#60 "The Last Days on Krypton" In Color!!! May 22, 2013

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I like Superman just as much as the next guy.
When I was a kid, Superman starring Christopher Reeves was one of those rainy, summer day movies. My cousins and siblings would all gather in the lower deck of the Lighthouse Inn and watch it on this huge television that my grandfather had found somewhere. The television itself was quite a contraption; a large screen with three lights, red, green, and blue, projecting onto a mirror and then  onto the screen to create the image. As kids, we would walk in front of the lights and look at them dancing around the screen, while also blocking the view from our friends. The VCR was equally amazing, a top loader that seemed to be as big as a stereo. We would all gather around that television on rainy days and watch either Superman, The Never Ending Story, or Mary Poppins. Those were the most popular, although there were probably a lot more that I can't remember or didn't make such an impact on me. Superman was a crazy movie. In the first scene, Lois Lane almost dies when her helicopter falls off a skyscraper, but is saved at the last second by Superman. It's a pretty intense movie from then on. Superman almost dies in a pool but is saved by Lex Luthor's kind hearted friend. Then, at the end, Lois does die, but Superman reverses time and she comes back to life, and they are able to make Superman 2, 3 and 4. I never even saw Superman 3 or 4. I stopped at 2, but I hardly remember that one at all. The only reason Superman sticks with me is because I saw it so many times in the lower deck when I was very young. I don't think about it that much, in fact, Superman isn't even my favorite. I eventually started liking Batman, and read the comic a lot when I was a kid. Then all those movies came out in the 90's, so I felt more akin to growing up with Batman than with Superman. Don't get me wrong, if I was going to be either one of those dudes, I think Superman would be way cooler, even though you would then have to be a lonely alien. However, Batman movies were super popular when I was just becoming a teenager, so they were the perfect vehicle to drive me to the mall without parental supervision. Revisiting these movies is interesting, just because they haven't really aged well. I watched Batman with Michael Keaton recently, and it's pretty bad. I think it's because I don't believe Keaton plays Batman very well. Sure, Keaton was on the top of his game when that movie came out, but it's just not that believable to me. Not after we've seen Christian Bale in all of Christopher Nolan's Batman series. Jack Nicholson's performance is still pretty iconic, but the 90's Batman franchise went south pretty fast. I haven't re-watched Superman in a very long time, so I wonder if I would feel the same way about the movie not withstanding the test of time.
Anyway, I thought that the two-headed couple on the left side of this drawing looked like Kryptonians even when I drew them. They kind of look like Superman's mom and dad, more-so the dad. So, with them as the main subjects, then the rest of the narrative can play out; it does look like the last days of Krypton. Obviously, no one could have witnessed the final days of Krypton since the lone survivor of the planet's demise is Superman himself, and he was just a baby when Krypton exploded. So things on that planet just might have looked like this. They even had an English language sign at their disposal. Strange, but anything is possible in an infinite universe. This one is a bit more abstract than a lot of T&J drawings. Sure, there are a lot of faces, but most of them are disjointed from any bodies. That could also bring up the whole "brain in a jar" theory, like the one posed on the movie, The Matrix. But no, let's stay in one universe for now, we shouldn't get too ahead of ourselves.

#58 "Magic Wanda" in color! May 15, 2013

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(small talk)
Well, it was an interesting summer. In New York, the weather was pretty mild and I only had to turn on my ancient air conditioning unit a handful of times. I don't know if it was a historically mild summer or if it just felt mellower than years past, you'll have to consult some sort of online almanac for that information. Tim and I had an art opening at Hifi bar again in July and the show is still up in the back room of the bar if you would like to go check it out (probably for a couple more weeks, so see it while you can). I opened up a couple Etsy shops, (the one in the link is not for T&J prints, that one can be found here) but I have only sold a couple of things.

(theoretical rant)
However, I thought the summer was successful overall and felt like I made some progress in my life. Sometimes it's hard to see if you have made progress or not in your life. Time, for the most part, seems to drag along and it's not until you turn around and reflect that it, all of a sudden, seems like the time sped by. The day to day grind of life seems to take so long, and then you look back on the summer, and it seems like not only was it a year ago, but it also seems like it went by in the blink of an eye. I guess when you think about the universe in the universal scale, it did go by in the blink of an eye, and actually, much faster than a blink. But we usually don't think of our lives on the universal scale, because it is too big to grasp. That sort of thinking can be depressing, since the conclusion is always that life is incredibly short and that in the universal scale of things, anything that we do, short of super novae, is not going to leave the slightest mark on the history of the universe. Or, you could look at it from the point of view of chaos theory, that believes in the Butterfly effect. This is the theory that states that even the flapping of a butterflies wings can have enormous consequences days or moths or light years later. If we were to believe in that theory, then every single thing we do is affecting not only the space directly surrounding our person, but is affecting the entire history of the universe henceforth. That is kind of interesting to think that even the breath we are taking in and out of our lungs, all day, every day, could have an effect on the future history of the universe. The sad part is that we will never be able to witness the effect that we had on the history of the universe because we presumably won't be around to witness the effects.

(conspiracy nonsense)
I was talking about that over the summer as well, but on a more celestial plane. I mean, it is depressing that we won't be able to experience the future, but the really sad part, I was saying, is that we'll never know all of the secrets that have been kept secret from us. Or all the knowledge that we will never know. These truths are slightly depressing. Take the universe, itself. We will never know how big it is, who or what made it, and what is on the outside of it. Scientists generally agree that the universe is finite and that it is expanding, but what is on the outside if the "outside" is not made up of "matter?" These questions were on my mind this summer. But also, on a smaller level, I was waxing that in my life time, we will never know who shot JFK or ever get any answers to the great conspiracy theories of our time. I guess on the one hand, it's more interesting to live in a world where all of the answers are not readily available, for if that was the case, everything would be boring because you would know the outcome of every event ever. It would be nice from a gambler's standpoint, because you would never lose on the ponies, but other than that, it would be boring. Also, I am willing to bet that even people in power don't really know all of the answers to all of the conspiracy theories. JFK, for instance; I doubt our current president knows or even cares about who shot JFK because he has so many pressing issues on his plate that he couldn't possibly care less about that 50 year old mystery. Now, when he first entered office, he strikes me as the kind of giddy person who's first questions were to unveil all the national secrets, but then almost immediately he had a country to run, so the excitement was probably short lived, if it happened at all. It's fun to think that when you die you could ask someone all the questions and get all the answers, but then you're dead, so what's the fun in that?

(final thoughts)
I guess you have to accept that you will never know the answers to all the questions, so the least you can do with your life is try to get the answers to as many questions that you possibly can. Then, when you die, your brain will be so heavy with knowledge that when you collapse from death and your head hits the pavement, the impact will tilt the Earth off of it's axis and create a domino effect in which the universe destroys itself, thus rendering the rest of universal history obsolete and no longer worth talking about. 

#49 "Hare of the Dog" January 5, 2012

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The last post was about Thanksgiving, and not even at the restaurant. This piece was started on Easter Sunday 2011 while I was working the bar during Easter brunch behind the bar. However, this post is not about Easter; maybe next time. It started with the Easter Bunny in the suit on the left hand side of the drawing. The second bunny was the one on the far right who probably got hit by a bus, or grew up in the Proctor & Gamble factory. The former was colored in with red wine and the latter was colored in with blue ballpoint pen and bitters. Both would be eventually colored in Photoshop. Tim and I then decided that we would just do an entire piece of all different kinds of rabbits, bunnies, and hares. It took us a couple months to finish it though, so it sat around the restaurant collecting stains and going through a couple different incarnations.

The term "Hair of the Dog" is a colloquial expression in the English language predominantly used to refer to alcohol that is consumed with the aim of lessening the effects of a hangover. According to Wikipedia, the term dates back to the times of Billy Shakes and has also been recorded as being uttered in numerous countries. Of course, this method of boozing to kill a hangover seems to work for a while, although it really is just delaying the inevitable. I use this method during the weekend though, and will regularly have a Bloody Mary with brunch to help ease a particularly troublesome brain pain. When I was a kid, you couldn't pay me to eat or drink anything with tomato as it's base. But I still remember my first Bloody Mary. I was 21 years old and I was on Cape Cod visiting friends. We had gotten a room at a motel in Truro because my friends weren't allowed back in West Dennis after a rather insane summer the previous year. We went out in Provincetown the night before and had a crazy night full of booze and carrying on only to wake up groggy and hung out to dry the next morning/afternoon. We went to breakfast and my friends ordered some Bloody Marys. I expressed my disgust at the very thought of tomato-based concoctions, but when my friends' beverages appeared, they looked like the most refreshing things on the planet Earth. Salted rims, lemon wedges, supple ice cubes, and trunks of celery stalks reaching for the clear blue skies. I couldn't resist. I ordered one, and then one more, and then we were back. The rest of the day is inconsequential (although I'm sure it was pretty fun), but the thought of my first Bloody Mary will live on in my mind forever, or until I forget about it. I can't remember my first glass of milk, my first soda, my first gin and tonic. Some of these drinks have been memorable, and some hold special memories themselves, but remembering the first one is impossibly hard to place. I remember my first beer, and the first beer that actually got me intoxicated, but other than that, and the Bloody Mary, I really can't remember any of my "first drinks." Everyone has these stories about food and drink that made an impression on them at some point of their lives. I even remember the day that I actually appreciated tomatoes after an entire childhood of sticking my nose up at them. In fact, the discovery of tomatoes and Bloody Marys are only a couple summers apart. These revelations of culinary discovery are strange and interesting because they show you that even something as remedial as eating, which for so much of human history has been simply to survive, can be wondrous and exciting. I am talking about a breakfast beverage, and not even a particularly exciting one, and yet it had this profound effect on my memory. Sometimes, I guess, it's not about what you are eating or drinking, but when, where and why that really makes the event meaningful to your life. Think about the first guy that ate an oyster and didn't die. What a treat! And the gal who ate the first batch of non-poisonous mushrooms. Scary and life altering! I bet you those people remember the exact day that they discovered these culinary delights and they probably invited their friends back for seconds.

#46 "Sacajawea's Nightmare" November 23, 2011

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It has been a while since I posted last, and I just want to apologize to my 8 readers. Sorry! I guess the last time I posted, summer was here and I just needed to get outside! Yeah, right. I spent a lot of time at the Cafe Loup this summer, more than any summer since that year I only had one weekend off all summer. When was that? 2002? Oh well. It was a good summer, though. We had some fun and even when we were incredibly short staffed, we managed to eke out some dollars and cents and have a decent summer. That time of year is always a little slow at the Loup. People want to eat outside, our regulars go away to houses on the beach or in the mountains, and we are left on 13th Street with the scraps! That's right, tourists and the locals who don't go away. We had a good name for them over the summer. It was: The Leftovers.
I'm not saying that leftovers are bad. I have pizza in my refrigerator right now that is going to be an incredible snack later that will fill me up with food and leave me happy until dinner. On that same note, I have pickled herring in a jar that I never ate and has been expired since 2010 (which I should probably get rid of but there's sentimental value there?). Of course, we have plenty of regulars who stay the summer who are amazing and always a pleasure to see, but The Leftovers are the bad ones. The ones who we would see night after night and cringe at their very presence. Of course, going up to their tables, we put on a happy face and ask them how they are beating the heat, and boy was it hot out there today! That's the thing about waiters; they can be total con artists. I consider myself a pretty amiable guy; I like most people. This is the main reason I moved to New York City. I didn't move here for the Theater District or the lovely weather. No! I moved here for the people! Can you believe it? I had been living in physically beautiful places like Cape Cod and Colorado, and I gave all that up to move into a little apartment in Brooklyn because I like to be around people. All people, any people. Some days when no matter what I do, I can't get around all these people, I wonder what I was thinking back then, but most days I am happy with their company. Anyway, back to the con artist thing. Nine times out of ten, when a waiter comes to your table, they greet you with some pleasantries and a smile at the very least. They tell you some things and take your order, smiling and being nice. I don't have to tell you that 5 times out of 10, they are putting that face on and as soon as they turn their back, the frown returns. It's not that we don't like you as customers. No. You are the people paying our bills. We live on your tips to make ends meet. However, being nice to everyone all the time can get tiresome. You know the feeling. You have coworkers that you hate, but since you see them every day, you play nice so that the day passes without incident. Now, multiply that by 100 and you are a waiter. We not only have to play nice with our coworkers, but also the people who will eventually be paying us: You. That's where the con comes in. We have a lot of misbehaved customers and regulars who routinely make our lives at the Loup miserable. These people made up the majority of The Leftovers and are the people we constantly have to con, although most days you wish that they would find another place to haunt for a while. But no, we smile and chat and they would never know that they are the Problem Child to our John Ritter. So, I guess that doesn't make us con artists because we are still providing a service. I guess that makes us insincere. However, wouldn't you rather be lied to than have us be openly hostile to you? Wouldn't you like think, "I'm not the one who causing these people stress, it's that guy over there."? I guess that IS a con afterall: making you think and feel that you are a special flower, if only for the time it takes to have dinner. News flash: you ARE a special flower (but only during dinner at the Cafe Loup).