Sometimes blogs have this funny, insidious spam that pretends to be a comment, but usually there’s something just…off. In the context, that is. Like this one from Linda: http://blog.patbarrett.com/2009/06/cover-girl-whole-shebangin/#comments

Folks, I’ve been having lots of fun in my sketchbook lately. I am feeling some small moments of clarity and putting them on paper. I’ll shut up about it, though, because I’m not even sure how many of these I’ll show you. That might also be what’s making them good, that they aren’t made for an audience. So, sorry, we’ll have to give some of these some time. I’ve been picking up my Microns again, to get ready to make chapter two of Petrified Girlfriend. Let’s hope that’s good!

Why aren’t more people talking about that Austin plane attack? Why isn’t this news? Why is nobody concerned about an act of terrorism? Of treason? When an angry, rich white guy adopting Al Qaeda tactics (while using his own private plane–sorta hilarious, since he insists that taxes ruined him), stay with me, and strikes against a branch of the Federal Government with murderous intent, that’s not newsworthy? Is all of journalism, and are all of us, that racist that we can just write this guy off as some poor wacko who hated paying taxes?

Glenn Beck and the Tea Party and Patriot movements keep drumming these guys up into a gold-and-gun-slinging frenzy, while Republican congressmen do their best to make sure that nothing happens in government, therefore insuring that government is, as they say, bad, and now we’ve seen an act of right-wing rebellion (with actual IRS casualties), and nobody cares?? But a couple of guys with brown skin that say their prayers to the east each unsuccessfully attempt to hijack planes, and it’s all we see or hear for months, and we’re pushed into more drastic, fortress-like and closed conditions at airports and in cities all over the world? I guess this empire might go out with a bang after all.

Now that you’ve scrolled through my liberal diatribes, here’s something I drew in my sketchbook a while ago while I was warming up to do some inks.

Today, a mere week after receiving notice that an automatic loan payment had been returned due to insufficient funds, thus adding a fee from each the bank and the loan company to my mountain of debt, I say to you that today! I got a letter from my former, different bank offering me a credit card with all sorts of introductory deals! I suppose my checking account that hovers around zero makes me a special person to them!

It reminded me of my favorite New Testament story, wherein Jesus finds moneylenders doing business in the Temple at Jerusalem and…

HE SMASHES THE SHIT OUTTA THEIR TABLES!!!

And then I read about how the Teabaggers react to all this stuff and it made me scared of having to fight a civil war with them. But really, if they can all get together in a couple of landlocked states and secede, why stop ‘em?

You know, I think Rapidographs get a bad rap in our little community of cartoonists and illustrators. Maybe I’m wrong, and maybe they get held in higher regard than they deserve. But mostly I think people badmouth em. Like, the other day I even found myself saying, “They’re a pain in the ass to maintain, but…” That’s the consensus talking, man! They’re not a pain in the ass to maintain! More recently, I was lovingly cleaning two of my pens out, and I thought, this is nice, it’s meditative, and it means I care about the tool I’m using.

You know what’s a pain in the ass to maintain? Try maintaining disposable pens! They run out before you’ve done like four drawings, or more likely the tip splits and you haven’t even gotten your money’s worth of ink. Or, try maintaining the ink on a page after you erase it.

Plus, none of them are color-coded for the size, so you have to search out a number on the barrel or the cap every time. On the worst, and most commonly used, technical pens, Microns, the numbers wear off and you have to compare all the tips side-by-side to figure out how big they are. Talk about a pain in the ass!

And then, when they wear out, you go and dump another piece of plastic into a landfill to sit for thousands of years, taking up space amongst decaying poisons. And then! Even worse! You have to get your ass to an art store and buy another one! What a pain in the fucking ass!

That being said, I give you a drawing of my jambox. It’s been with me for seven years or so, and the other night at a raucous good time at my house, I thought I’d lost it to the ages. But it turned out the CDs just got stuck in a space in the tray, and I just needed to open it up, take them out, and put it back together again. Praise Somebody! A month before that happened, I realized it looks like a cute little imp, and I drew it. With a Pentel Pocketbrush. Not Rapidographs.

…I think winter is especially magnificent to look at. In New York, the buildings become stark geometry, light in front of shadow, shadow in front of light. It’s fantastic! And then in the country, well-defined shapes strike against each other, in white, pale blue-gray, and lavender-brown. Woops, it looks like those years of painting class snuck themselves onto me! Better show you a picture of

another BIG DICK!!

…how would you like to see some doodles of monsters and wangs? With some ampersands, of course. I’m keeping this shit classy like Brighton Beach. Oh and tits. Tits too.

My friends, the long vacation is coming to an end. It’s very bittersweet to be packing up and getting ready to hop on the Vermonter tomorrow morning. For one thing, I’ve apparently attributed mystical, magical powers to “my” drafting table, “my” computer, “my” scanner. I feel magnetically compelled to get back and excersize my studio equipment fetish. At any rate, I can’t seem to get anything done in this post-holidays Brooklyn squatting. I wish I could say it’s because I was doing so much and seeing all the sites, but really I’ve been sitting with the cat and looking at the internet for the last week. So, I don’t even feel like I’ve been reading cause I’ve only been reading on screens. Anyhow, it’ll be nice to feel settled and stop living out of a suitcase. From Charlotte, to Connecticut, to Brooklyn, it ain’t easy saying goodbye so many times in three weeks! And of course, as the deadline for Brooklyntime has come hurtling toward us, I’ve been seeing more of my friends and doing more interesting stuff, and it makes me never want to leave.

Blah blah blah, Alien, you know, from Alien?

It’s a time of transition, isn’t it? Just because some weirdos decided it would be better to start a new year at the winter solstice instead of the spring equinox? I don’t know. I just know that everywhere I go, peeps are itching to move onto something, or someplace, new. South America, Asia, California, New York, Vermont, anywhere but here. Maybe this makes sense, meteorologically, after all. Winter, even though it can look so lovely, and crisp, and pristine, is a real drag. So a person starts to think, man, I gotta do something else with my life. Which makes sense, because basically the thing you’re doing with your life at this point is sitting inside watching TV and playing video games, eating too much chocolate, sleeping late, and trying to maintain feeling in your fingers and toes. So then, come spring, you either really do something new, or you don’t. Now is when the idea is germinated. At any rate, it seems that the early twenties New York City recess is coming to a close for many of my college chums. Then what? Maybe I should move to Dublin, or London, or something.

New year, new beer, y’know? I’m trying to figure out the best way to set up a “shop” on my site, are you excited? Thinking I should probably find something without so many fees as Etsy. I have Oak & Linden issue 1 camping out there and so far it has cost me $4.00. Does anybody have any recommendations? How many questions can I squeeze into one post?

And yeah, I’m gonna keep these doodle posts going for another week or two.

Oh golly, I guess I forgot I had a blog. I’m in Charlotte now, at Cait’s parents’ house, and I’m watching Star Wars on TV (“Only a master of evil, Darth”). We’ve got Legos and preg-os, so basically, things couldn’t be better. Since last I wrote, we’ve had a kegger at my “frat house,” a lovely night out at Union Hall in Brooklyn, and I made a header for Joe Kopta’s blog.

Guess what else I forgot. I used to post doodles! Here’s a page from back in September.