Cowboyz and Demons

The really cool part about getting into the right side of your brain is not just the stopping of time by being in the present moment, but also what ya come up with.

Both of these drawings had no finished look in mind, no vision I was trying to illustrate, but just sorta happen spontaneously.  The geezer cowboy was just a squiggle of a few flowing lines, from whence came Yosemite Sam. [I didn't know he was hiding in there].  The ostrich?   Damn, that one crept up on me, and BOOM…there was an ostrich head.  Well ostrich heads alone are good for nothing but soup.  It’s the white meat ya want, or maybe them two massive drumsticks.  So…I had to draw the rest of him.   See what I mean.

OK…The demon just snuck up on me too.  That one started out as a profile of a bald guy with pointed ears.  But like ostrich head soup, demon heads are basically only good for broth.  So, having committed to a better draftsmanship, I did a profile, and added wings, because I’ve been copying some Albrecht Durer wood-cuts, and most of his folks (the saints and Virgin Mary) all had wings.  The more I got into it, I realized that this ain’t no angel, it’s a demon.

Everything was going pretty well, even though I got bored drawing the wings: As stated above, I usually don’t draw birds.  Well things started going straight downhill when I drew his right hand.  See, when you’re groovin’ on the right side of the brain, you’re more interested in spacial relationships, line and proportions.  Not necessarily concepts that are verbal in nature.  So when I had a left side of the brain flash, I saw what I created.  Wonder how that happened?

You can leave your guesstimates as to the demons dong in the comments section below.

Aspirin

With its multitude of uses, it’s no wonder that Aspirin is a true “wonder drug”.

February 9, 2012

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War of the Worlds

I loved the science fiction movies of the 50′s.  Stuff  like “Invaders from Mars”, “The Day The Earth Stood Still”, and my favorite, “War of the Worlds”, all blew me away as a kid.  The sight of these huge machines with alien creatures inside, walking around and blowing shit up was always a must see for me.  Even today, I’m still fascinated by these images.

Boy was I glad I wasn’t around yet when Orson Wells did his original radio broadcast of War of the Worlds; freaked a lot of people out cause they thought it was for real.  What a bunch of ignorant hayseeds folks were back in them days before days television.  Cause as we all know, television is for real, and you can believe everything ya see and hear on it.

So, the above drawing is a take on the whole alien invasion theme, except in my hallucination, it’s mentally retarded idiots in shirts and ties  going round, blasting people with all manner of bullshit.  And trying to destroy civilization as we know it for their own well being, kinda like the Earth has some rare mineral that they’ve run out of on their home planet, and they wanna take ours.

I know…You must be thinkin’ that I’ve dipped into the medicine baggie a little too generously with these ones.  The idea of Idiots driving huge stuffed shirt machines around?  How insane.   That could never happen in real life.  Real life is about a bunch of greasy skanks living on a New Jersey shore, or maybe folks racing around the world, or just surviving on an island, willing to do anything for money.  Perish the thought that there may be, an intelligent race of beings with sophisticated technologies, trying to take everything from us common earthlings just to serve there own sinister purposes.

Oh yeah…Why does all this alien shit always start in America?  This is God’s favorite country after all.  Why ain’t He delivering us from all this evil going on?

 

Valentines Day

There is indeed, no rest for the wicked.  My gawd, I’ve just recovered from Christmas and now another “Holiday” rolls around, and I gotta run out and buy something.  Am I sure glad that Martin Luther King’s birthday doesn’t require gifts or worse yet greetings cards.  I can just see me now sending my black Buddie a MLK  day card:  “Thinking of you on your special day…Enjoy your new-found freedoms”.  But then again maybe the whole MLK thing is about no longer buying things, in this case black people.

OK, so I gotta run out and buy flowers and a card today, cause I don’t want to be a bad boy and eat some shit while having to stay in the dog-house for a while.

The only good thing about getting older, and having a whole lot less testosterone to propel ya through life, is that the old vaginal wrench seems to have loosened it’s grip on ya.

Now don’t get me wrong.  I’m not against Valentines Day, in fact I’m basically all for it.  I mean it don’t get much better than that guy Cupid (who makes you stupid) running around and shootin’ folks in the ass, smiting them with lust and passion.  Damn….he oughta have a blog; bet he’d get a lot of comments.

Nope….All that is just fine with me.  Maybe even, the world would be a much better place if everyone spent more time actually screwin’, rather than trying to be in charge of who gets to screw who. Phew….(few?).  But what gets me about V D (Valentines Day that is), is that inorder for the day to be meaningful, you got to spend money.  And the more money ya spend, well the more “meaningful’ the day will be, and therefore the appreciation of your meaningfulness will be.  Sounds like love for sale.

Well I don’t want everybody to think I’m just a grumpy ol’ codger, so here’s my greetings to you on this “special’ day.

Routines

You know, sometimes ya get locked into a routine, and without really knowin’ it, find yourself living by the clock.  Dinner @ 5:30, watch the news @ 6:00, and then wait till 8:00 p.m. when all the good shows come on the TV.  Can’t wait for the next glamorous season of Dancing With the Stars.

I like routines, cause a good solid routine makes things predictable.  Not like End Of  The World predictable, or shit like that.  But just having a good idea about what’s gonna happen next. [I guess if I prayed more often on a regular basis, I'd have a pretty good idea of exactly when this year The End will occur].

Now, I’m not very good about making predictions, (actually I am good at making predictions, just not very accurate on what I predict, especially if it’s about something that may happen in the future; I got the past nailed down).  But it sure is nice to have a “heads-up” when something  bad may be coming your way, like the Housing Collapse or Wall Street crisis.  Stuff that can really have an impact on your life, like whats for dinner.

So if there’s a point to this post, it’s that I did these drawings 0ne night when I wanted to break out of my evening routine.  There may be a theme in there somewhere.  The first one, done in ink, was inspired by Madonna’s Super Bowl Half-time entrance: the Cleopatra being pulled on a sled by a bunch of buffed-out slaves (well paid extras in this case) thing.

Maybe the theme is: My Own Little World, where I’m content to be an Elf.  Tuned out, earphones on and rockin’; doing some pencil drawings.  The only thing scary in “my little world” is, should I use pencil or Ink?  Each is a technique unto itself.  Hey…I’ll do both!  That way I can mess around stylistically.

Anyway, breaking a routine once in a while can be fun.  Don’t want to do it too often though, cause then ya might forget what’s supposed to happen next.   Hmmm, wonder what’s for desert?

This has been so much fun spending an evening drawing,  having all my own ‘media’ in my own head, that I think I’ll do it again.  Perhaps on a regular basis.  Got the 6:30 to 8:00 p.m. slot open

My 200th Post

“Wowie-Zowie Hansi.  Congratulations.”   “I’m a big fan of yours and read your shit every-time it’s deposited in my mail box.  Keep up the good work; love the drawings btw.”

I know, “big fucking  deal”.  Writing about the fact that one has been compulsive enough to crank-out  200 (that’s right Two Hundred !) posts and mange to say nothing of true importance, let alone anything profound, is an exercise in egomania and self absorption [kinda sounds like something more akin to an adult diaper than mind state].

So why am I writing about the fact that I’ve turned 200 today?  Well, because I ain’t got shit. Yep… No big Ideas for new posts.  Nothing to say.  Although technically, writing about nothing is really the antithesis of writing about nothing, cause in reality you are wring about Something, it’s just that the something is nothing.  On some level that makes sense.  Anyway, I got a whole bunch of drawings I’ve never posted before and wanna show them off.  Hey, I ain’t just sitting around the house doing nothing.

So, using the tried and true Bloggers trick on how to squeeze out a post when ya don’t have one, I’ll use this opportunity to rant about this whole 200th post thing.  I don’t know about you, but I don’t keep track of how many posts I’ve done on a little piece of paper filled hash-marks.  Nope WordPress tells me how many I’ve done every time I ‘publish’ something.  That’s cool, cause sometimes I forget to put a hash-mark down on my special piece of paper I keep next to my key-board.

But now, WordPress is setting goals for me and providing a little sliding chart with my next goal [in this case 200] clearly visible, which I need to achieve.  But isn’t it good to have goals?  Hell no.  Not if you’re retired.  Damn, if you be retired, you’ve already hit the big goal; which was to no longer  have any goals.  I don’t like things to be forced upon me.  And that especially goes for societal ‘norms’ or expectations.   And I don’t like the subtle WordPress encouragement for me to continue in compulsive behavior, in this case blogging.

Anyway, sure glad I got that off my chest, and also snuck in a no-brainer post.  But since my Hallucinations are turning more into a drawing blog, I thought I’d let my art-work speak for me instead of words.

OK OK!  I know some of these drawings are a little “Questionable”.  But consider also, maybe you have a dirty mind and are seeing more than what’s really there.  I mean like, if you’re seein’ penises and vaginas instead of Zeppelin airships and yawning teddy-bears, well shame on you.  The guy in the picture (me) is bailing  from any such notion.

A fist coming out of a man’s crotch?  A metaphor maybe.  Or maybe, I  just got the anatomy all wrong.  But I got to admit, it’s pretty hard not to see dominoes going up someone’s kiester in the last one.  But it was originally drawn for my post “The Hershey Highway,”  which is definitely not my way. so those a really little chocolate bars.

What, No Words?

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All the words (except these) are on my other blog  The Blithering Idiot.

Crayola Friday

Well, the three year old grandson was over last Tuesday.  The Wife (aka Grandma) and I provide child care for our daughter two days a week.  The other two and a half days he spends in Pre-School, while his older brother attends 3rd grade.

Pre-School, what a concept.  Babysitting that helps (teaches?) little kids how to get ready for school by following instructions, being quiet and not soiling themselves.  Maybe it’s kinda what “pre-retirement’ was for me  the last  year of my career as a crime fighter:  I was learning how to be retired by not doing  jack shit at work.

Anyway, there was no such thing as ‘pre-school’ for us working class kids growing up in the fifties.  All I remember is my mother dropping me off at this place called kindergarten one day, and me totally freaking out.  What the hell did my mother do to me? Needless to say, I hated the next twelve years that followed.  College wasn’t so bad.  At least there,  you only had to be in class, when there was class, and sometimes that was even optional.  The rest of the time was basically yours to do as you please; which in the sixties was: drinking beer, smokin’ a little weed and desperately trying to get laid.

Back to what this is supposed to be all about.  It’s really different around the house when the three year old gets dropped off.  Definitely a different kind of energy from the ‘grueling  pace’  that usually goes on in the Hansi household.  Well, he got into the crayons again, and had a very productive day.  I was later looking at his work, and noticed he’s moving on from just scribbling and starting to draw some primitive figures.  Not bad.   All they needed was a little ‘touch-up’.  So I added my own hallucinogenic brand of Photoshop, and here’s  some of the results.

Lets Color

Boy!  there was nothing better than getting a new coloring book when I was a kid.  Except, when ya also got one of them really big Crayola boxes with 64 different crayons.  None of this cheapo skinny-ass little box of 12 crap.  that may have kept Little Hansi tantrum-free when he was three, but it didn’t cut it when I was older.  Nope, with one of them big boxes you had all the colors in the world.  My favorite color was “flesh”.  With that one you could do people real good.  I mean how are ya gonna color people if you only have some  basics like yellow, brown, black and white?  Can’t be done.

Now, Disney coloring books were for babies, unless you got a Davey Crockett one, or something with pirates.  What better to stifle creativity in kids, not to mention do a little social engineering to breed conformity, than to give em a bunch of art supplies, but tell them they got to stay within the lines in order for it to be good.  No sloppy work allowed.  Maybe that’s why I went on to something else after filling in a few of the coolest pages.  [But coloring books sure got me primed to be a government worker, and crime-fighter extraordinaire.  Just show up, stay within the lines, and scribble it in with some bullshit.]

Well, anyway, I had this big flash.  I’ve got all these ink drawings laying around, just sitting there in black n white.  Why don’t I go back and ‘colorize’ them, kinda like they did with old silent movies, except instead of using digits, I’ll use some colored pencils.  Trippy.

So these are a few of my coloring book pages.  Got to admit I tried to stay in the lines.  But it was more fun that way cause I didn’t have to think, I just had to color.

Learn to Draw

As you may have noticed, I’ve been featuring a lot of my drawings lately.  Typical responses (from those not totally disgusted by ‘em) are:  “How talented”, or “I wish that I could draw”.  Well, you can, and I’m gonna give you a little tutorial so you to can draw just like Hansi.

When I was a kid in the fifties, my first learn to draw book was “Learn to Draw” by Jon Gnagy.  It was a step by step book on how to end up drawing like him.  He even had a TV show where you could draw along with him.  My other source of inspiration was  the inside of matchbook covers, where there was often an illustration for you to copy, send in with some money, and if good enough, win some sort of scholarship.  I was too busy playing with fire back then to pursue that one; usually ended up burning the whole matchbook up.   [ How many matches in a matchbook?  20...the same number as  in a pack of cigarettes.  What a co-inky-dink].

So let’s get stared.  First, get yourself a pencil and some paper.  Second, and here’s the most important part, get yourself properly medicated.  How on earth are ya gonna draw at your best if not medicated?  When I was fighting crime and had a “mental health” caseload, my mentally ill probationers functioned only as well as their medication compliance.  So if proper medication will keep a schizophrenic on the right side of the law, proper medication can also help ya  learn to draw.  [Cool slogan , sounds like something Jessie Jackson would say, flawed logic notwithstanding]. That’s my little secret to artistic success.  So, assuming you’ve just gotten highly slightly medicated, close your eyes, conjure up a vision of your choice (they just happen naturally with the right medication) and copy it.   That’s what I do.

Listening to good music while drawing is also important.  If you’re into classic rock, stay with Led Zeppelin, and try to avoid Black Sabbath.  Ozzy gives me the creeps when medicated, and I get so paranoid listening to him that my visions kinda stray over to the dark side.

Pen and ink vs. pencil.  That’s were ya gotta make a choice of medium.  The medium you chose, and don’t confuse medium with small, large or extra-large, effects the look and outcome of your drawing.  The first three of mine were done in ink (tends to show up better), while the one over there    >>> is a pencil drawing.  Can ya see the difference?  Well I can’t either to tell the truth, but pencil gives ya a softer line, And, you can erase it easily when ya screw-up, as I occasionally do.

Well boys and girls, it’s a simple as that.  Just close your eyes, wait till ya see something really strange, then draw it as fast as you can before you forget.  And before ya know it, you too will be filling your blog with wonderful illustrations from a rich fantasy life.   Sure beats politics.

Serving Up A Couple Of Hot Ones

In my ongoing schizophrenic attempt to decide if this should be a humor blog vs. a straight-up art blog, I present for public consummation consumption, a couple of my latest hallucinations.  I’m dieting right now.  Wonder if that had any influence on the subject matter?

OK…I know; everything is totally out of proportion, but that’s one of the perks ya get when drawing in an altered mind state. Also, in America, bigger is always better and more is what we depend upon; unless of course you’re a Tea Party Republican and it comes to government, then less is always more.   And furthermore, I don’t have any life models to draw from; none of this stuff ever prances around my living-room. I call her “Submarine Sandwich Lady”, and I was sure hoping that she’d stop by my house, cause I had the munchies.  Actually I’m starving. Sugar-pea pods , as healthy and beneficial as they are, just ain’t as satisfying as Sub loaded with greasy-ass cold cuts and cheese _ hold the olives.

A Couple a Visions

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I’ve Been Callistafied

I guess it’s no big secret,  but I’ve got a bad case of the Hots for Republican women.  I mean, menopausal and all, Sarah Palin is a fox.  And Michelle Bachmann, while crazy as a loon, still isn’t ugly, and provides me with a rich fantasy life which usually includes  lots of leather and whips.

Well Adios girls, ol’ Hansi been Callista-fied.  I’m smitten with Newt’s #3, Callista Gingich.  In fact, I think I got it so bad that I may have to register as a Callistaphile.  I don’t want this post to sound too much like a good old country 4 H contest where young aspiring future farmers parade their trophy livestock in front of everybody to see who’s got the best one,  but that little lamb of Newt’s…Ewe-eeee, does she look fine, in a high maintenance sort of way, and is certainly finer than any of the other GOP spousal herd.  I know I couldn’t afford what Newt has.  [We'll talk about what he likes (as if that ain't obvious) latter.]

I guess it’s the hair.  Yeah it’s got to be the hair…’helmet hair’  I think it’s called.  And she’s been placed into it real well.  I’ve never heard her say a word on TV, but that don’t mean she doesn’t know how to use her mouth.  [keep your minds clean].

Well, Callista Louise Bisek was born in Wisconsin in 1966.  Was class valedictorian at Whitehall Memorial High School and graduated cum laude from Luther College in 1988 (even though she was Roman Catholic).  That’s some smart gal!  From 1988 to 2005, she worked as a staffer in the US House of Representatives on the Agricultural committee.  It was during this time that Newt, while indulging  in a liberal experiment with open marriage, apparently first started putting the staff to Miss Bisek.   [Come on now, you know I couldn't leave that one untouched].

I guess what I like about her, besides being a 45 year old ‘hottie’, is the power she might have over the old Newtster. Now here’s some bi-partisan truth:  All men are pigs and think with their dicks; and brother Gingrich is a man after my own heart.  But does cheatin’ on #2 with future #3 have any reflection on a man’s character and what he might do as the most powerful man on earth: President of the United States?   Why HELL NO!

Newt just traded up to a newer model, and anyway it’s all the Medias fault, and that includes all you liberal bloggers too.  Newt is sticking with his conservative principals and only buying what he can afford.  Lavish maybe, but no deficit spending when it comes to poontang.

I think maybe I’m getting myself into trouble here.  I’m gonna catch hell for this one.  I think I better put on my foil lined Callista helmet and get back to La La land.

Grow Your Own

Sounds like some sixties druggie talk about growing your own dope.  Maybe, and this post is gonna be about horticulture and growing plants that are beneficial to one’s well-being, but this isn’t about that.  I’m talkin’ bout growing your own food and gardening.

I’ve been an avid organic gardener since the early 70′s.  Read a lot of Rodale books and have been into it ever since.   Living off one’s garden and home grown produce is a trip.  Ever notice the difference between a store-bought tomato and a fresh just picked one?  Even gets trippier when your have orange, green and purple tomatoes too.  And now, even in winter, going out and eating sugar pod peas right off the bush is a delight ( picture above).  Pull a carrot and I’m in heaven.

OK, I’m lucky.  I live in Southern California, fifty miles north of L A, by the coast (Pacific to be exact) in a Mediterranean climate where we rarely get frosts.  And did I mention,  my house sits on what used to be, and is right next door, prime agricultural land.   So, take what I say with a grain of salt to anyone who is freezing their ass off in a colder climate.  Anyway, it’s summer for everyone in the southern hemisphere.

I was over at a buddies house just the other day; he too is an avid gardener.  We were checking out his garden, and while munching on some kale, marveled how we were both able to eat directly from the garden. [How profound]. It’s really not that hard to do.  You just got to do a little research and a whole lot of paying attention (that’s the hard part for me).

The coolest thing about gardening, besides being able to act like an animal and get down on all fours and eat stuff right off the bush, is getting into how things work.  I mean, what makes things really happen, and discovering the growth patterns of different plants.  What nutrients they need, what conditions are necessary to make them thrive.  Kinda like Weird Science, or getting a chemistry set when you were a kid; except now I’m not so much into blowing stuff up.  [Yep, those are tomatoes, still on the vine in mid January].

It even gets better when it actually starts to work, and things start growing.  But ya gotta wait, just can’t eat seedlings, that’s why they invented sprouts and sprouting [growing stuff in a mason jar].  Nope, you want your plants to grow up and be all they can be.  So you got to encourage them with some water, plenty of sunlight [provided from Above] and fertilizer.  Fertilizer is what plants like to eat, and they prefer stuff like manure and compost.  Don’t think “eating shit”, but rather…well I guess they do eat shit, and maybe that’s why I like plants so much: we both have the same kinda jobs.

Anyway, after providing the garden with cradle to grave socialism, it’s time to reap the profits, cash in, and start eating.  Eating something that is/was recently alive; like what carnivores do, but instead of eating living beings, eating living plants,  who everybody knows have no souls, is a taste treat: fresh produce is also another name for it. But eating out of the garden isn’t just sticking a bunch of green stuff in your mouth and listening to it scream.  Nope, now it’s time for some Weird Science [like Mr Wizard did] in the kitchen.  Let me see, “what can I do with Swiss chard?”   What happens when ya do that is ya start getting into the seasonal  cycles of the calendar and eat what’s in season, when in season.  The grocery stores fool us into thinking that you can get any-kind of produce when ya want.  Ain’t necessarily so.  Not if you’re growing your own. There be no zucchini in my garden now.

If you are able to do it, try growing your own.  Here’s some shots from what’s going on in the garden as of 1-15-12.  These three beds measuring about 4 x 10 feet each, have a southern exposure and get plenty of sunlight all day.

These are a few of the raised beds I have in my backyard.  Lawns are such a waste, but they do hold the dirt down.

In this bed, from left to right: bronze lettuce, buttercup lettuce, carrot seedlings and garlic popping it’s heads above ground….a lone parsley plant in front.  All stuff we eat a lot of.

I cover the beds with netting in order to keep the evil birds from swooping in and gobbling up the tender sprouts.  Bunch goddamned no good freeloading hippies if ya ask me.  And cats!  Those neighborhood cats think my garden is their own private litter box. It’s a Laboratory, Not lavatory!