Tim and Jeremy are both waiters at a restaurant in downtown New York City. During slow times at work, to stave off boredom when it is slow, the two young men draw pictures. These pictures are made using ink and what is called the "Triple Dupe Pad," a book of paper used to place orders in the kitchen. The drawings usually take about a week to make, all the while also being used by fellow employees to take orders; this sometimes leads to other collaborators or in a couple cases, to the loss of the work. The drawings are then scanned and colored in Photoshop where they come to life in stunning technicolor! The subject matter varies from piece to piece, as they are made over a long course of time and under various moods and states of mind. They all retain a playfulness that serves as a coping mechanism after spending a night catering to the endless needs of hungry patrons.

Monday, February 7, 2011

#12: "The Ballad of Mason McSwaine" April 14, 2010

This one was one of my favorites then and remains right up there on the list. This one was done in one weekend, if I remember correctly. It could have taken longer, but the main components were done on a Friday and Sunday of the same weekend, probably right before the 14th of April. It started out with Tim's little guy on the raft over there on the right; the one wearing headphones. Now, at this point in Cafe Loup history, we had a couple of white kids washing dishes. This is a bit of an anomaly at the Loup. I have worked there for a better part of a decade and these were the only white kids I had ever worked with in dish land. We had lost a couple of our old dishwashers and these guys were "filling in" and were totally awesome little dudes. This particular Friday night we had been super busy. We finished everything up and were just relaxing at the bar when the dishwashers showed up and wanted to smoke some weed. We went into the garbage area and did just that, and I came back to the bar on Planet X. I got a beer and realized I might not be able to talk to anyone any more, but I probably couldn't find my way home either, so I might as well sit there and draw. I got the dupe pad out and this happened. The monstrosity that seems to be surrounding the headphone wearing kid. That's where my mind was.  In fact, you can see that I started out with blue ink which I never like to do; but being in the state that I was in, I must not have noticed for a while. I remember that some regular was sitting next to me talking the whole time I did this one, but I can't remember who that was for the life of me.
That Sunday, Junior Mance was playing and place was packed. After his set, he was visited by a bunch of his New School students. They used to like to come over and hang out for hours on end drinking one cup of coffee and eating all our bread. Nice kids. Anyway, this particular evening, in came a large, blind harmonica player and they sat and he played the harmonica well into the evening. It seemed to go on forever, which gave Tim and I ample time to finish this drawing up. The old guy on the left was inspired by the harmonica player; it could be a distant relative, or possibly the same man but in a horribly warped future. No one knows. The pumpkin and the ghost were thrown in last, and by golly, another one bites the dust.
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