official after having lived in NYC for a year.

That Thursday morning before the con I finally visited the top of the Empire State Building. It was raining and I was there with my ex Diana. We were trying to make a nice day of it but the weather would have none of that. It was grey and rainy and windy. But still, we smiled, and we tried to make it a happy moment. Two friends parting. She bought me a I heart NY t-shirt. I left for Boston that night.

I came back from Boston and I was suddenly hungover and living in New Jersey. My sincerest thanks to J & Jong for putting me up. Shout outs to Erin, Sarah, Steph, and Laura (What up L-diddy?). In NJ it seems my sense of direction is completely wrong in more ways than one. North was South. South. North. Last year, I reversed, and now, I had inverted.

Meat. It was turkey. It sucks. I wanted to be a vegertarian. I really did. I had a Buddhist like mindset about it all. I did it for two years having given up at the foodcourt of the mall where Dawn of the Dead was filmed. Chris and I were sitting there having just gotten our usual mid-day Pittsburgh Con lunch. The Chinese joint chicken special. You know. Free sample?! Well, one particular piece was just about the foulest little chunk of flesh that was ever consumed. Im easily traumatized by food, so that with a hundred hours of PETA video brainbashing I was eager to stop eating animals.

And I held out. For awhile. But when J brought those damn Starbucks sandwiches back to the apartment, well, I lit up a smoke and ate a damn turkey sandwich by god. Six years of not smoking gone in an instant. I know it seems bad, but something told me I needed to do this. And more.

Nights spent on Jareds floor. Cold in the heat, hot in the cold. Im still drunk as Jared tries to lift my head and slip a pillow underneath it. But Im done. Were out on the weekends as the Young Turks, Disciples of Strange; the East Village Kings. 7305. Lucys. Black & Tan.

..

Days spent with a family. The Estes. Ben, Lee & Jen. I think thats how it goes on the answering machine. I love them dearly. When I had nothing and nowhere left to go, they took me in and loved me as one of their own. Nate and I became blood brothers; Jedi & Padawan, Padawan & Jedi. I slept in Bens room while he was away in Ireland. Thank you Ben. I hope you had fun over there and I want to smoke my stogie with you when you get back.

LIVE NATE BOOTLEG

Lee & Jen. Man, what a couple. They laugh, they love, they drink, they puke, they host, they fight, they welcome, they teach, they believe, they wrestle; theyre family. It was an amazing honor and privilege to see them turn a house into a home. THANKS AGAIN for allowing me to be your humble guest who did his best to clean up and not be a bother.

I knew I was family when I was doing shots with Jen and saw Lee naked. Thanks to the Estes and Hettel families who welcomed a sad soul into their holiday festivities. It was nice to feel like family again. Yay! Presents!

Too bad Im broke. Unemployments gone and Im trying to figure out a way to have enough money for gas to get to any job that may call back, and then hopefully out to NYC to go out drinking and maybe dancing but probably puking, although possibly scoring. Christmas comes with a double paycheck and money from my parents. Thank you to you both who have saved a slacker son from complete financial failure.

Happy New Years! Twothousandsix?!! Damn. Youll be thirty this year. I moved to NYC on my 28th birthday. Now I was suburban Jersey, living on the fault line of ghetto and kingdoms, much like where I grew up in Wheatley Heights. East Orange felt like an old, long lost, childhood home.

Three months in the Garden State and I am blessing my beloved mother every day as the EZPass gets me around New Jersey, to my job and straight back into Manhattan. A job that I soon quit; a graphic design job with Alphagaphics, and then start a customer service training for Cingular. Its a good time, hanging out with a bunch of characters, and getting paid to draw in MSPaint and conquer that most wicked of PC games, Solitaire. Gotta hit the phones after a few weeks.

..

So I quit, just a few days after I go out on a thirty-six hour Brooklyn bound date during the blizzard of 06. Meganificent. I'm nearly completely broke but I have one last paycheck from Cingular. This money is spent on a small food purchase at Target, a tank of gas, and the rent for my new apartment. On Seventh Street.

I move out. On my own. Well, sorta. With a roommate. Not a girlfriend. For the first time since I was twenty one years old, I had my own space to do with as I please. I decorated it with the essentials, aka whatever fit in my Eclipse. Lee & Jen drive me out a mattress, sheets, pillows, and a blanket. Its the epicenter.

My 15 Powerbook and Dell Inspiron 2600 (may as well be Atari 2600) sit at the foot of the bed. Chow Yun Fat is on the wall by this window, next to a portrait Chris drew of me as Wulong. By the other window I have trinkets, including a superball, bottle caps, stones, Ninja Monkeys, a Green Lantern power ring, my sunglasses, two Flash figures, and a Buddha.

Dirty laundry pile is straight along the wall, while the clean clothes are a mound before me. My jackets (including my high school leather jacket with Aerosmith airbrushed on the back, the last birthday gift given to me by my Grandma) now hang in the closet beneath a shelf full of CDs, VCDs, DVDs, copies of Liquid Fury, and a humble library of graphic novels & paperbacks. Another smaller shelf just above the closet holds my cowboy hat, a beautiful vase courtesy of MB, and my Curious George stuffed animal; purchased on September 21, 1976 for a bouncing (oddly yellow) baby boy named Kurt Joseph Christenson.

So here I am. Brand new. Spun around. Made whole.

Things the new Kurt enjoys:
Independence.
His own space.
New York City. Daily.
Having Netflix again.
Rod Stewart.
Downloading comics.
Scrubs. Finally being able to see Oldboy. And Serenity.
That should have been up there under Netflix.
My new haircut. Supercuts. St. Marks.
I need a new one already.
Muy Thai. Tai-chi.
Lifting weights in the mirror.
Admitting embarrassing things.
Getting breakfast.
Making lunch.
Affording dinner.
Buying rounds.
Lady Strange.
The Faces.
Horse the Band!
My old job back. More money, less hours.
Just had a week off.
Brooklyn.
iPod shuffle.
The Cinematic Underground.
Cigarettes.
Jurassic 5
Adult Swim on Demand.
12 oz. Mouse
Downloading comics.
Teen Titans. Comics.
Sleep.
Getting things written.

***

And to end things on a more literate note, heres Shakespeares Sonnet 7 which I received earlier today from my Sonnet-a-day email:

VII.

Lo! in the orient when the gracious light
Lifts up his burning head, each under eye
Doth homage to his new-appearing sight,
Serving with looks his sacred majesty;
And having climb'd the steep-up heavenly hill,
Resembling strong youth in his middle age,
yet mortal looks adore his beauty still,
Attending on his golden pilgrimage;
But when from highmost pitch, with weary car,
Like feeble age, he reeleth from the day,
The eyes, 'fore duteous, now converted are
From his low tract and look another way:
So thou, thyself out-going in thy noon,
Unlook'd on diest, unless thou get a son.

***

Write or Die.

K

Comicbook Rockstar 6: sixsixsix

Lift the curse of those feelings which oppress men, which force them into wars they do not want, and consign them to work from whose fruits they never benefit Assume within oneself perversion and crime, not as exclusive values, but as a prelude to their integration into the totality of humanity. Participate in the destruction of a world as it presently exists, with eyes open to the world which is yet to be.

We were the losers of Universe K. Cowboy Outcasts of the Lost Earth. The Superheroes that came out of the Left Field of Reality. The Bad News Bears of the Multiverse. Operation: TenTon.

The hard luck veterans of the twenty-thousand mind war, infinity constantly just a hair's breadth from ultimate annihilation from the most sinister of forces. Hatred, corruption, crime, and genocidal ideologies slammed at the doors of this world and every Wednesday the battle would begin again and again, forever fighting the good fight.

We're a diverse pantheon of the hopeful creative individual, imagination given flesh. Within our minds we have the power of epic conflict that is begging to be set free. These very words are the magic formula I must constantly type in order to keep pace with these mighty beings. But our powers came with a price. A charge. A duty. A holy mission. A promise.

We must keep every malevolent spirit in all of creation from spilling forth from the darkness. The Devil is banging on our souls and there we sit like a lock on a mighty chain that stretches across this country and even across an entire ocean. Hell was seeping through the crack called New Jersey.

I'm the NYC Kid and, along with my sidekick Spider, I patrol the East Village, keeping a lockdown on things, the girls and the bars in particular. By day Im holed up with Captain Mad Dog Estes. He has a complex out in Jersey, hidden among the suburbs. Hes a natural leader, one you didnt mind following into a showdown with the devil. He keeps his family close, with an eternal eye out for the looming apocalypse. On the other side of town, Doc. Malbrough sits with a vigilant watch over his baby girl and his Mrs., a sixgun in each hand. Kai-Zen, the triads former ninja assassin, and J.B., the tough as nails private dick, are stationed a few miles away, protecting the armory. (The selection of goggles is astounding, not to mention disguises for undercover work. Essential in the biz.) Speaking of undercover, Statutory Browns in deep undercover work, infiltrating and penetrating certain key areas of local Jersey corruption.

MC Samurai keeps a vigilant watch over fuckin Baaahhhston, while honing his swordsmanship at his mountain temple. Purple Turtle? Well, he operates just outside Philly, from within a nuclear power plant, where its said his bizarrepowersoriginated. Around the corner is the undercover paramilitary superagent I can only refer to as Project: Khoi. Suffice to say, Phillys covered.

Spreading further out across the country, over in Ohio, we find Major Freeman, who, not only hosts a bezerker fourth dimensional Viking God within himself, but also toils endlessly, preparing the fallout shelters and a backup bunker from which we can defend the world if the evil is ever able to break through. We then turn to the mad genius of Chicago, Dr. Phalex. Surely the power to warp the very fabric of reality could not be in safer hands. When backups needed, the Windy City can also depend on modern day pulp hero, Mr. Burnham. Whether its mummy mobsters or demonic pirates, Blazin Burnhams got it covered with a southpaw and a grin. Prof. Polacek, better known as the Mysterious Minotaur, gets in on the action in Chi-town when hes not scouring spell books, searching for some way to keep the wicked hordes at bay.

A little further out, deep in the Wild Plains of Imagination, Utah, Doug Hills wrestles the Savage Cave Giants, the Ferocious Feral Men, and the Cutesy Cosmic Cheerleaders from Malibu X. Its true. Lucky guy. And I said across an ocean, did I not? Masters, Jason Masters. Currently stationed in South Africa, the man has seen it all. He rocknrolls his way through certain doom and dances out of the room with a deadly karate chop or a devastatingly charming smile. And what group would be complete without the cowboy rogue we call Our Man Mitch. Lee found him wrasslin monsters from the badlands, before finishing up early enough to rock the stage of Mollys Drinkin Shack. Last we saw, he tossed his belongings into the back of his hotrod and blazed down the highway to rocknroll hell. Fire is rocknroll, my friend. Fireis rocknroll.

The devil is asking me to let him out. Hes showing me all that he can offer, for all of us. The accomplishments we can achieve if only I was to say it would be okaybut its not. I cant. The bastard knows Im the weak one though. He visits me every day, just to whisper in my ear all the reasons I should just give in, just give it up and let it all come to me and all of us, but at what cost. So I run and superspeed and leap and jump and flip away, hoping that his voice wont follow, wont seep into my brain and draw me back to where Ill be weak and helpless before his power.

I feel his pull as I bounce through the city, so I soar across the East River and fly on home. Im holed up on Long Island and gripping the sides of my keyboard with all my might. Dont. And suddenly I feel ashamed. Ashamed at being so weak. What would the others think of me? Wasnt I one of them? Wasnt I strong enough to march into battle beside them? I was, goddammit. My mind began to clear and I remembered who I was. I looked around at my family and friends, the people who were there when I grew up and first headed into the eternal struggle. I pledged my service to the betterment of mankind in this very town, in this very house, in the very room I am sitting here typing this.

I was bathed in the radiant light of enlightenment and it dawned on me that we didnt need the devil to get what we wanted. We just need to build and work and fight for our creations in the world around us. Hokey mumbo jumbo about potential and the beauty of creation came too, but I was busying glimpsing the future, watching the parties and fun wed be having. Im no divine being, just a man. A superman, like my brothers in arms.

~TenTon4Life~

K

Comicbook Rockstar 5: The Power of Love

TenTon has annihilated the 2005 con season and rocked out ..:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Boston as final proof that we are the nuclear bomb of cool. There was drunken debauchery, rockin' riffs, and many a sexual innuendo. But what I ultimately got out of it all, is a sense of family.

These boys are not just friends, they are brothers. Truly something deeper than just a bunch of starving creators have banded together here. This is a group that found each other because we were meant to. I never imagined I would be surrounded by the coolest of the cool, the baddest of the bad, and they would accept me and love me as one of their own. That's right, love. I said it. There is true TenTon love here baby.

I think I've been missing something vital for so long in my life. I had become so jaded and cynical over the past few years that I had forgotten what an honest love for people I used to have. Somewhere over the last decade I had become what I always swore I wouldn't: Someone closed-hearted and content with spreading negativity to everyone around me. I have a newfound love for my fellow man again, and I find myself not being intimidated by people as much anymore.

I was also letting expectations of people reading my work stop me from writing. I found myself paralyzed every time I sat down at my computer to work. I found I was censoring my thoughts and trying to perfect every word and line so as not to disappoint. But I was letting someone down. Me. I had forgotten what had driven me to write in the first place. That true moment of joy I felt as I put down the words for no one other than myself, not even thinking that anyone would ever read it and being content with the fact that I was putting something together so that I could make sense of things.

Self-love is the hardest thing in the world for me to actualize. I had always torn myself down, expecting to beat anyone and everyone else to the punch. I was extra sensitive my whole life, so an offhanded comment from a friend or family member would send me careening into the chasm of self-hate. I never thought myself good enough, smart enough, or capable enough to do or get anywhere in this life. Now I can see that the only reason I didn't get or do the things I wanted in life was because of these self-imposed limitations.

Now I can see that I'm not alone in all this either. Seems most people have felt these things I've been writing about here. Hopefully something I'm saying here speaks to a part of all you fine readers out there. And for those that aren't reading these columns, that's aight. A big middle finger to all those sucka MCs that don't, but much love to all of you that are reading these here words of mine. I love you all and have a hug for each and every one of you. Seriously, just ask next time you see me. I have love for all y'all.

Big ups to the TenTonKrew, especially to Senor Scott St. Pierre and his lovely wife Karen who put us up in Baaaahhhhston while we drank ourselves silly. I personally had a total blast and miss you guys.

Also, much love to Jay and Jong who are letting me crash at their swank pad. Thanks homies!

K

Comicbook Rockstar 4: The Quest For Peace

Int. New York City Apt. - Night
The Meaning of Life.
I'm in bad shape. I'm looking out at myself and feel it all falling apart, no matter how hard I'm trying to hold it all together. Maybe it's just the September blues, or the bi-polar/manic-depression kicking in, but whatever's going on it's hard to concentrate.

I can't write this now. Not in this state.

Morning. Back now. Things look better. I've just been having a rough time of it lately. It's a yearly thing really. Every September as far back as I can remember has had me go through the wringer. And as is par for the course, September is nearly over before I even got used to it being here.

I've locked myself away for the last two weeks and just tried to write. It was an agonizing process. I took every opportunity to do all this other miscellaneous nonsense and made excuses to myself. I wasn't sure what I was afraid of, what it was I was trying to avoid, but I had buried myself beneath research and outlining for long enough. It was time to get something done.

So I started, and it was awful and difficult and my eyes darted around the room, as my mind raced. I couldn't help but think of all the other things I needed to do, the people I needed to call, etc. So I slapped myself back into action and pushed through it. It sucked, but I got a major chunk done and I was happy.

But it got me to thinking for this column. Why was it I was having such a hard time finishing these projects? I thought long and hard about it. More distraction I suppose, but I think it helped. I realized that I had changed so much since these projects began, and that I had somehow lost my connection to who I was when I came up with these ideas.

I was always idealistic. A romantic utopian even. Naive? Certainly, but filled with a nearly inextinguishable hope in my fellow man. Then came 9/11 and something had snapped in me. I remember sitting there for days on end, glued to the TV and computer monitor unearthing any shred of information I could find on anyone and everyone involved. This led me down a path filled with conspiracy theories, human rights abuse, civil liberty abuses, and on and on. I became disillusioned and often found myself in the middle of shouting matches with co-workers as our soldiers invaded another country.

I felt insane, or more to the point, sane in an insane world. But what's the difference really? Here I was, a lone voice calling out to any who listened about the injustice going on world wide and I was consistently ignored by peers. I made meek, veiled threats against the government and Bush in the secret hopes that the FBI, who had their Long Island branch right next to the office I worked at, would come and pay me a visit.

But they didn't. Nothing happened. I didn't reach anyone, or help enlighten anyone and I became more distraught. I would never reach them, I could never change anything, or help anyone. And that's all I really wanted to do for as far back as I can remember; help people in the best ways I could. So I gave up. I retreated and withdrew. I gave up on politics for the sake of my stomach and surrendered.

In doing so, I think I lost something vital to me. Something that gave me the drive to write. The drive to live, really. And that was my passion. My passion to help and learn and become involved with others. I just wanted to exist and live as happily as I could without wanting to curl up into the fetal position and check out mentally. So I did like the Romans did, and ignored it all with a drink in my hand. And kept on drinking until I didn't care.

I was happy, distracted by free movie screenings, my fair share of drugs, and lots of late nights at the bars. New York City is full of things to keep your mind busy and unthinking. That introspective nature just doesn't give up so easily though. It crept up on me and started making me sad almost at random. Something wasn't right, and I needed to figure it out.

So I went back to what's always helped. The words. I just kept writing and writing until all the junk sitting on top got cleared away and I could see what the problem was. I had lost direction. I had lost who I was. I had given up trying to help, given up on trying to get something done. My passion for life and writing and the world at large was just about gone. So when it came surging back these last few weeks, it was quite the shock. To be honest, most of this I'm just putting together as I write this right here.

Hopefully, trudging through the next few weeks will see me back and whole. I have lots of lofty goals set for myself and I'm not getting anywhere sitting here spinning my wheels. There's a world that's outside this window here and it's not going to wait for me to catch my breath. And I know everything I write these days seems like a manifesto, a declaration, a call to arms, without the surging forth of the troops into battle. But each one of these columns brings me closer, and every two weeks in-between I get more and more done.

I may not be able to hurl all the world's nuclear missiles into the sun, but I know I can make a difference. Even if it's only to those around me, but then again, they're the ones who deserve it most of all.

This column is dedicated to Chris Chua & Diana Zuluaga, who have had faith and encouraged me, even in my worst moments. Thank you.

K

Comicbook Rockstar 3: With A Vengeance

Three strikes. Third time's the charm. Three Stooges.

Who the hell am I anyway?
What the hell do I have to say?
Where the hell am I going?

My favorite movies as a kid were Raiders of the Lost Ark, Die Hard and Back to the Future. I even said that I wanted to be an archeologist in my fifth grade yearbook. I think I have it around here somewhere. I got a photo of my face on Indiana Jones' body at Great Adventure and had it printed up on a t-shirt. A shirt my friends would pull out in High School and sport around the halls.

I had all the Back to the Future collectible movie cards in a shoebox, and it was the absolute first ride I made my family go on when we visited Universal studios. I'll see if I can dig up those pics too. And Die Hard, well, I remember a blissful feeling of being like Bruce Willis once when I was playing guns up at my cousin's house, where he lived on a remote court. I had all the neighborhood kids gunning for me, but I was too slick. I came alive with a plastic gun in my hand shooting down the other kids.

I spent my teenage years in Massapequa, Long Island. New York City's parking lot. You know, Strong Island, the Surburban Island off Manhattan. Queens and Brooklyn have totally disavowed being part of us, but it's all the same landmass until the Midtown Tunnel or East River bridges baby.

Massapequa, home to the Baldwin Brothers, Joey Buttafucco, and Steve Guttenberg. And it was/is as suburban as it gets, with a McDonald's every mile, a diner every half mile and a gas station every 20 feet. I smoked Marlboro Reds over some mozzarella fries and gravy after driving out to Long Beach to hang out on the beach all night. I had a paper route at 11 years old, helped deliver soda and candy to train stations all across the island at 13, worked at Adventureland on the kids' teacups (aka the vomitorium), King Kullen, Waldbaum's, K-Mart, Sears, and Jiffy Lube. Eventually, I went to Nassau Comminuty College where I graduated with my Associates Degree after taking every writing course I could.

I'd always been writing. As long as I could remember really. I remember a soap opera-ish, anti-hero drama from junior high, involving my rebellious friend Dennis, and my first girlfriend Nicole. I also re-read recently two short stories from my English class in tenth grade. The first was about a hard boiled detective facing demons summoned to start Armageddon. The other about Sparky, the Wonder Yak, who sought enlightenment and which borrowed heavily from Ren & Stimpy's Shaven Yak. And I recall receiving an award for a short poem that I banged out as an assignment that went to some state level competition. I accepted it almost as an afterthought in my Marvin the Martian t-shirt and jean shorts at the holiday concert.

Oh yeah, and as an aside, I had long hair. Sebastian Bach long hair. I know there's some bad pics floating around. I even won best hair in my high school yearbook. Sigh. Best hair. I had begun growing it out in Junior High after seeing Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure. I wanted that Ted S. Preston, Esquire look and it just kept on growing. Besides, the bowl cuts and spiked hair was getting played out.

But I digress.

I always felt like someone who could write, but not a writer in name. I could transform words to help a person experience a situation, even one I had never been in myself, but I had nothing of substance to say. With a handful of pretentious poetry, three scenes from a Tower of Brahma screenplay, and a false start on a sci-fi novel, I pretty much left college and accepted my life as a failed writer. I had nothing to say. No life experience to really share.

My life had been imagined for most of my high school years as I, along with my friends, roleplayed every concievable genre, from cyber-punk to fantasy to Vampire the Masquerade, which I even LARPed once. Once. But the majority of games were superhero which were inspired by the fact that I had found comics just a few years earlier and with a new batch of sci-fi/fantasy-centric friends, I plunged into comic books, and the multiverse of superheroes.

The Burton Batman movie, the GI Joe cartoon, and Mad Magazine had driven me to seek out these so-called books. I had always been an avid reader, often pouring through whatever books I took out of the library before the day was done. I guess my love for comics came when I first started really getting into Garfield, Peanuts, and the rest of strips from the funny pages (I read Brenda Starr for years, and hey, it had a guy with an eye patch in it, and that's cool dammit). I would take the collections of comic strips out of the library and pour through them from the minute we got into the car. So later on, when I saw that Norm Breyfogle Detective comic (404 I think?), that silent issue (85) of GI Joe featuring Storm Shadow as a good guy, and Wolverine 17 & 18 sitting on the racks…I was hooked. I went to 7-11 as often as possible picking up all sorts of books and a batch of Hot Tamales for the bike ride home. I rolled up a Jim Lee Uncanny X-Men and tucked it in my back pocket as I rode my Mongoose BMX home.

Over my teenage years I had the good fortune to be reading comics at their best and yet their worst. I was there as Image burst on the scene and I was there for the late 80's DC for books like The Question and the development of Vertigo. I felt as if my brain would explode every time I devoured another Grant Morrison Doom Patrol, Peter Milligan Shade the Changing Man, or Garth Ennis Hellblazer. Sure, I read all the superhero stuff too. I've been reading the Flash steady since just after Mark Waid jumped on the book and totally turned it around and reinvented the superhero in a post-modern age. I will never forget where I was when I read issue 100 of the Flash where he first discovers the Speed Force (I was in the upstairs lounge of Nassau Community College's library). I thought he was dead. They actually got me. They had moved me.

Nothing else read as fast, or looked as cool, or had as many crazy ideas as these amazing little addictive pamphlets. I resorted to buying $10 worth at the local comic store and tossing $30 in afterwards when no one was looking. I was a junkie and I needed a constant fix. Comics are great for that. Comics are definitely the crack of fiction. A (used to be) cheap fix of mad ideas, stunning art, and deep rooted Freudian/Mythological opera. Not to mention the often dingy and scary places you needed to hit up in order to score.

I gave it up, semi-cold turkey almost two years ago. Sure, I pick up a graphic novel here and there, but I was sportin' a $200 a month habit and in the end that's all it was. A habit. It wasn't fun, it wasn't fresh, and it made me more depressed and took money away from doing anything outside in the real world, with other people. Yes, DVDs and CDs certainly played a major factor in depleting my funds and the consumption of my time, but that was a separate $100 a month habit all its own. But damn if I didn't read some mind altering comics and see some kick ass Hong Kong flicks in that time.

These are things I did and sought out to take up my time. I always thought you could see an intriguing pattern in the likes and interests of a person when you take a close look at them. I'm not sure what my entertainment really says about me anymore, and in a lot of ways I've stopped worrying about it. These things are supposed to be fun distractions from a often cold, and cruel reality. For too long I had myself under a microscope, or like a detective following clues to determine who I was and what I stood for, and where exactly I was underneath the debris of thirty long, white, comic book boxes.

Coming out of your hole and piecing together your life seems so obviously simple in the end. I just stopped reading and started writing. Whatever I needed to go through, whatever battle within my head I needed to survive, I survived it and came out writing. It was ugly and unrewarding a lot of the times, but that's not that point is it? How many people really become stars after winning on Star Search? It has to be done for the love of doing it, or it has to be done in order to save yourself. That joy, pain, and hunger that drive creative types to creatin', that's what's real in this world, and that's what gets you where you want to be.

I have an idealistic view of humanity and want a creative revolution to be born of these fertile times we live in. We live in a world that in many ways is becoming more and more fictional every single day. PR, spin, and celebrity worship guide our daily routines, and are involved in the epic wars, disasters, and personal madness that plague us all. It's my intent to help as far as I can. Ego aside, I know I have the ability to write, but what nearly killed my passion to write was a lack of direction and purpose. I don't know if I have the answers to help people, but I know that I needed help and I did it for myself by utilizing my talent as often as possible.

The more I write, the better my life becomes. Coincidence?

Ahhh, this all seems like trite psychobabble in retrospect. Some nostalgia wrapped around a fat, hard to swallow pill. Maybe it'll flow more naturally next time. Maybe not.

But you gotta keep going, right?

K

Comicbook Rockstar 2: Electric Boogaloo

August 2006.

The rockstar life is filled with ups and downs. That's the key to remember. It can't always be drunken orgies backstage after a killer gig. Sometimes it's vomiting on the sidewalk, people all sidestepping around you. Or even sometimes it's being stone cold sober, despite your best efforts, and wandering about feeling lost and empty.

It's always the expectations that ruin my days. I expect to zig and instead life zags, and I get frustrated at the unexpected disappointment. It's life's random surprises that really make or break you. The falls just keep you humble and on the right track I suppose.

For example, I'm sitting here out in Dirty Jerzee, lounging by the pool, and it's not really hot enough to actually jump in. Three days earlier I was trapped, sweating profusely and dying for this 80 degree weather.

Sometimes the words come and it feels like I'm channeling some foreign frequency that's just pouring the words from my fingertips. The other times I hate the words, I hate the ideas, and it all seems like a terrible waste of time. It's this polarity in the creative process that really interests me. It's in all aspects of life it seems. That roller coaster ride along the peaks and valleys of our emotional experience.

I was thinking about audiences and their relationship to creators. We, as creative individuals, have this burning desire to create some sort of externalization of our pain, our joy, our hopes. Sort of an emotional surgical procedure, sculpting these feelings into a work that stands as part of us, but yet a part removed.

Then we present it to the audience. They experience it, then process it and hopefully applaud, or else throw tomatoes, or, even worse, walk away in indifference. This transaction of meaning and expression opens up all sorts of games where insecurity messes with our minds. The applause seems to mean validation, an acceptance of our darkest or brightest bits. But this is where things go bad.

It became like a drug to me. I'd post a new short story, or essay, or photos, or whatever up on my online journal Now's The Time and I would (and still do) obsessively check who had visited and what comments they may have left.

The posts I just did for the hell of it were the ones that got the responses, just as inevitably the posts I made where I felt strongly about the results and just knew someone would get it and proclaim my greatness, there would be no comments at all.

This led me to a love-hate relationship with my readers. I was dependent on them, living for their acceptance, and I hated them (myself) for needing it so desperately. Eventually I found a balance where I didn't let myself get down about the lack of comments, and instead just kept at it. The more I did this, the more comments would randomly appear.

This carried through to other parts of my life and soon enough I started getting praise from family and friends that I never imagined would, or could, get me. And maybe that's not the point. They don't need to understand me. Or even like me really. The more I create for me, the more I change and grow. The more this happens, the more people will recognize it, and the less I need it.

Who do we create for? Why do we create at all? Are we motivated through early praise of our individual skills? Do we have a calling or inclination towards a specific medium? It's probably just me over-thinking it all, but for some reason I just can't stop…

I awoke the next morning, my fingers reaching along my neck as I felt the sharp point of the barb. Seems like someone did me the favor of shooting me with that emergency tranquilizer gun I keep handy for just such an emergency.

Bartender, gimme a pint. Cheers!


K


For more information on my works:


LIQUID FURY
The graphic novel I'm working on with Chris Chua.

It's a kung fu, revenge story, with a sci-fi/fantasy twist. Or as Chris and I like to say, it's kung fu abstrACTION, philosophical pulp.

THE TOWER OF BRAHMA
A pseudo-experimental novel that attempts to unravel my identity through my various character archetypes.

Two agents seek to end the world as we know it using the ancient puzzle, the Tower of Brahma.

TWENTYSIX
Alternating takes on superhero fiction through a series of short stories that have a running, evolving storyline.

Charles Crown, aka Thrust, aka the Kinetic Kid, is trying to save humanity from itself, unfortunately the closer he gets to figuring himself out, the more reality fragments all around him.

Feel free to comment…or not. Up to you.

Comicbook Rockstar

August 2006.

My sincere desire to put forth my honest acceptance of my chosen lifestyle is clamping on the shackles of inaction, non-writing. How can I let them know that I've discovered my lot in life and that I shall carry my burden for the rest of my days? How do I tell them that I was born…a rockstar?

I'm not sure how it happened. A lot of air guitar as a teen; theatrically performing 'Permanent Vacation' by Aerosmith in my socks and drawers at every home alone opportunity. Too many vodka blackouts and a drugs ingested for a normal job to make sense anymore. The frontal lobe epilepsy makes the most minute tasks seem impossible, and at the same time, the universe blooms chock full of potential.

I just want a social writing revolution, with a sixties-seventies rock 'n' roll lifestyle, where I jetset across the globe and vomit in bizarre locations in exotic locales. I'm not proud of it, but it's my destiny. No wait, I am proud of it. Actually I love it. I want a Philip K. Dick/Pink Floyd kinda life. A Grant/Jim-Morrison sex sandwich to sink my teeth into. A William S. Burroughs/Sigur Ros blend to cook up and inject into my thirsty veins.

I want sex, drugs, and the written word. And I won't settle for less than total revolution!

I try not to think about my writing, in fact I attempt to abolish all rational thought whilst slamming out word after word as my fingers nimbly dance out the twentysix variable symbology I use to telepathically stimulate thought and coalesce ideas in your skullmeats.

Distrust authority and make comics you bastards! I decree this and will take rubber mallets to your kneecaps if I don't see results. And yes, I expect the same lifelong limp if I don't comply as well. There is no option but to serve our will and recreate/reimagine the reality you thought you were stuck with.

Change your point of view and the world grows around you. Do it. I don't want to party alone. Open bar. I swear.

By the morning we'd forgotten all we had dreamed, and all that we had done. But after brunch, and a handful of painkillers, we'll be rewriting the revolution all over again.

Preachy preachy, Mr. Talky Talky. So much to say, so little done. Where are your drum fill short stories, the funky bass tone of comics, the blaring horns of poetry, the guitar solo movie scripts, and the lead singer novel? Never made it out of the garage band days.

Until now. Now I look back and see the pretentiousness steaming off the words above. Scathing myself for anything less than the most honest and open communication of ideas possible. I must become a true writer or else I face the hollow mirror of failure.

Everything has gone according to plan. Now to trigger the implosion.

K

SEX, DRUGS, & COMICBOOKS...

Or How I Spent the End of this Aeon

The elevator 'DING'ed, the doors began to open, and I was bathed in the warm glow of digital- fluorescence. The gentle humming of ten thousand portable digicams all simultaneously capturing my arrival soothed my soul. These cams all zapped my super-sexual visage to the teeming masses, who nail-bitingly sat with baited breath, slumped over monitors, salivating at the merest hint of my ungodly appearance. I was wearing my RockStarSelf™, complete with my retro-MourningBlue™ mohawk, and matching FauxFur jacket. The kids love it. I was using Pose 17, a personal favorite, as it was the one I used on my first Rolling Stone cover. The shimmering elevator doors were dramatically pulling back to reveal the top floor of New York's Kirby Convention Centre. (I purposely had them slow the gears of the doors down so as to tease my fans to a near orgasmic state. I like to start strong and go from there.) This was my twenty third convention appearance of the season and I still got that raging hard-on I always get when making my entrance. I always wondered where I'd be when it all came down. And here I was, the night of December 20th, 2012 at the fifth annual NYC Comicbook Convention. Twelve hours to Doomsday!