Nosey Ones

Meet Lester Scrimpleton (blue) and  Wyman Munson (orange). These are the official dolls of Nosey Ones, Inc. Nosey Ones, Inc., is a plush doll company planning to launch by December 2011. For inquires about these dolls, please email me at NoseyOne.com@gmail.com. They are hand-sewn dolls crafted from a variety of fabrics: anti pill fleece, plaid, leather and silk. They are roughly 5 1/2 inches wide by 12 3/4 inches high.

Lester Scrimpleton [blue]

Lester has a severe speech impediment. He has a tendency to show up late to work and blame it on his dog, which doesn’t and never existed. He is best friends and roommates (which he claims) with Wyman, where they live in a one-bedroom apartment above Panda Garden. Lester sleeps on beanbag chairs and diets on Easy Mac. He has a severe peanut allergy, yet he is still trying to figure out what the “PB” stands for in “PB&J,” and why he breaks out in hives every time he eats one. He claims to hold the Guinness World Record for the longest time in a Maytag washer and dryer; he has never been washed nor dried.

Wyman Munson [orange]

Wyman takes himself and his job way too seriously on his quest to deliver fresh Dominos pizzas. He plans to release a survival guide for the impending Apocalypse. Wyman and Lester have different views on their friendship. Lester cherishes the very essence of Wyman’s presence; Wyman hates Lester. Wyman used to volunteer at Jelly Belly as a taste tester. Once the company realized Wyman wasn’t “tasting” the jellybeans, but instead saving them to create a giant mural of Joseph Stalin, he was quickly let go; he only saved up enough to compose Stalin’s mustache.

Below are some concept illustrations for future Nosey Ones. They are presently in the process of being developed, so remain nosey, and check back later.

 

 

 

 

Back to the Future

The future …

What’s in store? I mean, if we look at its literal meaning, there is quite a bit. I assume the future is stocked; well stocked. There’s enough modern technology to smother our diminishing past. Our “present” future far beyond us; years beyond us. Our future is only a mirror of the past, yet this mirror only gets shinier and more reflective as time elapses. It grows into something recognizably unrecognizable (if that make’s sense). It frames time.

The image above  is entitled “Back to the Future.” It represents my corky envisioned queries and sarcastic social criticisms of the future. Although I have no idea what the future holds in store, I can only assume that what it will be packed tight of the past and present, just better and a lot nicer.

“Back to the Future” was taken inside of a computer tower. The space is only 4 1/4 inches by 8 1/4 inches. I shined a blue light through the side of the tower to give the effect of night time, taking advantage of the slick surface for reflection. The “TV” is a 30GB iPod (probably out of style by now) and the figurine in the foreground is a 1986 Remco action figure spaceman; I say he looks quite comfortable in the future.

The past is a present, the future is a gift.

 

I am, because.

As humans, I’d like to say that we all, and I don’t want to speak for everyone, but the “majority” of us encounter random thoughts and ideas each and every day (some each and every second). I call these “thideas.”

Thidea [the’idea] n : The “whatevers” before the “whats;” the bees before the honey; the food before the feces; the isn’t before the is; the nothing before the something.

Thideas make me, me. I’d like to think that thideas are what make other people’s “because,” “because.”

Random Person 1: “Why is he like that?”                                                                             Random Person 2: “Because!”

Certainly not a case of strong evidence, but I can truthfully state (left hand in the air, right hand on my mouse pad [close enough]) that I am the way I am truly because thideas shape the way I act; the way I do. If I never thought to think of an idea, nonetheless, think to think, how could one ever actually do? I am the result of my doing.

I am, because.

Happy [holi] Days!

The “Holiday Season” come and goes all too fast. It starts sometime in late October (which is early in retrospect to a “year”), and rides its holiday sled all the way till January.  Shelves scare away the Halloween decorations to make room for the over stock of Christmas goodness and the hype of the Holiday “spirit.”  Christmas songs permeate the radio, snow falls on command, and the wishfulness of happiness and hope sky rockets. Yet, once the New Year dings on another digit to its “name,” the  “Holiday Season” surge comes to a screeching halt.

Somewhere in there Hanukkah happens. It seems to gets lost in the mix every year, but us Jews do find time to make our Holiday a “day” (or “days;” we get eight). Christmas claimed ownership to red and green, while Hanukkah quickly grabbed the remaining colors: blue, white, and yellow (I think those are the colors of Hanukkah)? I think we threw the yellow in last-minute so we could claim ownership to some holiday color palette. Blue and white would quickly get lost amongst the NCAA madness of the Duke Blue Devil’s, the Facebook Revolution and my summer camp dress code which I continue to wear all year round. Throw yellow in, you’ve made a Jewish Holiday! Kaboom!

Anyways, the holidays have come and gone. But, before we know it, we’ll be putting back up our Christmas lights, gathering our holiday gifts, and dusting off the family menorah. It’s never to late to wish someone a Happy Holiday (or Happy Day). If I was head of the “Holiday Season Committee” everyday would be a holiday, right Luda?

Happy holi Days!

The Man in the Mirror

It’s pretty crazy how things work sometimes.

The things I find to be most successful happen purely by accident or luck, and other just by giving it a try (there is no harm in trying). I drew a picture about a month ago composed of random concept drawings and characters. Each character builds off another character, creating the illusion that each character is part of another. Each character, depending on the angel, illustrates a different character or emotion; make sense? Let me explain.

First I draw a single character:

A character sketch displayed from two paralleled (i.e., horizontal) perspectives. One angel shows a Pac Man-like ghost figure and the other a man with a turban.

After I compose a single concept sketch, I begin to build off of that, creating the illusion that no one single character stands alone. Each character is a part of another, and regardless what angle it is viewed, it composes a different illustration.

Two characters built off each other. The character on the left is the same image from above; the Pac Man-like ghost. The other (on the right) is a face with glasses, a beard and a pair of fangs. No, the image on the right is not supposed to be me, yet I do have a sharp canine tooth which I am convinced makes me one-eigth vampire.

This is the same exact image as above, this time it is flipped horizontally. Now we see an owl like figure (on the left) rocking a tie and suit, and on the right we see the parallel of the Pac Mac ghost, a man with a turban.

Alright, so I think you get the concept. I’ll jump to the final sketch, so you can see the final affect.

Here is the final sketch set to black outline and white fill.

 

This is the same image as above, just flipped horizontally. Notice how drastic the illusion changes?

Pretty cool, huh? Well, it doesn’t end here. So, this image took me about an hour or so to draw, and an additional hour or so to sketch it in Illustrator. “Reverse-Parallel” (which I have dubbed this specific concept) is not difficult, but can be extra time consuming when illustrating the “reverse” or “parallel;” it has to work from all angels in order for this to work.

But I wasn’t quite done with this. I assumed if an image was made up of a bunch of faces, and from each angel, the image creates a different “illusion” or character, then when the image is meshed, one face would be created. I didn’t know if my “theory” (if you can even call it that) would work, but I was dead on. I took both parallels (i.e., each half the sketch) and meshed them over one another. Well … I’ll let it speak for itself.

 

 

Mister [un] Employed

It’s been a while …

Do I have a job? No. Am I keeping myself busy? Perhaps. Am I busy? Yeah, kind of. Do I get paid for keeping myself busy? Well, I am waiting to figure that out.

But I have been busy.

Not Best Buy on Christmas busy, but busy enough to say “I’m busy” when my roommates come in and bug me. I wake up late (10:00 AM) with things to do. It is tough to create a daily regimen, when the only thing to do on your to-do list is “wake up.”

I do. I wake up. If I didn’t I would either be dead, in a deep deep coma, or laying in a bed full of the softest and cutest puppies. But here I am, living my life in the present as an unemployed post-college graduate.

Yet, I manage to get a lot done. It’s not easy getting a lot done when you have nothing to get done, but it is manageable. I create jobs. Not jobs for people, but jobs to keep myself employed while I am not.

Employed [em-ploid]. Employed is hard to define. I am not making an hourly wage or even enough to say my bank account is growing (while in reality it is quickly shrinking).

At the moment I am employed by myself. I work for myself. I set my own hours. And I create my own wage. Some days I decide to work out of my house. Other days I choose the library, a coffee shop, or even my bed.

But I am getting work done. How? Well…

About a month a half ago, my good childhood friend, Chris Franco, rang me up. Chris started up a successful hip-hop blog sometime in high school called www.Hiptics.com, and is now in the game to make some solid moves; he recently launched www.ATLrap.com. Chris came to me with a great opportunity, to design album covers and logos for artists tide to the Hiptics.com community. The past two months I have spent my time designing album covers and company logos for hip-hop artists and companies alike. These jobs are based out of Atlanta, but luckily I get to remain in the comfort of my new home, Chicago.  I have never spent more than 48 hours in Atlanta, but the past two months I have never felt closer to this southern concrete metropolis.

My biggest project to date has been for renowned hip-hop artist and former Shaddy Records member, Bobby Creekwater (www.iBobbyCreek.com). This was (and will hopefully continue to be) the opportunity of a lifetime. I have designed two album covers and have been commissioned to create another. The first time I spoke with “Creek” on the phone I kept calling him “Mr. Creekwater;” I was quickly corrected. First of all, Bobby Creekwater’s real name isn’t even “Bobby Creekwater,” it’s Antione Rogers, and second of all, never call a hip-hop artist “Mister” anything unless “mister” is in his official rap title. Imagine if I called Snoop Dogg “Mr. Dogg;” he would probably laugh at me; correct me; pimp slap me; blow smoke in my face; fo shizzle my confidence and artistic reputation; who knows!?

Anyways, Creek is pretty big . Well, Google.com big (this is how I judge fame). Every time I searched for his name in Google he seemed to be right there … every time. All I get when I type in my name is a couple thousands of pictures of America’s first and only impeached  president (Bill doesn’t count) and a couple random “Joe’s” (or “Andrew’s” in this case). My goal is to beat out President Johnson on the Google.com Image search; I’d say I got time to work on that.

The first cover that I designed for Creek was his EP album, “Classic Creek Leaks Vol. 1.” Creek had never seen any of my work prior to this project, so my freedom of visual comprehension and projection was very free. There was a high level of trust and confidence, which is everything an artist can ask for when commissioned. I knew I had the green flag to do whatever, yet serious thought and time had to go into this. I wanted to design a cover for that worked both visually with my aesthetic and personality, and practically with his music style and demeanor. This is what I came up with:

The second cover that I designed for Creek was for his official album “Revenge.” The concept of “Revenge” is to capitalize on the struggle for success, implying that success if the sweetest revenge. “Revenge” is still in production for release, and is due out whenever I finish his ‘official’ “Revenge cover. The original “Revenge” cover that I designed (pictured below) was a photograph I had taken using Army Men and fake Dollar Tree coins. Nothing screams gangster like a few Army Men and a pile of plastic gold spray painted coins. Nevertheless, Creek liked this cover so much he wants to use it  for his “single” release (which gives more time for “Revenge’s” release). Creek commented that, “the cover you created can not be any more perfect for the release of the single. Perfect!”

I am presently in the mix of creating an official cover for “Revenge.” I have a lot of ideas flowing; this is neither a bad thing nor a good thing. Creek said that he “trusts me to do anything.” Anything? Wow, this puts me inside a valley of tangible visual concepts and extreme creative imagination.

Nevertheless, Mr. Creek was not the only thing I had on my plate. I designed a logo for Federation DJ’s, a header for ATLrap.com, and another album cover for Amor Jones (www.AmorJones.com) entitled “The Wake Up Show.”

 

Oh, Pump the Jam, Pump it Up!

Can ya’ hear it?

Is it me, or does someone’s taste in music say everything about them? To me, we are music. Music is life. Life is filled with so many types of people. Each person generally is the way they are based on how they were raised, where they were raised, when they were raised, and if they were even raised at all. This is music. Music is people. People are the many genres of music that separate sound from other sounds. I believe that we can tell a lot about people just by the music that we listen to. Rock. Pop. Hip-Hop. Jazz. Classical. Country.

I quickly associate music to a face. An image. A person. A lifestyle. Generalization? Yeah, probably, but I think we are all guilty of generalizing. Generalizations exist because they are true. Sorry people who think ‘generalizers’ are racist, they’re not. They are observant. I am Jewish, I have a big nose and I am stingy. Coincidence? No. Ask Marty Buksbaum; he has the same problem. As do most other Jews. Music is no different from us. We are the music we listen to.

Sharing [shair’ing]. Sharing is illegal in the world of music. But in the world of life, it’s everything. We learn from the early age of three (or however old I was to ably realize sharing was a ‘thing’). Mothers and teachers constantly told me share. ‘Andrew, make sure you share with Emily.’ What I would have really like to have said was, ‘Fuck you Emily, this is mine, and I’m not giving you shit.’ But thanks to the strict code of pre-school and childhood, sharing was the only way to go. No one wanted to do it, but there was no harm in doing so (except for losing whatever you gave the other person). Well, nothing has changed today. Sharing can sometimes be a pain, depending on what you’re giving, yet most of the time there is no wrong. Harmless. Useful actually. What goes around comes around.

I feel this with music. I share my music because it allows me to give a little bit of myself to someone else. Selfish? Call it what it is. My music says a lot about me. I see no harm or selfishness in it. I think one wrong with our generation is that we know too much about everyone, but not enough about each person. Who they are. Their personality. The characteristics behind the name. The ‘wall.’ Facebook has introduced us to a network where we can share thoughts about others, and ourselves, yet I still don’t know who people are individually. I don’t even know who I am half the time. We have fed into a network where we characterize people based on an html code, a ‘profile picture,’ and relationship status. Well done Mr. Zuckerberg!

People develop a general taste in music due to a network of sharing. Often, the music we listen to have been strongly impacted by Saturday afternoon drives with Dad or Sunday morning drives with Mom to the supermarket. The music that I listen to today is strongly influenced by what was electronically or physically planted into my mind at youth. However, the music we are initially introduced to is not always the music that characterizes you. I believe that it takes many genres of music to categorize one person.

Take me for example:

When I was young (like sitting in the backseat of Dad’s car, young), the only things I remembered listening to were: James Taylor, Notorious B.I.G., Tito Puente, Coolio, Gil Scott Heron, Tower of Power’s ‘You Ought to be Having Fun,’ Jazziz Magazine’s Monthly CD, and some random Brazilian Jazz band.

This unique, eclectic, deranged, call it what you want combination of music has shaped my musical mind; my harmonious characteristics. I choose to listen to a certain type of music because the music says a lot about who I am as a person and how I approach life, and it embodies a balanced combination of my childhood and present frame of mind.

I gravitate towards music with clean beats, a jazz driven background, and a smooth rhythmic harmony. Although this combination comes in many forms (i.e., genres) of music, the overall tone of the music is similar. I find this sound in folk, hip-hop, and jazz. Many of these genres overlap, yet the mood set by each individually creates an explicit characteristic specific to myself.

Here’s how my mind works (allow me to share):

Bonobo – ‘Days to Come’

Crown City Rockers – ‘Sidestep’

Ray LaMontagne – ‘Trouble’

Blue Scholars – ‘Sagaba’

Michael Franks – ‘Under the Sun’

Koop – ‘Summer Sun’

Dela – ‘Veuillez Veiller Sur Vos Reves’

Bon Iver – ‘Skinny Love’

Sharing music is everything. It allows us to narrows down exactly who we are. It characterizes. Generalizes. It makes us who we are. As much I would like to say that I live vicariously through my music, I think my music lives vicariously through me. Share.

Circa Time!

To date?

It is late November (at least on my calendar it is). Rarely do I keep track of the day and time, nonetheless, the month, but considering my days are spent filling out applications and posting resumes, knowing the date has become a staple in my daily routine. I continuously switch up how I write this date. Sometimes I write out the entire date, including the actual day of the week, month, year (i.e., Monday, November 23, 2010), and other times I’ll do the whole number, backslash thing (i.e., 11/23/10). Yet, recently I have toggled with alternatives for dating.

date [deyt] it. Date is powerful, no? Recognizing time and date could be the difference between shorts and a t-shirt, or a casual restaurant and an overpriced bistro. Dating. Not many words in our dictionary hold truth to such meaning and value. When I moved to Chicago in early October, ‘date’ held a pretty significant denotation. I was aware that Fall was upon me, and somewhere in the city, trees were beginning to shed its summer coat, replacing what use to be green lavish health, with dead, weightless flakes of dried foliage. To find a tree wasn’t impossible, but certainly not easy when the most common element (or compound) was infrastructure. I was also dating someone. I refuse to go into detail about this, but lets just say that Fall was very reminiscent of this unfolding. A lively and happy present was packed into a gift and thrown into the past. Yet, despite the positive and negative of dating, we continue to locate our sense of place and time.

Timing is everything (at least that’s what she said [and no, that is not a That’s What She Said joke]). We must understand time in order to understand our space; personal space. Now, I don’t know the whole scientific argument regarding time and space (and I know it is very complex), but I do know that dating can secure a certain period in time or location. I know that I am presently sitting in front of my computer staring out the window in front of me. I know that what I am looking at is a brick wall, and a mirrored image of myself in the window, thanks to the lack of light outside, and the heavy dosage of wattage pouring over me this very second. I also know that the date is November 23, 2010, and in the next week or so, large amounts of while solid wetness is going to poor down on the city, leaving this lively environment quiet and bare. Also, Kris Kringle should be flying in here pretty soon. He has already made his mark on the radio, and in every window display, so I can only imagine what entrance he’s got planned this year.

Sadly, do to the economy, our good buddy Kris has had to make rather large budget cuts. He has released Donner, Vixen, Comit and Cupid, and has picked up Randy Moss instead. Also, he asks all the parents to wake up at the crack of dawn, take a bite out of Christmas spirit, gulp down the 2% of whatever happiness is left, and pack the tree with re-wrapped gifts from last Christmas. Sorry kids!

Is this all the result of a date? Well, in some ways, yes. In other ways, no. I have seen the leaves fall. I’ve listened to a girl I loved very much tell me she can’t be with me because ‘the timing wasn’t right’ (and because ‘she didn’t want to make the effort’). But thanks to dating, I will never forget this date. Date and time has destroyed our economy quicker than drugs destroyed Chris Farley. The present state of our economy is as ugly as Kim Jong-Un’s second chin and unstable as Lindsay Lohan. Things come and go faster than Road Runner, and what seems to be the right way to do things, is most likely not. Things that I used to look forward to as a child are now shadowed by the depressive nature of reality. Time. Space. Gone. I strive for the day when a date will set me forward and not shoot me backwards. I choose solid over patterns. Patterns tend to create chaos where it isn’t needed. And when did we decide to change the word simple into ‘simply not?’ Need I say more? Shut it!

My methods for dating are strange. My mind is strange. Very strange! I write in all caps (which I will go into further detail later on). I like things clean and uniform, so writing out the whole date or using the backslash system usually poses me problems. The space provided is never big enough for the full date, and backslashes are lazy upright lines. I like to use periods (i.e., 11.23.10) or backslash’s straight brother, the line (i.e., 11|23|10). Till this day, I still have to say the months out load in order to figure out which month matches up with what number (i.e., 1- January, 2-February, etc.); entering the expiration date for my credit card always poses me issues. Why can’t I just say I was born in ‘1?’ Clearly Microsoft Word has presented us with options for dating (Insert > Date and Time…), yet nowhere on there does it say Circa Today, Circa Now, or Circa Tomorrow. ‘Excuse me, what’s the date?’ ‘Oh, the date? It is Circa Tomorrow.’ Dates frames the present, but it is not a gift. Coincidence or correlation?

Unwrap this!

One Saturday Morning!

My life’s a cartoon.

Am I ashamed? Not really. I feel lucky actually. I remember the days when I actually had a bedtime, which was quickly followed by an alarming wake up time. During the awkward years (7 – 15 years old), I dreaded having to go to bed at a certain time, and I definitely hated waking up at a time lesser than early. My alarm would sound around 6:30 am (which in those days seemed like the time when all ‘good’ was coming to a close). I would roll out of bed, hustle to the shower, go through my normal morning routine (which was long and still is), and dress myself with the clothes that I laid out the night before, leaving myself plenty of time to catch some quality early morning Nick.

my routine [roo-teen] is pretty consistent. Actually, very consistent. In fact, it’s kind of sickening. I consider myself a square person. Certainly not a bad thing, until something rounds my corners I guess. I like things neat. In order. Yet, I love to jump outside the square. My routine is nothing short of simple. I feel that we, as humans, eventually fall into a pattern or schedule, and are left with no other option other than to conform to a morning routine. I wake up. I don’t set a time anymore because (1) I am jobless (i.e., actively searching), so there is no need to get up at the crack of dawn; (2) I am no longer in school, so we can check that off the list; and, (3) I purposely set my phone on vibrate, so if I do hear it, I can either hit snooze (at least 20 times [5 minutes in between each snooze]) or dream that the sound of my Verizon vibration is a $4,000 Sharper Image Sound Soother (or however much they were charging).

Once I am up, I am up. I wobble to the bathroom. I turn on the sink light, the shower light, then the fan. I would like to only turn on the shower light, but the light is as dim as David Hasselhoff’s future, so they all get some action. I turn on the shower. Waiting for the shower to heat up has significantly increased in speed considering my roommates and I have turned the water heater level up the notch where it says ‘Don’t.’ We did. I hop in. Shampoo first (every couple of days), then soap (a bar of Lever 2000 Original), then face wash (it smells good). I get out, dry off (never scrub, only dab), spray my Right Guard Fresh deodorant, apply my face lotion (which I have kept in the same travel size bottle for a few years now), and then lather on my Jergens. My teeth brushing routine is a whole other story, so I will sum it up in one word and spare you the pain, ‘lon…ger.’

I am in my room. The door is shut being me and my roommates are either still sleeping or out at work. Now, I don’t set out my outfits the night before anymore, but I do have a rather limited collection of clothes, so that makes the selection process a tad bit easier. Well, actually that’s completely false. When I packed my bag for Chicago, I threw in clothes that I have not worn since I bought them. Most still have tags on them and others I have had in my closest since freshman year in college, and I still never wear them. For me it’s easy. Pack a lot of clothes so you are never limited in selection, but only wear a sixteenth of what you brought. To give you an idea, I brought about twenty pairs of boxers (all with the same ugly pattern), twenty pairs of socks, forty t-shirts, six flannels, four regular shorts, fifteen workout shorts, seven pairs of pants, and a collection of shoes that Payless wouldn’t even sell. Out of this vast collection, I seem to only wear four shirts, three flannels, two pairs of pants, one pair of shoes, and not once have I put on workout shorts (I can not reach them in my closet?). With this pallet, I mix and match. Luckily the pants are black and khaki, so everything I throw together seems to match. Well. Case closed.

The shows that came on early morning Nick were nothing more than simple observations or depictions of every day life. I got stuck watching Weinerville every single morning. The show sucked, Marc Weiner was kind of a wiener (pun intended), it wasn’t funny, and even Nickelodeon was embarrassed to air the show, so they gave them the 7:00-7:30 am slot. No other person in the world would be watching this other than children looking for a quick dose of laugh before school, or the mothers and fathers who suffered while their children sat in their room watching Marc’s Weiner as they got ready for work.

Weinerville was a puppet city. ‘Weiner’ for the clown who created the show, and ‘ville’ for town-sake. It was an imaginary city bathed with puppets, personality, and life. The life was very make-believe, but the characters were real; very real. They were mere depictions of observed city behavior. Louie was the laundromat owner, Big Pops ran the city diner, and Dottie was the useless city Mayor. Sound familiar? Sure.

Weinerville might be an imaginary city, created by imaginary people, yet it’s how we view and use these shows. I’ve learned whom each character is; what they contribute to the theatrics of the show; what they do and do not like; who they like; why they like that certain someone or something; but most importantly, I’ve learn to live with them. We are simply a fly on their wall, laughing with them and at them; it’s quite fascinating once you think about it really. We get involved with their world, when in reality, that world doesn’t exist. Take Family Guy for example. Quahog, Road Island, is a fictitious city, and Spooner Street (where the Griffin’s live) is nothing but black lines and color. Animation. They aren’t real. I mean, it’s real people doing the voiceovers, but the actual content of what we are watching is nothing but childish jargon and observed imagination.

This concept of discerned theory fascinates me. This is how I like to view my life. The area of Chicago that I presently live in is permeated with characters. These ‘characters’ (we’ll call them) are alive and well (that might be taking it too far), and create a fictitious-like environment very much like the one Marc ‘dingle berry’ Weiner envisioned. The corner (we call it [we being the people who use it]) has a wider range of characters than the Island of Misfit Toys. Crack heads. Homeless. Children. Children with children. It’s a zoo. But I love it! Each person carries his or her own unique quality. One man wears a tan onesie Dickies suit every single day. There are a group of guys that have sat in the same spot, on the same egg crates ever since the day I moved in; they actually lock their egg crates to the bike racks (no lie!). Another man (or women [still trying to figure it out]) is occasionally seen walking down the street in a policeman get up (where he or she got it I have no idea). My building is directly across the street from the Hiewa Terrace, where hundreds of retired Asians live. And, the most popular things sold at the local corner store are individual bottles of liquor and scratch off tickets (which no one ever seems to win considering the trashcan next to the register is filled to the brim with pre-scratched lottery tickets). It’s a pretty cheery story all around. I mean, I hate to see people struggle, and I never wish struggle upon anyone or anything, but these people are merely fictitious characters of my reality. I enjoy these individual characteristics that each person posses. The way each person uses the corner is pretty fascinating as well. Some sit, some stand, some sleep, some run, some talk, some walk and some don’t even know they are talking or walking, and that is beautiful!

So, do I live in a cartoon? No. Do I view my life as a cartoon? Yeah, I guess. Has Marc Wiener given me something to think about every time I walk out my front door? I hate to say this, but he sure has. Cartoons are nothing more than observed reality. And in my mind, reality is a cartoon and I happen to live in it.