All Hail The Empire

November 6th, 2022

I love it when people put political signs in their yard.

If I lived in a galaxy where the Empire was in charge, seeing people put pictures of Darth Vader on their lawn would give me daily motivation to keep rebelling.

Can you imagine? “Emperor Palpatine ’24.”

Of course you can imagine. That’s reality.

People have more intimate relationships with politicians now than any time I can remember. It’s part of why “political discourse” is so tense; it’s a deeply personal relationship to some. To explain to them that it’s a one-sided relationship is like trying to talk a person out of their beliefs.

The discourse is tense for everyone, however, as it’s evolved towards ideas that aren’t political at all, and instead affect the rights of all human beings.

I just watched the Jordan Klepper Daily Show midterm special.

There is so much I don’t understand.

I don’t understand most of what election result deniers believe, but there’s something that keeps me up at night.

Back in 2016, the election was decided in favor of a cruel, narcissistic, pathetic man-baby. (He didn’t even win the popular vote, but I digress.)

And the rest of us just accepted it.

I remember thinking “We lost,” not “This isn’t what I wanted so I don’t accept it.”

Because that’s democracy.

I had to stay sober under the constant influence of Donald f***ing Trump, and only a few of you know that specific struggle.

So when the tide inevitably turns, and someone loses the game, a small group with a lot of guns (to compensate for little moral integrity) try to violently take the ball home with them?

The ironic part is that the older generation always says the younger generation is screwed up, but we teach them how to act, including how to lose.

This isn’t a post telling you to vote.

This is a post telling you to rebel.

Because that’s what a democracy can be, even within its rules. A rebellion. When ideas like fascism start to pull together in such an opaque shape as to create a shadow, it’s up to a majority handful of rebels to shine a light.

My dad always told me that life’s not fair, but that you also can’t complain about the unfairness of life unless you try to do something about it.

Try rebelling.

Or try loving the Empire.

Twin Cities Con Exclusive Winter Print!

November 3rd, 2022

I am so excited to announce this Twin Cities Con exclusive winter 2022 print!

If you follow me at all, you know I rarely create prints; the only other print I’ve done was a Weirdos summer print in 2021 for an Issues Needed release party.

I’ve made just 20 of these 8 x 8, individually-numbered, hand-cut prints, available only at Twin Cities Con for FREE with any purchase from my table.

I love the holiday season, and I asked myself: “What could be better (or cuter) than the Weirdos and Brushfire teaming up to deck the halls?” The answer was nothing. Nothing is better nor cuter.

These are first-come, first-serve (with extremely rare exceptions), and like I said: one free print per purchase (and per person, to be more specific).

Scroll to see the print in all its glory, and I’ll see YOU at Twin Cities Con next weekend, November 11th – 13th, at the Minneapolis Convention Center!

Leave The Light On

November 1st, 2022

I’ve been reading a lot of pieces lately about whether there is any goodness left in the world. Not just written articles; people I know (and don’t know) are wondering aloud if there is still kindness and empathy and the desire to help left anywhere.

While we were out trick or treating last night, I thought of an apt analogy.

We saw a handful of houses on streets that were dark. For whatever reasons, they had made the decision not to participate.

But most of the houses had their lights on.

And I think that’s proportionate to how many good people are left in the world.

Folks blame social media or the mainstream media for giving us this negatively skewed viewpoint, but let me offer a counterpoint.

The same society that wonders why there isn’t more positive stories in the world made Dahmer one of the most-watched series in Netflix history.

Humans seek out the dramatic and the depraved. We are often given what we seek in abundance, but out of proportion.

I learned in an ad this week that Tim Walz invented car jackings. Did you know that? I didn’t. Neither, apparently, did the people who have been tracking car jackings for decades now.

“The more you can increase fear of drugs, crime, welfare mothers, immigrants, and aliens, the more you control all of the people,” said Noam Chomsky.

So just know that if any of those things make you scared or mad, it’s not your fault; you are being controlled to a certain degree.

But I guarantee that if you look out your window at night, you’ll see that most of your neighbors have left the lights on.

Admission of Hypocritical Guilt

October 30th, 2022

I completed my self-assigned course on the history of philosophy tonight, and as I turned the last pages in the final book of my “class,” my stomach did a turn, as well.

I made a terrible realization.

I’ve written about philosophy several times lately; namely, how stupid it is.

This is why the revelation was so upsetting.

Shit, you guys: I’ve been doing philosophy, like, this whole time.

Like, wholeheartedly, unironically, doing the embarrassing philosophy thing.

There’s a saying: you either die a hero, or live long enough to find yourself the villain.

There is a third option.

You may, in fact, unintentionally discover over the course of your life that you are the thing you mocked and still sort of loved the entire time.

And it’s not just these stupid social media posts, fam.

IT’S IN MY BOOKS.

Honestly, I am disgusted over just how philosophical something like Cold World is.

For example, in a few paragraphs’ time, I discuss the idea of the soul, while intertwining concepts like linguistics, gender identity, and organized religion.

It’s sick.

And I’m sorry.

I’m sorry I was philosophizing this whole time.

It was irresponsible of me. I don’t know how many of you I hurt; the number could be in the millions at this point.

I’m also afraid to admit: I can’t stop.

I keep having thoughts about life and death and feelings and kindness and addiction and recovery and I can’t stop writing down these terrible things, and putting them on display like grotesque scribbled mannequins.

I’m so sorry.

I checked my reflection earlier and found a spontaneous beard had grown upon my face; I’ve been carrying a pipe for days and I don’t know where it came from.

I’ve been feeling contempt for other philosophers, which is how I know I am one of them.

And I am sorry the most if reading this has made you realize that you are one of us, too.

We are pointless, but we can explain why we are pointless.

And that is the entire point.

Could I BE More Grateful?

October 28th, 2022

Like the handful of other Americans who still sit down to watch broadcast TV live in the evening, we watched the Matthew Perry interview with Diane Sawyer tonight.

I don’t think I can properly express my gratitude for him or my feelings over what he spoke about. It was mostly about addiction, and like most addicts, he seemed intimately familar with mine.

I talk about it here all the time, obviously; I’m both a big believer in talking and in listening.

But I’m a nobody, globally speaking. The spotlight that shines on me is an exhausted firefly’s glow; I can’t imagine how it must feel to have everybody’s eyes on me and have to keep the kinds of secrets I became adept (and then not-so-adept) at keeping.

Secrets make us sick, and the intensity of that sickness is proportional to our guilt.

I feel that guilt as though it was this morning’s.

I felt that guilt as Matthew Perry spoke.

But the beautiful thing about guilt and regret is that it reveals to you that you do have a conscience; if you, in fact, have a conscience, you can change.

And the responsibility of everybody who makes it to the other side of change is to let other people know how they did it.

It’s why I do it. And it is why I am so grateful to Matthew for doing it.

If you have an hour to learn, please take that time to watch his conversation. It is very true to my experience (minus the fame, obvs), and I hope somebody finds what they need from it.

He clearly got the same kind of help I did, which I am forever thankful for.

As always, if you need help, you know where I exist in the void. All my love, squirrels.

Two pages in the book of the history of humanity

October 24th, 2022

I read an essay today about how the internet will be dead soon.

We’ll look back and laugh at the period of time that we, as a species, spent endlessly staring into the glowing void of our digital devices.

The argument for this imminent death is that the internet isn’t real.

It’s empty.

And empty things don’t last.

And you can’t fill yourself up with empty things, so it explains why we’re all not just tired, but exhausted.

Are you exhausted?

I wrote an essay a few weeks ago talking mad shit about philosophy, and I stand by that while still loving philosophy.

My latest obsession, though, isn’t philosophy but the history of philosophy. Because it tells the history of us so much better than regular history does.

It shows us what we were thinking and feeling and wanting at any point in recorded time; it isn’t stupid things like gas prices and dates of battles and insignificant numbers describing mundane details of empty things.

It’s humans saying what it was like being human then, which still says a lot about what it is to be human now.

I have a big book of philosophy that I’m going through at the moment. Every philosopher gets at least two pages in the book, and I think: wouldn’t it be nice?

I don’t want much, but I want to live a life like that.

Something not empty. Something that lasts, that you can hold without fear of it falling apart in your hands.

I hope that when I’m gone — when I’ve spent all the time I had on this planet trying to use plain words to connect to all the other people who were here, too; when I finally use up every year I get and walk back into the darkness from where I came; when I die in the singular way that I will, for sure, die — that I will somehow earn just two pages in the book of the history of humanity.

The Characters Who Inspired Me, Part 2

October 20th, 2022

For the second installment of my Halloween series, let’s take a closer look at Steven Quincy Urkel.

First things first: can we just give my mom a massive round of applause for acknowledging that her white boy loved Steve Urkel but also understood that he did not need to look EXACTLY like him?

Because I am clapping over here. đź‘Ź

Urkel was a cool nerd which, at the time, was a cultural paradox. He was too much for everybody, but too much in all the best ways: he was smart, of course, but he was also kind and loyal and funny as heck.

He also created a robot version of himself and robot versions of characters, to this day, is one of my favorite 90’s clichĂ©s.

But it wasn’t just Urkel that captured my imagination; it was the entire TGIF line-up.

It was a night of the week I sincerely looked forward to spending with my family. It instilled in me the belief that entertainment is and should be a community experience; it is always better to watch things with other people, and people always make watching things better. We would laugh together and cry together and talk about what we watched together; what we thought and how we felt about it, which is what I love about art.

I remember an episode of Full House that scarred us deep, when we briefly lived in an A-frame house in East Bethel; in it, Jesse’s grandfather died, and I remember feeling death in a very visceral way that day. My mom had to calm my sister and I down, reassuring us that even though, yes, everybody dies, nobody was going to do it soon.

Kind of feel a little lied to now, but I know where she was coming from.

I got a bad habit from her while watching stuff together. Since she couldn’t hear, she was constantly looking back into the room to see how everybody else was reacting to the show; even though I can hear relatively well, I am still looking around to see people’s facial expressions and it has to be creepy and I am so sorry to those of you who have to watch things with me.

These paper glasses I wore were obviously preparing me for my infamous driving glasses, which were clearly a pair of glasses once owned by a serial killer in the 70’s that I scored for a few bucks at a thrift store.

I love the image of this kid because he is what I still am today: absolute smiles on the outside and abject anxiety and trembling terror within.

I think about everything I’ve made it to the other side of and can’t help but ask myself:

Did I do that?

I Heart Kaleidoscope

October 19th, 2022

Unlearning can be learning.

For a second year, I was lucky enough to be invited to teach Kaleidescope, an arts program for LGBTQ+ youth in Faribault.

We meet in the Buckham Memorial Library, which is surreal, because I grew up just a block away and spent so much of my young life learning there; it feels full-circle to teach there.

I say “teach,” but all I do is learn.

The young people I get to talk to are amazing artists and writers; they remind me of the things we lose or even drop on purpose as adults.

They are abundantly, furiously creative. They give no excuses nor have to justify anything. They are fearless with their ideas and completely open to suggestions and collaboration. They are passionate and unapologetic for their stories.

I got to read the beginning of a 12,000+ word-and-counting zombie apocalypse story. I got pitches for new superheroes to add to the world of the Weirdos. I listened in awe to what started as a traditional mermaid story, which then reversed its roles and told me something new.

I have no place teaching anything but, wow, do I love to learn.

And part of that learning is unlearning. It’s unlearning what society wants me to be. It’s unlearning what an adult is “supposed” to be, because I look around at the people who are supposed to have this thing figured out and they just don’t.

It’s unlearning the rules and remembering that all that matters is the story, rules be damned.

So a huge thank you to Faith and the incredible program she’s created. I am so grateful to be a part of it and able to benefit from its insightful process.

(And if this sounds like something you’d love to participate in, please reach out!)

The Characters That Inspired Me, Part 1

October 17th, 2022

On hard days, people will remind you to think of the good memories, and my pockets are full of those.

A lot of those memories revolve around Halloween. My mom loved to see what characters inspired me, and it inspired her own creativity every year when I inevitably asked her to craft me a new costume.

I was looking through a digital stack of photos, and I thought I’d do a series of posts this week about some of my favorite characters and homemade costumes, and how they inspire me to this day.

First up: Nightcrawler, of the X-Men.

There’s a reason why the X-Men are such enduringly popular characters: mutants are “other.” This makes them relatable to anyone who has ever felt not normal or excluded; anybody who has been feared or hated.

For a variety of rational and irrational reasons, I have felt like this my entire life. I’ve also learned that I’m not alone in feeling that way. The X-Men (among other pop culture teams) showed me that no matter who you are, there is a group of people out there who will love and accept you as their own, because you are one of them; this is clearly an influence on my own Weirdos series.

Mutants are not normal, excluded, feared and hated.

And look at this blue freak. He is all of the above.

But the thing about Nightcrawler is that he is the opposite of his appearance: he is friendly, and kind, and spiritual, and so thoughtful. He is a friend to all, even the aforementioned folks who fear and hate him.

He is the guy who tries to remain positive when the world is burning or trying to burn him down.

His current arc in the comics reflects all of this, and also has him questioning the whole idea of believing in anything at all. It has been an absolute joy to watch this character grow alongside me, and deal with the same thoughts and feelings I deal with today.

My mom brought it in both the costume and make-up department here. She always did.

There is no way you would know that I wasn’t actually a teleporting German demon if I didn’t open my fifth-grade mouth.