2012: The Sketchbook

I had to move recently, hence the hiatus. If you’re a writer or an artist, moving is extra hell because of all the books. Big glossy ones for the coffee table (if applicable), thick reference tomes, and oodles of little half-finished sketchbooks.

Not an exaggeration.

In 2012, my friend Chay and I worked as audience members for the taping of a popular game show, hosted by Steve Harvey. We helped to provide a diversity that was wholly absent from the proceedings.

In Little 5 Points, the FUZE people gave us free drinks and took a picture. Things like this used to happen all the time there.

Chay and I had a blast working at the game show. Steve Harvey was funnier than people give him credit for, and here was where I first became convinced he is actually Richard Pryor in a costume. There were plenty of girls to flirt with, even though I was smelly in general, having recently been rescued from homelessness by my friend Chay.

For a time I slept on a floor, next to Chay’s faithful black German shepherd, on a tiny mat from some forgotten crib (as sensationalized in the Prideful Moments strip). Eventually I secured a room, and moved in. There I stayed, until roughly a week ago.

At some point, I’d purchased a little red sketchbook from Utrecht, another store that no longer exists as I knew and loved it. Once I worked out that there would be long periods of boredom involved in our audience work, I brought the little red book along, plus a black gel-roller pen, and started doodling. If I attracted attention by doing so, I would stop. Attention is not the goal, only an obstacle.


I don’t like to attract attention when I doodle because often I’m lazily batting at low-hanging fruit. This is why you don’t publish your sketchbooks; you’re not thinking about finished product while you’re doodling. You wait until you’re desperate for site content, and then you dig them out.

AIDS, death threats, and rape. I think I hadn’t eaten anything aside from a Snickers, that particular day.

Some dude spotted me scratching out Clud Oof there, and complimented me. I appreciate this but at the same time I can only curl over my sketchbook so much before I can’t see the page.

I don’t think he could read the smaller strip. I don’t think anyone should.

Deceased Cat is parodized from memory. Something about the tag line cracks me up; “FUCKIN CAT’S BEEN WORM FOOD FOR 20 YEARS. PEOPLE STILL LOOK. WHO KNEW.”

He stuck his club up his ass! What a dip shit! (If you want an idea of what Clud Oof would be like, It’s About Time is close enough.)

Okay, so… yeah.

I kinda just dropped Radical Rappin’ Robotz into a recent article, and later realized you kind people have no earthly idea what gives.

RRR was an inside joke between Chay, myself, and our friend Joe. The key is to say the title in a nasal announcer voice, like on a toy commercial from the 1990s. If you crack your friends up saying it, you win. Any time you see robots rapping/being radical, AND YOU WILL, exclaim the words “RADICAL RAPPING ROBOTS” for the edification of all present. Embrace the subsequent laughter and/or solitude.

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