I’ve been having a hard time deciding what I should be trying to accomplish in terms of my drawings and even my writing to a lesser degree. There are essentially three ways I try to shake the should-just-give-ups. I delve into my dreams, the dawn of literature and art as far back as has been traced thus far, and the definitive decisions regarding my work that I’ve made and abandoned, made and abandoned, over and over again.....

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No dreams had been coming to me lately until last night. Then enters vampiricism, a farcical trip to work and a little bit of healthy confrontation…alism. Didn’t have a chance against the vampires, so I was one of them almost from the beginning. From that point on it was essentially a game of tag involving fangs and a thirst for blood. (I was bitten once as a child playing tag so it all seems to come together nicely) It was reminiscent of those scenes from Scooby Doo, when the characters are chasing each other around, sometimes finding themselves with the villains, sometimes against.

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As a vampire I feared becoming human and vice-versa. Somehow it was all too possible to return to human form. There was this creepy chick that could do it. All the humans had to do was overpower the vampires. (I know they’re supposed to be uncommonly strong, but my dream didn’t know that, apparently) and bring them over to her. Not sure what she did, but her eyes started to glow and some type of mist crept in to make it seem more fantastic. As I recall I was being dragged toward her when the dream ended.

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Not really sure about the order on these, so I can’t really comment on the transition between them. I’m arranging them in terms of clarity, which may very well show the order of them in one way or another or not at all. The vampire games I remember the best. Next was my bumpy ride to the office. My vehicle was basically a rogue treadmill. It took a little too long to start going and only stopped when it rammed into the back of whatever poor commuter’s car, or in this case mini-van, happened to be in front of it.

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And of course, it was my boss’s. My brother-in-law’s. I could see him rolling his eyes and gritting his teeth from his rear-view mirror. I had no idea how to change lanes. I just looked at him sheepishly and continued to knock into his mini-van the entire way to work.

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The final dream I have to be careful about. It was in regards to an ongoing situation in me and my wife’s lives. I should be able to express myself in regards to anything that happens to me and Lynda, but, unfortunately, the internet has provided fodder for those who feel they needed an excuse to rationalize their hatred and unconscionable actions too often. I will never feel that I am truly at liberty to communicate my thoughts and ideas freely again thanks to... and there is where I need to stop.

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What I can say is this. That I confronted a person who has claimed we are passive aggressive and now doesn’t even have the guts to look in our general direction. Using the thou-shalt-not-pass-without-stepping-through-me approach, I stopped this individual and was rewarded with a few words and an assault. We fought. It was cathartic. I’d never do such a thing in the waking world, so that’s about as much satisfaction as I can imagine getting until things cool down.

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If they ever do.

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The flame has lasted long enough that there may be no end in our lifetime or the next. Supposedly grudges follow the begrudged to the grave and beyond if God’s children will it so. So…

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Let’s take a look at something that I’m sure doesn’t predate grudges, but is at least before Christianity and the powers of damnation it brought along with it. Tales of the ancient Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, Macedonians, and on and on and on. Often times, stories that were passed down by mouth alone throughout the generations . Where they began, no one can be sure. Their mysterious origins give them a timeless quality. Set them outside of time in many ways.

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They are the closest links we have to our origins as a species. Bones can only say so much. Stories can tell us a great deal more. At least give us a starting point from which to understand our most primal of literary and artistic instincts as well as our more general instincts as Homo sapiens sapiens.

Two things always struck me as the most effective both visually and verbally in terms of ancient texts and images. One was the use of repetition, which made stories easier to memorize and images easier to standardize and reproduce. This method also gave the tales and/or carvings rhythm. It gave them a life of their own, and can to my own creative endeavors if I use this ancient too properly.

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Second, is the relatively simple, iconic characters that often represented certain ideas or ideals. They may have been half man and half creature or a combination of creatures, but the most important thing was that they were recognizable figures with shapes and/or details consistent with current standards. Their physical attributes had importance, but could not have without simplicity of shape and form. Something I always seem to overlook in my work.

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And these things directly relate to my most deeply held belief as to what I would like to achieve with my work. In short, I’d like to add to the lexicon of American folklore. We have some, like Johnny Appleseed and Paul Bunyan and George Washington (who was an actual man as far as I’ve been told), but they all remind me of red cheeked colonials in ridiculously large wigs, sipping ale and hoping for tiny glimpses of some woman’s knickers.

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I’m sure others have attempted to do so themselves, and I believe two of my favorite authors, intentionally or not, have accomplished such a goal. All hail Kurt Vonnegut and Tom Robbins! And some artists that seem to have really added something, namely one of my old professors Peter Williams and the late Robert Colescott, both African Americans this white boy was lucky enough to discover at Wayne State. The second only in books. The first only in one class.

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Oh, and I nearly forgot Eric Mesko, whose immortalization of the Taliban as a giant white mass of jagged metallic scales will stick with me to the day I die.

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Still, we need a hell of a lot more culture in this nation. We have some brilliant authors and brilliant writers, but the type of culture I’m speaking of is tapestry that was never fully developed when it should have been and can only be found in a combination of dreams and history’s past and present.

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