TBI with Aaron Cometbus

I'm blowin' it. TBI, as B would say: Team Blowin' It. I'm the goddamn captain. I had been posting once a day for awhile, and now...DAYS go by and not a peep. Partially, it's cause I am working my ass off. Partially it's because I have a habit of only writing or drawing, not both at once. Partially, cause I am not feeling at liberty to do a lot of disclosing.

Well, hm. Let's see then. Something totally lame that takes no laborious thought or deep introspection. Is this the right time to bring up my love of all things Aaron Cometbus? (Shitty segue, I know...just want to get away from the why do I feel this ways and the despairdespairs. And Aaron's fun, and deep, but that palatable, simple deep. Not that rigorous, ostentacious deep.) You see, I grew up in the East Bay; Berkely, Piedmont, Richmond, Oakland, San Fransisco. I have subsequently, moved to the grimy-ass, plastic tits, envelope-toothed, little-dogs-in-sweaters, Mochachino-drinking, roach-coaching, worst public transportation ever, (this could go on a while, but I think were on the same 'page of rage'), cattle call casting, waiter-has-a-script-for-you, most deplorable metropolitan filth explosion on the planet.

I miss the East Bay.

So, there's this little thing I do whenever I get home to visit family: Fanzines. Zines. Any zine, all zines. The shittier the better. Bullshit diatribe about Veganism, prolific rants about the current state of punk, hiakus about drugs, sketchy little images. I love the cheapness, the look of Xerox, the tactile ephemerality. I love it all. Two bucks or trade. What else can you get for two bucks or trade that will offer you such a naked, unfettered peek at the underpinnings of our generation? Fucking zines feel like home.

And Cometbus is my favorite. But enough gushing. I'll let you decide. An excerpt from #42 Double Duce: A Novel, story 72. Giant Burger:

“Get your mod garbage ass out of the bathroom and in the car already. Don’t you think your hair is combed enough by now?”

“Will you fucking hold on just a goddamn minute? God damn cultural Philistines! Fucking intangible miseried shitbags!”

“Aaron, what are you doing up there, making a list of your piss bottles? Come on, we gotta go!”

“Wait, wait, I’m coming too. Just let me finish changing.”

“Changing? What are you changing into this time, Sluggo?”

“Shut up, you fucking hick. At least I can read.”

“Fine, I’m leaving. I told you guys I was gonna go, I guess I’ll just go by myself.”

“Do you have enough gas to get there this time? Seriously, Little G, we don’t want to have to push the car again.”

“I just filled it up two hours and eleven minutes ago.”

“Yeah, I have to work in the morning. I can’t get stranded all night in one of your bullshit schemes this time.”

“Look, I told you, I just filled it up. Do you want to go or not?”

“Jed, could you sit down in the fucking seat? Just sit down like a normal person. Just pretend, for once.”

“Do you think it would be alright to eat spray paint? Do you think if I was a flea, they would let me have a driver’s license? Do you think, um, you could stop at this light? I just remembered something I have to do.”

“Goddamn it. What the fuck. I think we’re out of gas. Get out and push while I steer.”

And an excerpt from #45, story 22. Lucinda:

We stayed up all night, ditched her friends, and then, sitting against the big tree in the middle of Ho Chi Mihn Park, we kissed. We just sat there kissing and kissing for ages. It was that good. But then, when we got up and headed down the avenue holding hands, we stopped cold after half a block and she looked at me with big eyes. She said, “I feel funky.”

Not funky like, “I wanna dance,” but funky like, “Give me my hand back,” and I knew exactly what she meant. I felt funky too. Walking around like that just wasn’t in the cards, nor the stars, for me and Lucinda.

What kind of cruel trick was life playing on us? Falling in love but keeping us from being together. It was weird. We liked each other, we were attracted to each other, yet to be seen holding hands would be the ultimate embarrassment. I couldn’t tell what it was, but anyone from a mile away would have known.

“Even your mom hates me,” she said.

“That’s ridiculous,” I said, but women have a way of telling the truth. In fact, my mom despised her, and that shocked me because that had never happened before with anyone I brought home. Obviously there was something special about this girl.

Fucking Lucinda. She walked through life like a sweet pea, buildings and safes falling all around, people shooting and shooting up and freaking out, and none of it touched her. Not at all. Luthinda and Thethilia with the fake lithps and the self-imposed handicaps, frolicking through the needle gallery on the way to meet me, lucky me, every night that summer, to sit on the steam grates, on cocaine of all things, hidden by the tall buildings and enveloped in clouds of steam, leaning on each other and lost in warm and dreamy secrecy, knowing that the minute we got up and went back to into the world we’d be wet, cold and awkward.

Late at night on the roof of the Hotel Carlton, in the moonlight and the cool breeze, chewing gum, wrapped in each others skinny arms, we’d kiss, then pull away and shake our heads. She’d light a smoke. I’d hit my head against the wall, cursing the stars.

One more. Click for the larger image, to read. This is what the zine really looks like:

I miss the East Bay. I'm still thinking about how to get back home. I gotta just do it though, and soon.