KaraokeFanboy Press

The Latest Collections and Ruminations

2012-01-09T14:19:00.000-08:00

The macabre misadventures of Zombie Santa have been collected in one post on Nerdvana. Click here to read! Highly recommended!

Also, I've posted some thoughts on current events in Arizona, and my attempts at finished Amazing Arizona Comics #6, at KaraokeFanboy Blogs. I hope to continue blogging an inside-look at my inspirations for the comic there throughout the year, since this is the Grand Canyon State's centennial and whatnot.

Finally, if you're in the Phoenix/Tempe area, keep your eyes peeled for the latest issue of Pholx -- a local zine publishing exclusive Amazing Arizona Comics strips! The next issue will take place in "A Warm Corner in Hell," if ya catch my drift.

Occupy Phoenix Funnies!

2011-12-02T15:08:00.000-08:00

Check out my latest EXCLUSIVE comic on Nerdvana, this time in the form of newspaper-strip-style one-panel gags called . . . Occupy Phoenix Funnies! Click here!

Speed Cameron in "Black (and Blue) Friday!"

2011-11-29T14:37:00.000-08:00

The latest Amazing Arizona Comics strip is up at Nerdvana. Click here to discover the madness behind the madness of Black Friday!

Shocking Revelations!

2011-11-18T12:59:00.000-08:00

Check out an exclusive Amazing Arizona Comics strip at the East Valley Tribune's geek-friendly blog, Nerdvana, here!

Or, if you're visiting here from there, find out more about Amazing Arizona Comics here! Thanks for reading!

"The Zombies of Mill Ave.!"

2011-10-13T19:52:00.000-07:00

Visit Evermore Nevermore in downtown Mesa this Friday, October 14, to see an EXCLUSIVE Speed Cameron adventure, called "The Zombies of Mill Ave.!" You can ONLY see it at Evermore Nevermore! I guess that's what "exclusive" means.

Blog Updates

2011-09-26T15:31:00.000-07:00

Just to keep things fresh, I've added an Amazing Arizona Comics News Center in the right column, a hub for the series' most important media appearances -- and a few Easter eggs that add to the comic's mythology.

Also, issues one through four are available for individual purchase through Paypal, and issues one through five can be purchased together! If you can't make it to a store in the Phoenix area carrying Amazing Arizona Comics, this is the best way to reserve your copies today! Remember -- the holidays are coming . . .!

ENCREDICON 2

2011-09-08T14:17:00.000-07:00

Special thanks to Evermore Nevermore for hosting the second annual ENCREDICON, a mini comic con celebrating independent publishers in the Phoenix area! Here's the New Times blurb about it. If you act fast, you can still pick up the ENCREDICON exclusive copy of Amazing Arizona Comics #5! Limited time!

One of the Southwest's Real Heroes

2011-08-17T09:13:00.000-07:00

I write and draw a comic book about make-believe superheroes in the Southwest, but sometimes somebody steps up and proves themselves a real hero, right here in the desert. Read this story of a man that instinctively chased down a kidnapper and saved a little girl's life. What's most impressive isn't so much what he did, but how fast he was to do it. Putting on a costume or having super powers doesn't make a hero. An instantaneous decision to put someone else's safety and well being first is.

"Amazing Arizona Comics" on KTAR -- and YouTube!

2011-07-25T16:02:00.000-07:00

Click here to listen to the KTAR news story about Amazing Arizona Comics -- and to watch the slideshow I added to it!

Amazing Arizona Comics 101

2011-07-23T08:53:00.000-07:00

Thanks for visiting my blog! I've been fortunate to get a bit of attention from the media in Phoenix lately, because my flagship book Amazing Arizona Comics features superheroes experiencing real current events in Arizona, but I'm really most excited to have new and potential readers swing by to see what I'm up to. We small press types are a passionate bunch, and your interest is what keeps our fires burning.

That said, here's some more information about Amazing Arizona Comics:

What is Amazing Arizona Comics?

Amazing Arizona Comics is a mini-comic self-published in Phoenix about (like I said) superheroes experiencing real current events in Arizona. Arizona has made national headlines this past year on topics ranging from immigration to gun ownership, and our governor and sheriffs are figures of pop culture intrigue (to put it nicely). When I moved back to Phoenix last year, I thought, "This is almost already a comic book! It's only missing superheroes! So, I made some up and created a comic book about it.

I don't live in Arizona. Why should I care?

Well, if you're interested in pop culture and politics, this mini-comic is perfect for you, because its goal is to look at issues that affect everyone in a different way. If you're not that nuts about pop culture and politics, this mini-comic is perfect for you, because its goal is to look at issues that affect everyone in a different way. Honestly, I'm not a huge news buff, but filtering everything through how superheroes would react makes even boring partisan politics interesting again!

How do I get your comics?

If you live around Phoenix, a few shops carry the book, like Evermore Nevermore in Mesa, Samurai Comics in Phoenix, and Jesse James Comics and Drawn to Comics in Glendale. If you don't, please email me to purchase. I'll set up a Paypal account soon to make things even easier.

Thanks again for stopping by! Drop a line if you have any other questions, and I look forward to making Arizona a little more amazing for you.

Hi, Arizona News Fans!

2011-07-13T18:28:00.000-07:00

If you're visiting KaraokeFanboy Press because of my spotlight on the news, welcome! Feel free to browse my comics and poetry throughout the blog, but if you'd like to order an issue of Amazing Arizona Comics, email me, or visit one of these shops:

Samurai Comics, downtown Phoenix
Evermore Nevermore, downtown Mesa
Klang Gallery, downtown Phoenix

If you didn't see the news story, here's the link, and here's another. Enjoy!

Thank you, and see you San Diego Comic Con!

Hello, Phoenix Comic Con!

2011-05-28T09:06:00.000-07:00

If you're visiting KaraokeFanboy Press because you picked up a card or stopped by my booth at Phoenix Comic Con . . . Welcome! With a googleplex of websites to choose from, I appreciate you taking a minute to visit my corner of the blogosphere. Don't worry: the pornography and videos of cats playing piano will still be there when we're done!

KaraokeFanboy Press is the one-man small press effort behind Amazing Arizona Comics, a mini-comic book series about real current events in an imaginary superhero context. For the last two years, Arizona has made more than its fair share of national headlines, from controversies about speed cameras and gun laws, to SB1070 and Steven Seagal in a tank (Google it), to larger-than-life public figures like Governor Brewer to Sheriff Arpaio. Amazing Arizona Comics tackles all these issues and more, through the filter of all-out superhero action and adventure! It makes the news fun!

I'm also an active local poet that publishes my own zines and hosts a local open mic in downtown Phoenix every Wednesday, if you're interested in that kind of stuff, too. And, yes, I like karaoke, too. My favorite venues in Phoenix are Plazma, Hazelwood's, and the Mobile Karaoke Unit, if you can find it on Roosevelt Row during First Fridays.

You can find my work at Evermore Nevermore in Mesa, Samurai Comics in Phoenix, Jesse James Comics and Drawn to Comics in Glendale, and where ever else folks let me set up a table to draw and sell my wares. Please drop a comment or an email, or friend me on Facebook, if you'd like to buy a comic, commission a drawing, or find out more about local comics and poetry events. I like being a part of the creative community in Phoenix, so I'd be a hypocrite not to make every effort to help others get here, too.

Stay grand, Canyon!

Just In Time for Phoenix Comic Con . . . "Amazing Arizona Comics" #4!

2011-05-21T16:12:00.000-07:00

I'm excited to report that "Amazing Arizona Comics" #4 will be ready for Phoenix Comic Con, coming next weekend! Starring Dust Devil and Sonny Gunold (the Sun City Gunslinger), this issue is a flipbook, with a bit of interior color, two feats I've never attempted before. I figure this issue sat on the backburner for so long (#3 came out in November!) that I needed to do something special, and I'm happy with the results. This series has been very rewarding to me as a fledgling mini-comics creator, and I hope my excitement and investment in these characters' stories oozes through the pages. Issue #5 is already in the works and should be ready by summertime, featuring, among other heroes, Sam Brero! Hats to you until then . . .

National Poetry Month 2011, Day #30: The Confessions of Colonel Mustard

2011-04-30T23:00:00.000-07:00

Blogger's Note: I read the following piece at the Encyclopedia Show in Tempe, Arizona tonight, in character as Colonel Mustard. The theme was the spectrum of color, and I was assigned mustard. This was the best I could do!

An Open Letter from Colonel Mustard to His Father

Dear Father, Commodore Mustard,

I'm sorry. No, I'm not sorry I was born a ginger; I had no control over that. It was you who impregnated mother with your mustard seed, Father, and I will no longer wear this blonde wig to look like the son you wish you had. I'm not like other Mustards; I can't bottle this up any longer. I will not keep a lip on it, or “packet” in. In this day and age, one should not be judged on the color of his hair, but on the content of his character.

I know you're too yellow-bellied to consider a worldview other than your own, and that my being different makes you blue. I've read the expression in your eyes when you look at other fathers and sons, and they're green with envy. Hue are you to judge me, with your tinted love? Can't you see that things aren't black and white anymore? Society is full of varying shades of gray . . .

Poop on this notion is you must, but the world is changing, and it's time a seasoned veteran like you catch up to everyone else. Today, people relish in the differences of others. People earn their salt by what they do, not how they look! I know you think I'm just full of piss and vinegar, but I hope one day we'll look back and laugh at this, because Heinz-sight is 20/20. It's just a matter of taste. I can't butter you up anymore. I will not cry over you anymore, I figure, why sob – be happy, instead. I will be your golden child no longer, your “Barbie.”

Cue this revelation I have for you, Father: I'm dropping out of the military. The things I've seen in the battlefield shake me, and they shake well, and I’ve been pouring out my heart over them. I know it sounds cheesy and corny to you, but I need to travel, meet saucy women, feel like I'm on top. I know this confession is putting a lot on your plate, giving you plenty of food for thought, but I just had to dish out my feelings. You raised me with a silver spoon, but I'm through with that lifestyle. That's right, stick a fork in me. I'm done.

Now, I've been trying to speak in a language you might understand. I only hope you'll show me the same courtesy. Hell, by now you may regret I was even born; you may wish you used protection with Mom, but even if you had, my path was already written, that condom meant for something else. Either way, I love you, and know that this letter was the most difficult thing I've ever mustered.

Sincerely,

Your Son, Former Colonel Mustard
Current Private Citizen Ketchup Top

National Poetry Month 2011, Day #29: Part of a Whole

2011-04-30T15:05:00.000-07:00

Imagine the alphabet
without any one letter.

How would our language change?

This isn't a rhetorical question;
I need an answer,
because a letter on my keyboard is missing,
and I'm wondering if it's absolutely necessary.

I won't tell you which letter;
I wouldn't want that knowledge
to jade your opinion.

Just know that I've used it several times
in this poem already
and it hasn't been easy.

Of course, nothing worthwhile is easy.
If it was easy, it wouldn't be worth doing.

If it wasn't worth doing,
why would it even exist?

Imagine your life
without any one letter.

Wouldn't it just
be a lie?

National Poetry Month 2011 Big Time Catch-Up, Day #28: When the Bicyclists Take Over Starbucks

2011-04-29T07:27:00.000-07:00

when the bicyclists
take over Starbucks

they're all thigh muscles
and calf muscles
and leotards

and loud conversations
about breathing control

and nobody has the heart
to tell them they're inside now
and they don't have to yell anymore

they scrape tables together
because they come in the dozens
I'm telling you

with their "Are you using this chair?"

all butt sweat
and sunglasses on their foreheads

everywhere the baristas look
another grabby peddler

and maybe now they understand
how Ma and Pa Coffeeshop feel
when they look at Starbucks

National Poetry Month 2011 Big Time Catch-Up, Day #27: What Of Value

2011-04-29T07:13:00.000-07:00

Inspired by Richard Morris.

All aboard this train of thought;
in the rail car's window
the world is passing through my reflection,
but we all know it's really the other way around.

And what of the poetry
in this curbside mattress?
What of the music in this shattered glass?

You snake charmer, you,
playing your flute to conjure serpents
from covered baskets.

Good-bye, commonplace,
and good-bye, sweet dreams;
take your aisle seats on a red-eye toward
eccentric reality.

And what of wrinkled clothes
in the dryer?
And what of tangled hair in the brush?

Take a penny.
Leave a penny,
for your thoughts
are another man's treasure.

National Poetry Month 2011 Big Time Catch-Up, Day #26: Grand Ave. Haiku

2011-04-29T07:12:00.000-07:00

Blogger's Note: On April 26, I was a guest at Phoenix's live talk show, Grand Ave. Live! I wrote and read some haiku there about the local arts scene that are too adult in content to post in my public, hopefully all ages friendly blog. If you'd like to read some these haiku, shoot me a message, because I'm counting them for my National Poetry Month effort for the day.

National Poetry Month 2011 Big Time Catch-Up, Day #25: County Fairmageddom

2011-04-29T07:10:00.000-07:00

When she handed me my deep fried Twinkie, I saw a vision of the future,
and it wasn't pretty.

The yellow spongecake, in its flack jacket of hardened batter,
under a dark nuclear cloud of chocolate-drizzled whipped cream,
and the impending toxic snowfall of powdered sugar . . .

Surely, this is the end of civilization.

While her lips said, “Enjoy the rest of your day at the county fair,”
her eyes said, “The end is nigh. Run while you still can!”

Because the county fair is the perfect place to train for the apocalypse.

I hadn't jumped on the “we are living in the end times” bandwagon,
until I saw all the shooting games.
Every game at the county fair is a shooting game.
Guns, rifles, bows and arrows, darts –
they MUST be training our kids for something.
Step right up to know for sure!

Yea, isn't this the Armageddon John Conner tried to warn us about?
Caged livestock, the smell of animal feces on everything,
always loud, the roar of unseen generators . . .
What are they powering?
Is that toddler shoveling dung?

Oh, and the rides . . . a veritable boot camp of post-apocalyptic scenarios.
The Gravitron, in case mankind can only survive by exodus into space.
The Sea Dragon, in case radiation births mutant behemoths fit to saddle and ride.
The fun house mirrors, in case YOU get mutated, too . . .
now you'll know what it all looks like.

But it always comes back to the food.
Obscene meats, like yak and kangaroo,
or grilled cricket kabobs,
everything deep fried, as if a searing heat was your way to cook –
isn't this the kinds of stuff you would ONLY eat in a survival situation?
The county fair is training your palette for when ostrich is the only bird left to eat.

So when she hands me that deep fried Twinkie,
my eyes call back to hers,
“Come with me! We can flee the end of times together!”

She answers sweetly, handing me my change,
because I paid three dollars for one Twinkie when a box at the store costs $2.50,
she says, “Don't you get it? I'm not a survivor. I'm a harbinger.
And next week we're going to San Bernadino.”

Somebody Call TMZ! Patton Reads Speed Cameron!

2011-04-29T07:02:00.000-07:00

A crazy wild thank you to Evermore Nevermore for snapping this pic of comedian and unabashed geek Patton Oswalt when he was in their store last night . . . reading my comic! This makes up for the time he (undoubtedly accidentally) ignored me at the Hollywood Improv a few years ago when I wanted to praise him for his comic, JLA: Welcome to the Working Week. Thanks, all!

National Poetry Month 2011, Day #24: Easter Sunday

2011-04-24T15:33:00.001-07:00

They say he put himself in your shoes,
not so much to walk like you
as to arrive at those same destinations of guilt and regret,

so put yourself in his,
if what they say is true,
and today some thousands of years ago,
he awoke from death.

Sleeping like a rock is one thing;
sleeping behind one is another,

then, rolling it away,
those first stabbing rays of sunshine
in eyes once running fluid,

how long did they need to adjust?

What did that first fresh breath taste like?
The tomb, thick with the smell of your own rotting,
left behind for a sip of water,
quenching tongue of stone.

How acute are the ears
after three days of silent death?
Were the chirping birds an orchestral crescendo?
Was your breath an echo in that cavern of your mind
until more waking thoughts filled your head,
giving it less emptiness to bounce around?

At any point,
do you think,
"This is really happening.
Our plan really worked."

This is the ultimate jail break.
Your faith is the key you swallowed
to pass three days later;
the guards never suspected.

The shroud is your prison uniform,
left behind so you could wear a living suit
and blend in with everyone else.

You're slipping on shoes that
have walked a million miles --
yours, his, and everyone else's,
if what they said is true.

If what they said is true,
and you put yourself in his shoes,

keep them on.

National Poetry Month 2011, Day #23: Can You Keep It Down

2011-04-24T15:17:00.000-07:00

Don't scream it.

Use your indoor voice.

Pay attention to the words,
not so much what you're saying
but how you're saying it.

Use your diaphram,
if you know where it is,
if you know what it is.

You have the tools.
If you use them well,
people will listen.
The words won't even matter.

If you scream it,
it's just noise.
I'm sure you have the best intentions,
but, I ask,
when you feel that passion
rising up,
threatening to tower over
its own goals,

can you keep it down?

National Poetry Month 2011, Day #21: April 21, 2011

2011-04-24T15:14:00.000-07:00

April 21, 2011:

sandwiched between Hitler's birthday
and Jesus' death,

caught in the cross section of shadows cast
from the flames of torture ovens and the setting sun,
you poor anti-holiday,
you depressed any-other-day.

April 21, 2011:

neither a stoner's solistice
or Mother Earth's reprieve,
you sour detox,
you somber junkyard.

Such a forgettable, good for nothing day, this April 21, 2011:

I wrote this poem on the 24th.

National Poetry Month 2011, Day #22: Good Friday

2011-04-22T17:22:00.000-07:00

For Chad.
Written to align with David Gray's song "Fixative."

With only kindness on your mind,
I could only wipe you from my shoe.
Your stomach turned and tried to find
the path we shared but never knew;

but, friend, I still see you through
the sting of sunscreen in my eyes,
if your outstretched hands only knew,

asking how I feel midst the fires,
the very flames that I ignited
from the shards of bridges I still smite --

Don't slam the door, boy, when you leave.

On moonlit hunts for broken bread
or through bare strings of ancient songs
sung from the annals of our heads
we both knew wouldn't last for long,

but my lips still shape the words
even if they can't make the sounds,
so on the wind they'll still be heard,

with your ears pressed to the earth,
beseeching dust for second birth,
back to my roots for what it's worth --

Don't slam the door, boy, when you leave.

The last time we shared the stage,
the bleeding walls betrayed our age,
your raining shame, my smoldering rage . . .

Don't slam the door, boy, when you leave.

I'm ignoring the rear view for dangling pine,
a false sense of clear air left behind,
my ashen prints from your kindling --

Don't slam the door, boy, when you leave.
Don't slam the door, boy, when you leave.
Don't slam the door, boy, when you leave.

National Poetry Month 2011, Day #20: Leave It to Beaver

2011-04-20T23:59:00.000-07:00

Knowing what Jerry Mathers looks like
as an adult
makes watching "Leave It to Beaver" reruns
like eating a sandwich in a landfill:

the sandwich is still good
(if only white bread)
but the stench of inevitability
makes it harder to swallow.

National Poetry Month 2011, Day #19: Bum Houses

2011-04-19T23:59:00.000-07:00

Most children call the structures they build
from boxes and bedsheets "forts."
My brother and I called them "bum houses."

We were ignornant, insensitive, and naive . . .
because everybody knows
bums don't have houses.
That's why they're bums.

We called newspapers "warmth tools,"
which sounded appropriately primitive.

Years later, when I'd grown and left home,
living in and out of my fair share
of boxes and bedsheets
for real,

I saw a group of homeless men
sleeping in a circle
on the streets of San Francisco.
They looked like a flower
with petals of rags,
brothers in arms, one another's warmth tool.

I missed my brother,
and I realized he and I had a lot to learn
about the real world
back then.

First of all,
bum houses shouldn't be played indoors.

National Poetry Month 2011, Day #18: A Sense of Direction

2011-04-18T23:59:00.000-07:00

this morning
the street signs in my neighborhood
are leaning

I suspected a drunk driver
but nothing else is damaged
just the street signs
are leaning

almost surgically

and I'm couching today's self-confidence
in a clever turn of phrase
until my shortcomings
are tallgoings

and I'm overhearing awkward conversations
about bad parts of town
and I'm watching old people stand while
young people refuse to give up their seats

tomorrow
city workers will have righted the street signs
but the impression is left

and direction will be suspect
the way home a little less defined

From the Collection of Russ Kazmierczak, Jr.

2011-04-17T13:00:00.000-07:00

I've recently contributed to some art shows in the Phoenix/Mesa, and each contribution has been accompanied with a historical and/or autobiographical explanation of the piece's significance. Although the work is depicted here, I'm proud of the writing, too, so I thought I'd compile it here. Incidentally, the themes of the shows have been "Fertility & Prosperity" (currently at the Klang Gallery in Phoenix), "Bunnies," and "Star Wars," respectively as they're listed here. Two are false, and one is true. Can you tell which?

The High Price of Prosperity in Toon Town

In 1954, German psychiatrist Fredric Wertham’s book Seduction of the Innocent criticized comic books as violent, hyper-sexual, negative influences on youth. The Comics Code Authority was established to regulate comic book content and still exists today. One of Wertham’s lesser critiques was the medium’s abundance of wealthy characters; to quote:

“Superheroes like Batman (more pointedly his billionaire alter ego Bruce Wayne) and anthropomorphic protagonists like Disney’s Scrooge McDuck glamorize the pursuit of riches to the point of demoralizing one’s fellow man. The implication that Bruce Wayne could not fight crime as effectively were he not with upper class means, or that ‘Richie Rich’ would not have had as exciting a childhood were he not well-to-do, expresses to impressionable youth that greed and materialism are the keys to successful and meaningful lifestyles.”

When comic book artists were tasked with making their prosperous characters less likable to children, these test designs and story prompts were the result. Naturally, editors quickly dismissed them, and these illustrations were lost in publishers’ deep storage until today. They expose one of the most controversial, and ironically hilarious, periods in comic book history.

*****
An AutoBunnyography, a Collection of Tell-Tail Toys

I suppose there were always the bunnies.

Since I was born in December, I assume I was conceived under the watch of the March Hare, just before Easter. Did my parents make love like bunnies that night, just three months into their marriage, and eleven years before it would end? Shortly after we moved from Connecticut to Arizona, my parents went on a road trip to Las Vegas. When they returned, they told stories of seedy hotel rooms and dodging highway patrolmen, and I’ve always imagined it was their last great time together.

Who Framed Roger Rabbit? had just hit theaters, so Mom and Dad brought me back some Roger Rabbit figurines from Nevada. I began obsessively collecting PVC figurines and fast food kids meal toys of my favorite cartoon characters so I could have a little Toon Town of my own. Between the surreal worlds of my mom’s new boyfriends and my dad’s depression, Toon Town seemed like the most stable place to be, falling anvils and all.

Soon, a love of cartoons became a love of comic books, too, and they both shared a penchant for anthropomorphism. As an adolescent hiding in my own shell, my liking the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles just came naturally, along with their friend, Usagi Yojimbo. Bucky O’Hare was a fun franchise, too. I still have all ten original action figures. In fact, I still have almost every toy I ever had. My parents never sold them, never threw them away. They’ve moved with me to California, from dorm rooms to my own failed marriage to apartments with girlfriends to bachelor pads, and finally back to Arizona.

I recently moved to downtown Phoenix, and lugging twenty years’ worth of comic book collecting made me wonder if the hobby is worth the effort. Then I remembered an Easter in Connecticut (1986, maybe?), when I had woken up early to spy what the Easter Bunny had left us. I hid when I heard my father descend the stairs, because I didn’t want to get in trouble. He approached the decorated baskets carefully, then crouched to look under the dinner table. I wonder now, did he even know I had made a noise . . . or was he looking for the Easter Bunny?

Did my father believe in the Easter Bunny? My parents never threw these toys away. Now I know why.

I suppose there will always be the bunnies.

*****
Hey, Star Wars Fans!

Did you know shortly after George Lucas wrote the treatment for the Star Wars saga, he performed the whole story for friends and family with paper bag puppets? It's true! Of course, many of George's friends laughed at his amateur ventriloquism, so he quickly discarded most of the puppets he had made. Only three, Yoda, Jaba the Hut, and Darth Maul, still exist, perhaps because they were used as references to produce the likenesses of these characters as we know them today. These puppets remain among the most sought after Star Wars memorabilia of all time, because they serve as a reminder that one of cinema's most enduring franchises began with a dream, and a young man that decided not to pack his lunch so that dream could come true.

National Poetry Month 2011, Day #17: Painting the Fences

2011-04-17T12:02:00.000-07:00

trying to redirect
the bullies' negative energy
with mundane neighborhood chores

like painting the fences

then once a year
spending a month
picking off the paint

spring grass frosted
but has it been days or months
since wintertime

exposing the wood
so its grain
betrays its age

eventually gathering the bullies again
for a fresh coat
and who wears a coat
in the summertime

resisting the temptation
to call the weather seal
a finish

National Poetry Month 2011, Day #16: Record Store Girl

2011-04-16T12:01:00.000-07:00

I did everything John Cusack taught me.

When I saw her in the record store,
and I begged her pardon to reach a vinyl on the wall display,
I cooked up a witty recipe of one part self depreciation,
one part sarcastic global awareness,
with a pinch of fleeting pop culture triviality for good measure.
She laughed,
and when I noticed she was holding a Walt Whitman record,
I asked if she saw any other poetry albums around,
and she replied,

“Alas.”

Not, “No, I haven't,” or, “Ew, I'm holding a POETRY album!”
but, “Alas!”

A lass, with class, then she walked away.
I couldn't think of anything else to say,
I mean, I had already dropped my needle in her grooves,
trying to take it easy on the heavy moves,
my head like a record, it spins and swoons
around girls that raid the dusty tombs
of old record stores.

Kinda ironic they leave me silent.
My heart slowing to 33 beats a minute.
It's an old song.

National Poetry Month 2011, Day #15: Filling In

2011-04-15T07:36:00.000-07:00

I'm cheating,

backdating new memories
to make less exciting days
more eventful when I remember them later.

Dates are only numbers,
and we've created so many ways
to manipulate numbers:
addition, subtraction, multiplication, division . . .

Okay, we've created four ways
to manipulate numbers,

but if I hadn't elaborated,
"so many ways" would've sufficed for
a number as small as four.

This is the method
to my madness:
subtle exaggeration to make something less
seem like something more,

like, adding you
to days when I hadn't even
counted on you yet,

filling in trenches dug by misery,
or vacuums of apathy,
the space in the center of a zero,

copying off of the future's paper
to pass the shortcomings of the past.

I'm cheating.

National Poetry Month 2011, Day #14: Sparky

2011-04-14T23:59:00.000-07:00

The devil is in the details.

The secret was that snarky smile;
it didn't say danger as we know it.
You were less hellfire,
more sandbox.

The pajamas were a red herring, too,
because you're really not that comfortable
in your own skin.
You're just rousing rivalry
to make room in the bed
for your own demons
to lay to rest.

Your golden egg
marooned you.
You had no other choice.
We understand now.

When the gladiators
speak to you,
answer them with the half-life
of cloned imagination.

Their seance of choreography
is a Broadway musical
if you possess them so.
Their clumsy dance strikes stones
to spark the first flame,
the one still smoldering beneath the surface,
ready to defy gravity
at the siren song of abrasion.

Cool their fires
with a long day in the sun.
It's only a little ironic.
They pray for happily ever afters
as much as anyone,
as much as you, beckoning,
"Remember me."

Your heart is on someone else's sleeve
when you've done your job properly,
because the greatest trick the devil can pull
isn't convincing everyone he doesn't exist.

It's convincing everyone
he's somebody else.

National Poetry Month 2011, Day #13: Light Rail Commute Home on Game Night

2011-04-13T23:59:00.000-07:00

What's so funny
about a bony elbow
in the ribs?

Everyone has somewhere to go tonight.
Everyone only has one way to get there.

Poets may find some symbolism
in humanity sharing a means
more than an end,

in its unity through the journey,
not the destination.

So I must not be a poet,
because I am not amused
by this pressing of flesh,
this breathing on my neck,
the uneasy women --

Hey, we're all victims here, lady.
I don't want me touching you, either.

Of course, everybody else
is on an amusement park ride.
No, I won't take your picture.
This isn't a field trip.
It's my commute home.

When the light rail turns,
it looks like an elbow, too,
poking the city in the ribs.

At least the city has
a good sense of humor about it.

National Poetry Month 2011, Day #12: Survival Instincts

2011-04-12T22:36:00.000-07:00

this is it
the battle you've been waiting for

house cat versus stray
nature versus nuture

circling each other
in my kitchen

the hissing
the growling
the claws swiping air
testing boundaries
warning
don't come any closer
or else

if the house cat wins
everything our parents said
was true

if the stray wins
we are indeed savages
no better than trash scavengers

I'm watching
filling the food dish
the great provider

and they look my way
at that maraca sound of feeding time

the war is over
before it began
because we're nurtured
to let surviving
come naturally

and survival always finds a way
to survive

National Poetry Month 2011, Day #11: Wafer Thin

2011-04-11T07:20:00.000-07:00

This morning is wafer thin,
crisp and crummy,

communion wafer thin,
an impression of the real thing,
transubstantiated from the first morning,

when everything was actually new.

This morning is wafer thin,
a poor alibi for where I'd like to be
to hide where I really am,

anorexic, even,
retaining enough to stay alive
but giving up everything else,

a hollow ghost in pursuit
of preconceived beauty.

This morning is wafer thin,
part of this balanced breakfast,

as good for my digestion as it is
hard to swallow.

Natioanl Poetry Month 2011, Day #10: Shades of Gray

2011-04-10T12:44:00.000-07:00

brilliant gray matter
like pregnant thunder clouds
rumbling then raining
black ink
over white noise
until it's gray, too,
and everything smarts

National Poetry Month 2011, Day #9: Total Eclipse

2011-04-09T16:17:00.000-07:00

Tom Waits sang,
"The night does funny things inside a man,"

well, Tom, that's a really clever way of saying
a man would make love to the moon if he could

because it's always there

wearing the starry sky like a bedazzled cocktail dress
her atmospheric negligee

because nothing's funny about falling asleep
with the phone in your hand
the modern age has endangered the busy signal
now it's straight to voice mail
straight to her voice

but the moon always answers
the moon is always there in her many stages
wide-eyed or with that crooked sliver smile
or even in the rare event of a total eclipse

when families look outside and point
and fathers tell their sons,

"Look, that's where the moon should be."

National Poetry Month 2011, Day #8: Lovestruck

2011-04-08T15:20:00.000-07:00

they're flirting shamelessly
(like there's another way to flirt)
in the crosswalk a charming moment
except they don't have the green
and he's almost hit by oncoming traffic

if he had been hit
would he have kept his cool
flying through the air limbs flailing
could he have maintained the banter
head first through a windshield
could he still listen nod and smile
glass shards for teeth

as the paramedics
load him into the ambulance
would he have the strength
to ask for her number
through sobs of shock and concern
would she have the common sense
to give it to him

National Poetry Month 2011, Day #7: Status Transmitter

2011-04-07T06:43:00.000-07:00

Facebook's format
is always changing
its settings forever seeking
to expose us
and the outcry against change
oh, yes,
because social norms in the real world
never change
the way we should read our friends
is always the same day after day
#sarcasm

and I'm the ocean
waiting for your message
in a bottle
but you don't even
live near the beach
you live in the big city
and it's hard to put a billboard
in a bottle

in the future
social networking will be
a pill you can swallow
that turns your body
into a status transmitter
detectable by other status transmitters
and I'll finally be able
to read you loud and clear
as long as you're in range

National Poetry Month 2011, Day #6: Chance of Showers

2011-04-06T20:34:00.000-07:00

suddenly
the sky is a high budget summer movie
overcast
full of potential
and ultimately a disappointment

in elementary school
my P.E. teacher's name
was Mr. Showers
on the first day of school
he'd always say,
"Now I could either be your best friend
or your worst enemy . . .!"
I was nine years old
and I could've had
a worst enemy

the clouds
move with the wind
like a combover
covering up the sky's bald spot
that sun

and thankfully Mr. Showers
never made us actually shower
but he gave me an "F"
in the knowledge column
of my P.E. report card
when I guessed an inning in baseball
has three outs
because I didn't think
of the other team

by midday
the storm will pass
desert purists will breath easy
as patio-hung houseplants pray
for another ride home

Mr. Showers was in his forties then
he must be in his sixties now
retired if he's still alive
and now that I've moved back
I might bump into him somewhere
make his brow furrow
when I shout, "Six!"
and walk away
knowing now
we're finally friends

National Poetry Month 2011, Day #5: The Fat Cop in My Circle K

2011-04-05T16:09:00.000-07:00

The fat cop in my Circle K
is holding up the line today.

His "Where's the frosted sprinkles?" gripe
fulfills the fat cop stereotype.

While he tells the cashier about his latest heart surgery,
his heart fails to open for those of us in a hurry.

"Officer, can I report a crime?
Somebody is getting away with stealing my time!"

Taking another donut bite, the cop cajoles,
"I'm sorry, Sir; your case is full of holes."

National Poetry Month 2011, Day #4: Don't Know Much

2011-04-05T15:59:00.001-07:00

Historians and chemists
need only teach us one thing:

history and chemistry
have always existed,
and they always will.

The details really don't matter.

Fortunately, they aren't incompatible.

Always has always had enough room
for both of them to coexist together;

otherwise, they wouldn't be
history and chemistry.

National Poetry Month 2011, Day #3: Proverbs Written on the Light Rail Platform

2011-04-03T22:46:00.000-07:00

Time flies
because patience
is a bottom feeder.

Rage is born
holding a gun
to its own head.

Wisdom always breeds
some form of
blasphemy.

Sensitivity often has
little to do
with the senses.

Noise knows
begging for silence
defeats the purpose.

If love conquered all
it wouldn't be
love.

National Poetry Month 2011, Day #2: Tag Me

2011-04-02T10:47:00.000-07:00

Tag me
in your Facebook photo album
so I know you want me
to see you,

then tag me
on the playground at recess
so I know you want me
to chase you.

Tag me
like a fence in a bad neighborhood
so I know you want me
to be a part of your turf,

then tag me
like the part of a pillow you shouldn't remove,
so I know you want me
to be your resting place.

Tag me
with a price
so I know you want me
to feel valuable,

then tag me
with a return label
so I know you want me
to get back on the shelf.

National Poetry Month 2011, Day #1: National Poetry Month

2011-04-01T06:16:00.000-07:00

the ocean doesn't know
it's National Poetry Month

it's always roaring
like a lion anyway

and even with all the patience in the world,
the shore can't tame it
so it settles for the heavy petting

if I put a line break
here
I can control how you
hear
my voice right now

the closest I get
to being in charge
of this poetry thing

the streetsweepers don't know
it's National Poetry Month

their minds are always
in the gutter anyway

the crushed coffee cups
cigarette butts
newspapers and discarded concert flyers
that one shoe

each a page in the city's diary
each an ingredient for inspiration
when mixed in the melting pot
properly

my laptop doesn't know
it's National Poetry Month

it's all control and function
irregardless anyway

it should do what I tell it to
when I turn it on
but we all know
how that really goes

the beautiful woman reading a book at the bus stop
might know it's National Poetry Month

because she's begging to be
a poem

I didn't want to make this poem
about any one person or thing but
today her wish
is granted anyway

something tells me
she always gets what she wants

The "Some Dude's Birthday Party" Tour

2011-01-29T17:14:00.000-08:00

Hot on the heels of my victories at the Tucson* and Sedona poetry slams, I came in 10th out of 12th at the first ever Tombstone Poetry Slam last Friday. Tombstone is the only local National Poetry Slam qualifying event, and the top ten highest point earners make the slam off to try out for the team, so I'm still in the running, albeit by a narrow margin. While my "Man Church" piece has been pretty well received (and sometimes requested) at other readings, apparently it falls short in a competitive slam setting.

After the slam, some of my fellow local poets and I performed at a birthday party. Yes, a few weeks ago, after the Pink Slip Poetry Slam at Phoenix's Jobot, I was asked if I would perform at a birthday party. I suspiciously agreed, but, in the end, the party's host was one of the most open-minded, supportive people I've ever met regarding local poetry. He just heard something he liked and decided to share it with his friends. So, while "Man Church" ran a few of the more conservative party attendees out, the group seemed generally receptive. Considering the host could've hired strippers, or belly dancers, or a clown, what more could I have asked for?

Tucson Poetry Slam FTW!

2011-01-23T17:09:00.000-08:00

I traveled to Tucson last night with three of my favorite local poets, and I won the monthly Ocotillo Poetry Slam. The victory comes with an asterisk, but the experience taught me about the value of knowing your audience. One of the younger attendees dubbed me the Langston Hughes of his generation. I'm going to assume he doesn't really know what he's talking about; I insist instead that I'm honored to be among so many encouraging poets and performers in Phoenix.

Starting this coming Friday, I'll be competing in the monthly Tombstone Poetry Slam at Fair Trade Cafe in downtown Phoenix. We need folks to fill seats, because, among other reasons, we poets actually like sharing our work with others, as opposed to just hearing ourselves talk. The cover is $5, which will support our TBD traveling National Poetry Slam team. Tombstone will commence the last Friday of the month for the better part of 2011, despite its name, keeping competitive slam alive in the Valley.

Rough Pencils for "Amazing Arizona Comics" #4

2011-01-19T08:36:00.001-08:00

Cover A, starring Dust Devil! Coming soon!

Conspire's Russmas Extravaganza on Ustream

2010-12-26T18:10:00.000-08:00

Recorded video from Conspire's Russmas Extravaganza featuring Bruce & the Gamblers can be found here. We lost our Internet connection for a bit, hence the two clips -- just consider it a double dose of holiday goodness!

Achieving Nerdvana

2010-12-16T10:28:00.000-08:00

The East Valley Tribune's Nerdvana blog and Mesa's Evermore Nevermore recommends Amazing Arizona Comics this holiday season! Check out the story here. Special thanks to Jayson Peters and Bob Leeper for their continued support!

The Sedona Poetry Slam

2010-12-12T18:29:00.000-08:00

Check out Fox the Poet's post about my nail-biting win at the Sedona Poetry Slam last night. My set list was "Opt Out: A TSA Love Story," "Dear Lady Gaga's Meat Dress," and "The Case for Dry Humping," with "Where the Luck Goes" as an unexpected victory poem. I'll say it a few more times -- any success I experience in slam is a result of the local poetry community's hospitality and support this year. I'm grateful to have made so many talented friends, and if they're as entertained by my stuff as I am by theirs, we're all winners.

Coming Soon

2010-12-03T10:24:00.000-08:00

Amazing Arizona Comics #3

2010-11-15T15:23:00.000-08:00

Amazing Arizona Comics #3 is now available at Evermore Nevermore in Mesa, Arizona, and Jesse James Comics and Drawn to Comics in Glendale, Arizona. If you aren't in the Phoenix area, issues only cost $1 plus postage. Don't worry, you don't have to be an Arizona resident to "get it!"

Amazing Ink Gallery Opening

2010-11-10T13:48:00.001-08:00

KaraokeFanboy Press would like to thank Paul Golfen and ASU's Step Gallery for promoting local comic book art in their latest exhibit, Amazing Ink, which will be up until Friday, November 12. If you're in Tempe this week, check it out!

Here, gallery attendees ponder the deeper meaning to Amazing Arizona Comics #1.

Amazing Ink at the Step Gallery

2010-11-07T11:40:00.000-08:00

Speed Cameron has made an appearance on the Phoenix New Times' website to promote his upcoming week-long stint in the Amazing Ink exhibit at ASU's Step Gallery November 8-12. Check it out here!

Halloween's Favorite Holiday

2010-11-01T00:01:00.000-07:00

Read at Evermore Nevermore's Halloversary Bash on October 29:

Halloween must hate itself.

On October 31, millions of innocent children dress in brightly colored costumes and are welcomed onto strangers' doorsteps with the promise of candy. Goblins and witches are just harmless mascots, fashioned from yard ornament plastic, and the living dare to wear bedsheets as the skin of ghosts that ironically will never know rest. Families carve happy triangle eyes and toothy grins into pumpkins, illuminating them with candles . . . like birthday cakes. Brimming with the boundless energy of youth, fueled by a stirring of community spirit, Halloween is everything Halloween should hate.

So, of course, Halloween's favorite holiday starts on November 1, at 12:01 a.m., when the last porch light goes out, and the vitality of All Hallow's Eve becomes a shadow of its former self. Now, the specter of celebration haunts discount shelves, staggering though department store aisles like zombies, howling, “Barrrgaainsss! . . . 90% off baarrgainsss!” Under the morning sun, the stench of rotting pumpkin meat fills the streets, and, best of all, children are startled by the empty eyes of the masks they wore the night before. They gasp in horror at the limp, hanging jaws and the seemingly severed rubber maws, that scaly shed skin. Their churning stomachs feel infected by chunky, gooey confections, an aching of their own making from succumbing to temptation.

Today, Halloween drags the whole neighborhood into its fetid tomb, wrapping serene, picket fenced front yards with toilet paper like rotting mummies. Candy wrappers ride the autumn breeze as rising, hollow demons, their old souls eaten, now reminding the good people of Suburbia that this is the hell they mimicked just yesterday, with incantations of happy holidays and a seance of Styrofoam cemetery displays – reminding these helpless victims of the horror that comes with the concept of tomorrow, that all scary movies have a knife-welding maniac waiting around the next corner –

– and in that revelation, Halloween finds satisfaction. As civilization sees the monster it has created, Halloween's ravenous hunger is satiated. For one precious day, Halloween is pleased, and for the other three hundred and sixty-four, it can rest in peace.

Thanks, Al's Comics!

2010-10-19T17:24:00.000-07:00

A special thanks to Al's Comics in San Francisco for including my Karaoke Comics in their Alternative Press Expo window display! Right across the street from my favorite karaoke venue, the Mint, no less!

If you picked up one of my comics at APE, I'd love to hear back from you! Just comment here or drop me a line.

APE Press Release

2010-10-15T12:48:00.000-07:00

Press Release

The One Comic Book that Should Make San Francisco Boycott APE!

October 16-17, 2010 – Every year, independent comic book artists storm San Francisco with the dream that their work will be discovered and adored by fans, but one artist already accepts that his comic book will most likely be scorned and ridiculed, as well it should be.

Russ Kazmierczak, Jr., the writer and illustrator behind Amazing Arizona Comics, is bringing his unabashedly Arizona-oriented work to San Francisco, one of the most vocal cities against the Grand Canyon State's immigration bill, SB 1070.

“When I moved back to Phoenix this year, I had no idea I'd be in the cross hairs of a nationwide boycott!” Kazmierczak explains. “I created Amazing Arizona Comics to help process the craziness going on around me.”

The first two issues of Amazing Arizona Comics are available now and will be on sale at the K.O. Comix booth #729 at APE. These issues star characters like Speed Cameron and June Monsoon, who are super deputies called “Arizonauts” in Sheriff Joe Arpaio's posse.

“Sheriff Joe has been pretty secretive about his financial records lately,” Kazmierczak continues. “Who says he isn't hiding a secret super deputy program?”

Ironically, Kazmierczak isn't a fan of attracting controversy, as evidenced by his concern for the future of the Alternative Press Expo. “I'm from Arizona, and I'm bringing a comic book about Arizona to APE. So, San Franciscans boycotting Arizona shouldn't come to APE! I hope I don't end up shutting down the event forever!”

My First Chapbook

2010-10-13T19:30:00.000-07:00

Making a chapbook is hard!

You'd think collecting one's own poetry would be an easy task, since the content is already written, and the format demands very little layout knowledge and skill. Chapbooks aren't like comic books, which consist of intricate layers of illustration, lettering, and coloring or shading to create a harmonious progression of images, which become pages, which become a story. So, I'm proud to have self-published a few worthy issues now (including my latest, Amazing Arizona Comics), despite my ignorance of programs like Adobe Illustrator that make the process easier. I've been able to do a lot with a little.

So, since a chapbook isn't a lot -- no panels of illustration, no linear story (seemingly), no need for layered lettering and shading -- why do I think it's so hard? Simple -- it's the naked word on the barren page. With the comics, if you don't like my drawings, maybe you'll like my story . . . or maybe you'll just appreciate that I took the time to put something that relatively complicated together in the first place. With the chapbook, it's just poems. Sure, I've agonized over every word, I've tried to establish some musicality in some of them, I've tried to ignite a memory or evoke a mood, all of which aren't simple tasks. The aftermath, though, is just poems. If you don't like them, they're easily discarded. If you don't like one, who know if you'll give the rest a chance?

Like my comics, I am confident that my best poetry is yet to come. For Whom the Recess Bell Tolls is a personal, thematic piece of writing that I'm grateful to share, but I have more coming that will take things to the next level. This is just the ground floor, and I hope you'll join me. It's the foundation . . . so it has to be firm.

It has to be hard.

Jesse James Comics

2010-09-14T13:57:00.000-07:00

A great place to pick up Amazing Arizona Comics #2!

Amazing Arizona Comics #2!

2010-09-09T17:20:00.000-07:00

I love the monsoon.

(I say "the monsoon" and not "monsoons" or "monsoon season" because April Warnecke on Good Morning, Arizona has insisted this is how it must be said.)

When I was a kid in Peoria, Arizona, at the first dark signs of a gathering monsoon, I'd strap on my The Real Ghostbusters plastic proton pack and go outside, looking up at the sky and saying ominously to myself, "This is it! This is definitely it!" Thankfully, it never was it, at least as far as paranormal armageddons go, but the monsoon as a sudden weather system maintained a supernatural element to me that persists to this day. It was one of the staples of growing up in Arizona that I remembered fondly after I moved to California, and one of the many reasons I anticipated living here again. So, when I decided to write and draw Amazing Arizona Comics, I knew I needed a character based on the monsoon.

June Monsoon developed as quickly as Speed Cameron did, in both design and characterization. She did originally have a tumbleweed body, but with a thunderhead cloud for hair, she looked a bit like a desert snowman with the head in the middle, so I opted for a simple sundress for my drawing hand's sake. Until I inked this issue, she wore slippers, but my friend Nathan said it aged her too dramatically, so her bare feet are both a more youthful and more natural alternative. Her personality reflects the childlike mentality I had toward the monsoon, with a naivete that contrasts Speed Cameron's developing cynicism. These two characters have a rich history that will be revealed in future issues, and I'm genuinely excited to tell their tales.

Also, just as issue #1 had a back-up story starring Pirate Steve Nash, this issue includes a second story -- another June Monsoon adventure inspired by my recent trip to the University of Phoenix stadium with my girlfriend for the first preseason Cardinals game. I'm not a sports guy, but I enjoyed the fanfare of the event, and I remembered past sports-related experiences in Southern California -- particularly my old friend Kevin's disgust with "fans" that attend Angels games only when the team is doing well. Thus, the Fairweather Fan was born! With a name like that, he's able to give a little storm system like June Monsoon a run for her money, making for a climactic climate-centric conflict!

This issue was a lot of fun to publish, especially as I perfect the process I use to produce and print these local mini-comics. Interestingly, my last foray into superhero epics, The Successors, published with the amazingly talented Brent Otey as K.O. Comix, lasted only two issues, with a staple male character in the first and a frantic female character in the second, as well. Now, if Amazing Arizona Comics can get to issue three, that'll be a personal break-through, as any series I've started has only made it to two installments (including my fanzine Far & Wee, but I plan to remedy that soon, too). As always, I'm grateful to anyone that's actually reading, to shops like Evermore Nevermore for carrying them, and my girlfriend for enduring the time it takes to single-handedly self-publish these little comics. It's a stormy process, but I'm into it, more than I've been into any other project in recent memory.

This is it. This is definitely it.

Aquazona

2010-07-29T17:11:00.000-07:00

Aquaman vs. Sheriff Joe. Let's see whose argument holds more water.

The Inconsolable Mel-Hulk

2010-07-27T15:34:00.000-07:00

At Comic Con last weekend, Marvel announced Mark Ruffalo as the new Hulk -- but they got it all wrong.

Double Rainbow Guy Meets Kim Kardashian

2010-07-12T17:47:00.000-07:00

Nerdvana

2010-07-12T17:41:00.000-07:00

The East Valley Tribune's Nerdvana blog has posted a nice blurb about Amazing Arizona Comics #1, promoting my appearance at Evermore Nevermore last week, where I drew some superhero karaoke sketches, including:

The Atom singing "Tiny Dancer."
Poison Ivy singing "Every Rose Has Its Thorn."
Robin singing "When Doves Cry."
He-Man singing Sheryl Crow's "Strong Enough."
Captain America singing "Coming to America."
Catwoman singing "I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar."

It was a fun night.

Enter: Amazing Arizona Comics!

2010-07-01T19:40:00.000-07:00

Blogger's Note: Amazing Arizona Comics #1 is now available in comic book stores around the Phoenix area, and whether you've found my blog by picking one up or are just an old friend or fan, here's a little behind the scenes explanation of its beginnings . . .

My family moved from Stratford, Connecticut to Peoria, Arizona on November 1, 1988. If we hadn't, who knows if I ever would've developed my undying love for comics. When my dad worked for Mesa Moving, a customer offered him a box of comic books he would've otherwise discarded, and Dad left the box at the foot of my bed that morning. I woke to an unexpected Christmas and experienced Erik Larsen's Spider-man and Bret Blevins' Cloak and Dagger for the first time. I soon rode my bike to comic book stores around town to buy them regularly, including Stalking Moon Comics and Atomic Comics, and have continued to do so ever since – mainly because I've spent so MUCH money on comics, I've never been able to afford a car.

I left the nest at seventeen for college in Southern California, and before long I developed a life of my own in Fullerton. I had a great career and many awesome friends, but a chance to rekindle a romance with my first love and work alongside my best friend from high school in his newly purchased business brought me back to the Grand Canyon State. In Orange County, I had co-founded and self-published comics as K.O. Comix with my buddy Brent Otey, and I wanted to continue writing and drawing in Mesa, my new home, but I struggled for inspiration . . . until I looked in my own backyard.

Driving home with my brother from a night of karaoke, I was flashed not once but twice by traffic cameras on I-17, where the speed limit is 55 mph rather than the 65 mph I knew well from I-10. Hey, I was still new to town, and the bright camera flashes were practically blinding and, in contrast to the dark desert night, possibly more hazardous than my speed. The sudden light show was like something from a comic book -- what residents of Keystone City might experience when the Flash zooms by, perhaps. That I could've been blinded enough to drive into the median reminded me of a superhero slugfest's potential for collateral damage, too, and how something intended to make things right could make other things around it totally wrong. The speed cameras were like stationary do-gooders, with their own built-in dynamic, so I thought, What would happen if one of them were alive?

Enter: Speed Cameron! One part speed camera, one part impetuous teen, Cameron's story quickly developed when Governor Jan Brewer decided to drop the traffic camera program, and in turn I decided that my new hero's adventures could parallel current statewide events. And no statewide event has had more of a national, if not GLOBAL, impact than SB 1070. Consider it as another superhero battle analogy -- with two definitive sides, and the safety of a group of helpless people caught in the middle. Writing a story around the immigration issue in Arizona, I couldn't avoid the influence of Sheriff Joe Arpaio -- a comic book character all by himself, with one part Commissioner Gordon, one part Norman Osborn -- so I went whole hog and made him a critical part of Speed Cameron's origin, more than you'd think from Amazing Arizona Comics #1. I'd concede it's a gimmick, if these weren't writing themselves every time I turn on the news!

Where does a Ronald McDonald lookalike fit in? Well, I won't give away too much of his origin here now, only to say that a line from the flick Demolition Man once inspired me to wonder what a real fast food war would look like (by way of the excellent original graphic novel Three Fingers), and I recently read an article that pondered why comic book writers don't go all in every issue, versus spreading their ideas over issues' and months' worth of story arcs. By this standard, I couldn't wait to introduce Donnie McDougal in some fast food comic that I might never publish anyway -- he had to live in Arizona, and a little analogous McDonald's history helped me make that happen.

Yes, the Grand Canyon State has offered plenty of inspiration, from the Phoenix metropolitan area, to its vast deserts, to its lush mountain towns. I plan on visiting them all soon, in reality and on paper, with a fantastical cast of characters, like Speed Cameron, ripped right out of the scenery. Indeed, if my family hadn't moved to Arizona in '88, I may never have developed my love of comics, and if I hadn't moved BACK here this year, I may never have rekindled my love of MAKING them! Arizona is a pretty amazing place . . . and remember, you can't spell amazing without AZ!

Recess at Work Day

2010-06-17T15:00:00.000-07:00

Blogger's Note: Today, June 17, is "Recess at Work Day." Designed to promote teamwork through anti-workplace exercise, I've written this poetic narrative to examine its primal subtext. "Recess" may mean "a suspension of business or procedure often for rest or relaxation," but it also means "a hidden, secret, secluded place." Combine the definitions, and this is the result.

Recess at Work Day

Historians still debate who first thought to solve the "too much loose paper" problem with a small piece of coiled metal. The title volleys between a British manufacturing company and an unassuming Norwegian lad, but since new evidence for either side hasn't surfaced in years, the origin of the paperclip has become a stationary argument.

Equally difficult to determine is when and where a clock-watching, paper-pushing desk jockey first looked at this little metal coil as just one link in a long chain binding him to a job he never wanted, in a system that demands cohesion. Historians speculate that when this man, in a homicidal bid to kill some time, unfurled this paperclip, he triggered a metaphysical unraveling of the Industrial Age itself, an era based squarely on twisted things.

Perhaps this transcendental devolution is why the man resorted to base survival instinct, as he used the raw materials at his disposal to create crude tools, like tying a rubber band to his newly straightened metal wire as a bow, and foraging Q-tips from the mouthwash samples in his vanity drawer as little arrows. Dosing a swab with hand sanitizer, the man struck his computer mouse against his tape dispenser until they sparked, igniting the Q-tip before he fired it into the air -- a signal flare, a beacon to see if he's not alone.

Like dim-eyed cavemen drawn to the first flame, cubiclemen slowly emerged from their dark folds of earth. Inspired by their coworker's innovation, they embraced their varied, primal roots, some as Olympians with discuses made of post-it notes, others as cowboys with stapler six shooters. Partitions were dismantled and reduced to their base elements. With old coffee grounds like wet sand, and coffeepot filters like plastic beach buckets, castles were molded and erected in effigy of Monday morning meetings -- a kingdom without peasants, without jesters, without agendas or scepters. Tribal dances brought hailstorms of little white dots from dark, pregnant clouds of three-hole punches. The drought was ended.

Before long, the tribe headed West, spreading like an interoffice memo, recruiting the payroll clan, the band of flesh-eaters in Accounts Payable, even the mythical molemen of the mailroom. They faced resistance from the bourgeoisie of the I.T. department. By then, they weren't even speaking the same language anymore. Before the firewalls were doused with leftovers from the break room refrigerator, somebody sent an e-prayer to the gods, but they were taking an early lunch.

The last known recording of cubicleman's plight infers the construction of a tower -- a Jacob's corporate ladder. They stacked copy machines upon one another, at an incline, then, shedding their suits like a snake's skin, they slid bare naked down the glass leaving a wake of flashing lights and collated rear portraits, like the birth of stars around a moon. Truly this is the only documented proof of cubicleman's devolution -- the evidence that for at least one precious day everybody unapologetically made asses of themselves.

Before long, natural selection prevailed and life resumed on course. These precious records were lost. Nobody could find a way to clip them all together.

A-Team Fanfare

2010-06-11T13:15:00.000-07:00

I can't remember the last time I was more excited for a movie's release than I was for The A-Team, and last night's midnight showing didn't disappoint. My friends and I even made shirts to celebrate -- one part heat transfer, one part vinyl, I'm pleased with the way they came out. If you can't tell from the following video we produced at work earlier this week, we're pretty big A-Team fans around these parts.

The Comic Con Among Us

2010-06-01T15:27:00.000-07:00

I was pleasantly surprised by this weekend's Phoenix Comicon! I'll write more about the experience at A Comic A Day, but this picture represents just how well the event consumed the city. I'm thinking my next photo compilation will be a collection of images like this -- comic convention attendees, dressed as characters of fiction and fantasy, suddenly making everyday tasks like crossing the street totally awesome.

If you're visiting KaraokeFanboy Press because you picked up a sampler from the freebie table, please check out past entries about available comics and zines, and drop me a line if you have any questions.

A Fantastic 40th

2010-05-28T18:00:00.000-07:00

I drew this design for a friend and fellow fanboy's 40th birthday party this weekend, coincidentally the same weekend as Phoenix Comic Con. Sometimes the stars just align that way -- as Mr. Fantastic knows well!

Happy Birthday, Mr. T!

2010-05-21T10:51:00.000-07:00

Today, May 21, is Mr. T's birthday, and to celebrate I'm posting the last page of my zine Far & Wee #2, featuring the man, himself!

Pull the Plug on California T-Shirt

2010-05-19T13:53:00.000-07:00

If you've been following the news, you know Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has issued a city-wide boycott of Arizona, and Arizona Corporation Commissioner Gary Pierce has responded that 25% of California's electricity comes from the Grand Canyon State! A true boycott would have to include that power, right? So, Arizonians, show your home state support with this message: Pull the Plug! T-shirts are 100% cotton, black with white design.

Vs. Current Events #6: The Adventures of Pirate Nash!

2010-05-19T10:46:00.000-07:00

The latest Vs. Current Events, starring Pirate Steve Nash and his faithful gorilla Sunny, touring a post-boycottalyptic Arizona -- or at least where Arizona used to be. Check out my other Vs. Current Events here.

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

2010-05-05T16:43:00.000-07:00

Celebrating Cinco de Mayo the Arizona way! More Sheriff Joe-related comics to come here, I hope . . .

National Poetry Month, Day #30: One Month Stand

2010-04-30T17:00:00.000-07:00

One Month Stand

I'm spent.
Cleansed and drained,
like a bathtub.
Like a baptismal
after mass.
The swimming pool
on the first day of school.

This one month stand.
I suppose we'll never know
who used who.
Who found who
the most vulnerable.
Who wanted it more.

Will you call me
in the morning?
I'll avoid the bars,
the coffee shops,
the back alleys where we met
if that'll make it easier --
but what's done is done.

I can't clean
these stained sheets.

National Poetry Month, Day #29: Medusa

2010-04-29T21:43:00.000-07:00

Medusa

Medusa
seduce ya

with a million slithering
brainchilds

her head tames the beast

my last words
before turning
to stone

sounding out the silent letters
letting doubt
and subtlety
be

the tree
God said know
God said no
I'm pining

make out
fake out

slip of the tongue

in you
end

oh

National Poetry Month, Day #28: The Boss of Me

2010-04-28T20:15:00.000-07:00

The Boss of Me

You're so full of yourself
you're overflowing.
Your head's too big
to see where you're going.
You've mistaken bumping into things
for making a difference.
You've destroyed your foundation
to boast ground-breaking brilliance --
but everything smarts when
you don't have a leg to stand on.
You'll need more than a band-aid
to stop the bleeding of abandon.
The trail you've blazed is a maze
of ego and God-complex;
your legacy, spread so thin, it follows you
like coked up rock star roadie sex.
Your power trip is over.
Your successors are cleaning up the mess.
You're washed up
and tumbling, a permanent press.
Yours was a reign
of lapdogs and catastrophe.
Mine is a mantra
that you're not the boss of me.

National Poetry Month, Day #27: Heaven Forbid

2010-04-27T22:24:00.000-07:00

Heaven Forbid

Somewhere up there,
somebody's supposed to have
all the answers.
Above even the driest desert,
the most luscious rain forest.
After the harshest storm.
Reflected in the deepest waters.
We were made in that image, you know --
the kind of thing that looks like you,
moves like you,
moves in you,
but isn't you,
no matter how hard you try.
The kind of thing
that blazes a trail in booby traps.
That dangles a carrot
over a coalmine.
The lesson is in the design.
It can't be the top of the world
if there isn't anything beneath it.
We can't expect to feel
anything more than low
from a sky that always happily answers
in blues.

National Poetry Month, Day #26: Phoenix

2010-04-27T19:54:00.000-07:00

Phoenix

the welder
wields lightning

a defibrillator
pressed against the city's chest

she spasms
gasping
it's working

she's coming out of the dark

passers-by stop in awe
as she rises
rises

sparks

still flying

National Poetry Month, Day #25: Catch Up, Mustered

2010-04-25T22:14:00.000-07:00

Catch Up, Mustered

Hey . . . you . . .
How long's it been?

Wow, that long?
How's the -- wife? Really?
Kids?! I hadn't heard.

Promotion?
Congratulations!
You're really bringing home the bacon . . .
speaking of which . . .

New house? In this economy?
Well, sure, that makes sense.

Vacation? With the kids --
Oh, of course the in-laws can watch them.
What else are in-laws good for? Ha . . .

No, I'm sure they're good people.
I was just kidding, really.

What, me?
No, not married. No kids.
Same job, obviously. Less hours, actually.
Same old apartment.
Need a roommate, actually, if you know anyone.

Yeah, it's been great seeing you, too.
I'm glad you're doing so well.
So, did you enjoy your lunch?

Can I bring you anything else before fetching your bill?

National Poetry Month, #24: Night on the Town

2010-04-25T10:12:00.000-07:00

Night on the Town

the water falls
in blades,
like grass,
like glass

splash of cologne
on processed skin
sliced thin as bologna

smiles for miles
and miles
of furrowed brows,
burrowed frowns

the coffee,
the beer,
the night
all flow so dark

the ice,
the heart,
the dawn
break too soon

National Poetry Month, #23: Conspiracy Theories, part 2

2010-04-24T17:34:00.000-07:00

Conspiracy Theories, part 2

The government is sprinkling
John Wayne's ashes into the water
to make patriotic fighting men
of America's tap-drinking lower class.

A pinch of Ronald Reagan
for good measure.

Heidi Montag's breast implants
are one-eighth pure eagle's blood,
but that's really another story.

7-11 gasoline is cut with a chemical
that stimulates the brain to crave
hot dogs and taquitos.
If that isn't true now,
it will be soon enough.

Oscar Mayer trolls the blogosphere
for ideas like that.

The next best selling celebrity autobiography
will be by that piano-playing cat on YouTube.
Chapter 9 will be an elaborate acrostic
subliminally supporting Michael Vick's
dog fighting racket.

In 2044, the United States will elect
its first official clone as President.
He was created, born, and raised
in a laboratory under a dairy farm
in Kansas, 2008.

He looks just like Yao Ming.

Old timers will say
that kid's a tall
drink of water.

National Poetry Month, #22: Riding My Bike to Work

2010-04-24T16:47:00.000-07:00

Riding My Bike to Work

Surrounded by shrubbery,
feet firm on crumbly earth,
the men are fishing
in the canal,
a swath of wilderness
winding under the highway.

The shattered glass is just
a city mouse to its brethren
at the beach.

Behind the parking lot,
children are growing vegetables,
sprouts defiant against the weeds
crackling in the concrete,
as if they were really
all that different.

Ironically, the mattress in the alley
has found its final
resting place.

The mangy rabbit guards his hole
in the auto yard fence;
fur matted with grease and oil,
he's learning where to find
the fine line between malice
and wonderland.

National Poetry Month, Day #21: The Rise of the Bougainvillea

2010-04-22T18:09:00.000-07:00

The Rise of the Bougainvillea

They stormed the office
like a peasant revolt;

hundreds of bougainvillea,
purple petal pandemonium,
usurping underfoot,
crushing into the carpet.

They rode the cold front,
the winds of change.

They were no match
for the vacuum,
the roto-reaper,
its sanctimonious suction.

Beauty is a frail defense
against the bourgeoisie.

Pile stand triumphant.
Tiles lay clean, blameless.
On the surface, work time
was the only casualty.

The front door is rattled,
fearing another attack.

National Poetry Month, #20: An American Idle

2010-04-22T13:13:00.000-07:00

An American Idle

I have a dream

that I'm stuck in Los Angeles traffic
windows down
singing loudly with the radio
an American idle

somebody in a car next to me
road rage bubbling between his ears
suddenly hears my singing
and doesn't roll up his window
doesn't scoff
just stares in silence
until the moment overtakes him
and he sings along

the conviction ripples
car after car
lane after lane
freeway after freeway
up the 5 toward San Francisco
across the 10 toward Phoenix
off exit ramps onto surface streets
through surface streets into neighborhoods

from the west coast eastward
Manifest Destiny in reverse
then on cruise ships and aircraft carriers
across oceans, through ports into other countries
through war zones, tourist traps
through missionaries into remote locations
until the entire world, a stage
to humanity in harmony,
voices raised in song

then,

when traffic inches forward
or the radio reception falters
or the song ends

when the world falls back into
its disconnected silence

I'll wake up
get in the car
drive to work
and assume that we're all just
one tune away from global bliss

and I'll keep my windows up
until I hear a good enough song
to sing

National Poetry Month, Day #19: The Ties that Bind

2010-04-21T15:10:00.001-07:00

The Ties that Bind
for Mr. Fudinchi

IV.

whatever (if even)
loose strings between us

you play them
acoustically

as lullaby

laying
our differences

to rest

III.

east coast
west coast
west
ward
ho

me, going to
you, going fro

newspaper blanket
wall of pillow
think about the future
playing hobo

II.

the milk under your bed

for who knows how long
solid
in sippy cup

perfect proof
everything ages

with age,
the spoils

I.

you probably don't remember
the clown make-up

you cried
until the washcloth
you were relieved

to see
it's only me

in my brother's eyes,
I saw

it's me

National Poetry Month, Day #18: Samara

2010-04-20T17:52:00.000-07:00

Samara

She carried a heavy accent
light on her feet,
her voice the soundtrack to
our star's slow spin,
little sneakers turning earth
like a hamster's wheel,
like a treadmill,
bringing us its unseen corners.
Her eyes are all the first flame,
her neck, all attitude,
hands on her hips like
she's waiting for the rhythm
to catch up.
She sings for it
through a toothless smile so wide
some of the alphabet is impossible,
but the message is clear:
The universe moves for a reason.
It's teaching a lesson
children know well:
Space isn't silent;
it's just a captive audience.
Dance long enough,
and the world dances with you.

National Poetry Month, Day #17: Made for You and Me

2010-04-19T22:30:00.000-07:00

Made for You and Me

For centuries, man has struggled to understand
the four-lettered L-word that has eluded him
since the beginning of time.

"Land."

Biblically, man was evicted from the first plot of land
he ever owned -- if you believe in Deity as demanding landlord.
Warring tribes have only ever fought
over the best real estate available.
Spears and catapults have been replaced with
bus stop bench ads and business cards,
all just so much wood.

Pity the "Indian," the "Native American,"
sweet roses without a name unblemished by European misdirection.
Even political correctness can be historically
politically incorrect.

Envy the moon.
Man was satisfied with tagging it,
like a hoodlum hanging from an overpass --
but he took off before morning traffic,
before any real damage was done.

Now, imagine the man bold enough to steal the burglar's loot.
What kind of mind dares deconstruct the city,
strip it of centuries' progress,
reduce it to base "land?"
Who would be so brazen to cage
the spaceman, the native, the pirate?
To let them loose?

In the garden, man was supposed to name the beasts,
not give them a voice --
but one man did, and they gave him a name.
He rebuilt the garden on that name.
He played to the instincts of humanity, reminded man of his youth,
and knew the only way to win the greatest war of all time
isn't on the battlefield, but in the heart --

The most vulnerable and enduring
location,
location,
location.

National Poetry Month, Day #16: Old Stomping Grounds

2010-04-16T10:26:00.000-07:00

Old Stomping Grounds

Every step is a feast.
Every back alley shortcut,
a reel of footage from yesterday.
The seams in the sidewalk
tell a braille memoir.
Neon shares an inside joke.
Somebody waves --
a kind stranger,
or an old friend?
Today he's both.
Somebody else spits
from his car window --
Hey, doesn't he know
this is a sacred place,
a holy land for
the religion of nostalgia?
Ah, forgive his sins;
nothing's sacred until
it can no longer be
taken for granted.
Eventually, he'll leave, too,
only to return to that spot someday
and see something grown
where he's watered the ground.

National Poetry Month, Day #15: Road Trip

2010-04-15T20:37:00.000-07:00

Road Trip

Hug the curves of the road
and ride.
Hot, sticky pavement
beneath rolling, burning rubber.
Read the signs.
Start slow,
cautious,
remembering things behind you
are closer than they appear.
Then, accelerate,
moving with the flow of traffic,
bumper
to bumper.
Every groove in the granite
beneath you is a benchmark
toward your destination.
Wheels moving up and down,
back and forth,
all at the same time --
man's greatest achiement.
Don't be afraid to detour;
just watch your blind spots.
Heed the brake lights.
Respect the road.
It will take you places
you've never been before.
When you finally get there,
when you pull in to the drive,
she'll meet you at the door
and whisper,
"I knew you'd come."

National Poetry Month, Day #14: Black Cloud

2010-04-14T23:36:00.000-07:00

A black cloud looms over the city.
It isn't a storm front.
It isn't pollution.
It isn't terrorism.

Well, maybe it's a little of
each of those things --

The exhaust of a generation
driving its distress in circles,
burning out to the sky.

They protest democracy by staying home
on election day.
They resist capitalism by
building websites.
They spurn the corporation
through puffs of Marlboro cigarettes.
They turn the fuel of their plight
into so much poison.

The closest they've come to war
is waiting in line for their favorite band.
The closest they've come to peace
is shoplifting the album.

Fortunately, they aren't a threat.
They're just in a fog --
the product of the generation
that cleared the sky for rain.

National Poetry Month, Day #13: Dive

2010-04-12T23:16:00.000-07:00

Dive

I'm a regular
in some irregular places.

The places behind places.
You'd have to know where to look.

Old places, built with dark wood,
like a church.
Quenching the meek of the earth,
like anywhere else.

Singing hymns
and hers
of yesterday.
No saints in this stained glass.

Breadwinners breaking their bodies
to feast.
Blood poured as sacrilege,
and a sacrifice,
and never enough.

The smell of sawdust,
like a work in progress.
Poorly lit,
perfect for turning a blind eye,
or getting lashed by one.

You can't judge these places
from the outside.
You have to break the surface.

You have to dive.

National Poetry Month, Day #12: Certified

2010-04-12T21:53:00.000-07:00

Certified

My hapless victim,
my CPR dummy.

I want to watch your chest heave

at the touch of my lips.

I want to breathe life

into your expressionless face.

Don't worry.
I'm just practicing.

In case of emergency.
At best we're an accident
waiting to happen.

Your plasticine kiss.
My mouth barrier smile.
The urgency of preparation.
The apathy of facsimile.

The stale breath of old lovers,
better equipped now,
and moved on.

Someday somebody
will really need my help.
I'll be ready,
thanks to you.

National Poetry Month, Day #11: Shift Change (a haiku)

2010-04-11T22:36:00.000-07:00

Shift Change (a haiku)

The sun rises early,
punches in, and tells the moon
to call it a day.

National Poetry Month, Day #10: Recipe for Disaster

2010-04-10T12:53:00.000-07:00

Recipe for Disaster

One part alcohol,
one part boredom.

A dash of desperation.

Warning: Do not combine
with empty stomach.

Stir.
Heat.
Plenty of heat.

Recommended sides:
a room full of tension
(cut with a knife),
or resentment,
brought to a boil.

If used as topping,
best spread thin.

Do not remove seeds
of doubt.
Do not cool.

Serves one.

National Poetry Month, Day #9: The Dumpster Behind the Bakery

2010-04-09T16:34:00.000-07:00

The Dumpster Behind the Bakery

One part buffet, one part aviary:
behold the dumpster behind the bakery.
The birds come in droves
for the discarded loaves;
a Hitchcockian wet dream.

Cautious pecking becomes culinary pleasure;
one man's trash
is another pigeon's treasure.
The percussion of eager, flapping wings
becomes the ranch house supper triangle-ring.

When it's over
stuffed birds waddle toward shade,
too full too fly, unwilling even if they can --
the closest any animal will ever come
to feeling like a man.

National Poetry Month, Day #8: The Greatest Storytellers of All Time

2010-04-08T21:34:00.000-07:00

The Greatest Storytellers of All Time

Forget the poets.

(It's National Poetry Month, by the way,
but Larry King could care less.)

Forget the novelists, too.
The musicians,
the movie directors,
the television series finales --
they have nothing left to say.

Skip class.
Your professors' lessons are worthless.

Shakespeare was a hack
in comparison.
Even the Bible is just
so much mythology.

The greatest storytellers of all time
are the liars, the cheats, the self-indulgent.
They live the lives others only dream of
writing,
singing,
reenacting.

The tales they must've told
to keep it up;
the tales they can tell now
that it's all out there.

We're gathered at their feet,
their sermon on the mount,
worshipping their grief,
grieving their worship.

Don't be sorry for your sins,
Great Storyteller.
You're the sacrifice for ours.

Just tell us more --
How did it feel to be human?
How did you get away with it
for so long?
Did you learn anything?

Did we?

National Poetry Month, Day #7: Test of Endurance

2010-04-07T19:03:00.000-07:00

Test of Endurance

I've slept through earthquakes,
swum through tsunamis,
and built castles in quicksand,
but I cried when they closed
my favorite coffee shop.

I don't know how to handle
the little things.

Who does?
The little things tend
to slip through your fingers.

"Get a grip?"
That's easy to say.

I'll never forget
grade school field day,
when Coach clocked us
holding a chin-up
to test upper body strength
and endurance, I presume.
I'll never forget the looks
on my peers' faces
as I passed their times,
one by one.

The lesson was clear:
your strongest muscles aren't
in your arms or legs.
It's the chin.
Lift. Hold.
Try it.
It's harder than it looks.

The next day,
I winced during slow pitch softball.

Fortunately, enough little things
make one big thing.
The bigger they are,
the easier to grasp.

"Hold on?"
Let me weave the rope
and get back to you.

When seconds become minutes
and we realize, "We're really
doing this."

Building a kingdom from
sinking grains of sand.
Riding the storm
one tidal wave at a time.
Feeling at home
on a fault line.

National Poetry Month, Day #6: Hairline Fracture

2010-04-06T22:45:00.000-07:00

Hairline Fracture

out of your mind
off the top of your head
uprooted and replanted
in the soiled sheets of my bed

coiled like serpent
coarse like a noose
sharp like barbed wire
or maybe it's mousse

uncovered just in time
a gasping hair's breadth
follicle assassin
my brush with death

National Poetry Month, Day #5: Ransom in Burnt Neon

2010-04-05T22:20:00.000-07:00

Ransom in Burnt Neon

The city has something to say
in the letters we can't see.

"Big O Tires" is just an "ire" away
from Rodney King all over again.

"The Glass Works" hides a dirty secret
behind its already suspicious "gl,"
if you'd just see through it.

The tight-lipped "De" betrays
why break time near the vending machine
is so popular at "Office Depot."

"Wa-Mart" cries "Noel"
because every day is Christmas
in a department store.

"Starbucks?"
Drop that snake's hiss
and stand revealed for what
you really serve,
that fuel from earth's underbelly,
and what we're willing to pay
to get up and go . . .

. . . on tires that prefer their side
of the road.

Those seemingly burnt out neon letters
are the city's way of
clipping out a ransom note.

It's holding the obvious
hostage.