Guest Author: Walter Cessna!

TATS

"Take a picture, it lasts longer," I blurted at a complete stranger giving me more than the once over.

I'm a bit testy (having been hospitalized for a week in a coma a month ago most likely to blame) and not in the mood to put up with the weird looks my ink seems to incite in some people. I'm at Wal-Fart, helping my Mom with her shopping and for some reason my freak magnet is on full blast and I am either attracting stares from people who really should have taken a good look in the mirror before they left the house, or the exact opposite reaction from homo's on the down low that actually stop me and want to ask me every imaginable question about my tats until they finally realize that I'm not featuring the attention and leave me alone. I knew going into the whole ink thing that it would be something that defined me in other people's eyes in ways both positive & negative and it was completely my choice to cover my arms in alien looking bug eyed creatures in day glow colors. When I'm in more urban areas such as NYC, L.A., SF and Portland, the attention I get is almost always 99% positive, leading to stimulating, very cool conversations, new friendships with other tatted souls and even the occasional job offer while shopping in stores which is how I ended up working at Levi's and Urban Outfitters. My ink is an homage to the art by my long time buddy Michael Economy and his crazy cast of Japanimae influenced characters. All of my 26 tats save for 3 are from his limited edition book that was released in conjunction with his one man show in Tokyo way back in the 90's. To me, it's perfectly natural and I usually forget they're even there. That is until I'm down here at my Moms in central Florida where once you leave her gated, retirees-only community, there is nothing but endless strip malls, confederate flag tatted & mulletted mutants and an endless capacity for counterfeit astonishment (OK I’m exaggerating, not everyone is a freak, they just happen to be the majority). So as I ignore the stares from a couple behind us on line, the man himself covered in a barrage of screaming skulls and flaming this-n-that tats, I have an epiphany, a moment of clarity, my tension miraculously lifted. I look them straight in the eyes and smile and say hello, completely throwing them for a loop and think to myself how lucky I am to be an individual and not part of the crowd. My ink is unique and so am I, a non victim to the whims of the masses and comfortable enough in my own marked skin to simply shrug off the haters and go my own way, not allowing my bad mood to dictate my reactions and instead killing the annoyance off with kindness. It's so much easier to just smile and go about my own business rather than let someone else’s ignorance bug me.

Walter Cessna (the link to his site...it's very adult content) is a long-time friend, and maybe even an old war buddy we've been through so much, and yeah...he is a full-on individual who knows a shitload about a lot of amazing things. Plus, he's a damn good writer and I'm pretty honored to know him the way I do and have his work here. He's a writer, photographer, creator, yadda yadda yadda...he's a true artist. Oh yeah...and he has some rad amazing sleeves from the work of his friend Michael Economy. Thanks, Walt, for the awesome story.

crazy stewing image by none other than Chris Matty-ington!

I BURNED YOU IN A LETTER (WHY STORY #2)

She woke up. A voice under her cough said  

BE PATIENT! 

But she didn’t know why.   

She dressed in dirty sweats, brushed her teeth, bunned her hair, tweezed an eyebrow, and looked for her pen and notebook. She ripped a piece out.   

On it, she wrote:
I FREE MYSELF FROM YOU. 

I GOT IT.  

YOU CAN’T HAVE YOUR CAKE AND EAT IT, TOO.  

She crumpled the paper into a crumpled ball and kissed it eight times. But she didn’t know why.   She took a long long long match out of the box. Pink, her favorite. But it broke. She took another match out. Baby blue, her favorite. This time it did not break. She put the orange flame under the kissed crumple until it, too, was a little orange-y. Then she placed it into the fireplace. She kept nudging it with the match to make sure it was reaching ashy. Burned and burned. And slowly burned.  

She watched to make sure the orange reached the center of the kissed crumple. The core. 

She blew on it, and her toes cramped a little, but she didn’t care.  

Soon she could only see a little orange sparkle amid the ashy feathers.  

She blew again, but this time the feathers blew into nothingness.  

She looked at what was left, for a minute, but her toes were cramping. And then she left.

fuck off drawing by Rafael Rozendaal the awesomest xm

TRY IT ON (SOMETIMES SHE LIKES TO)

Before she even went out with him, she thought she’d try it on.  

“It helps…” 

Whether it was Bobby or Keith or Guillaume or Alex, she’d get caught up in solitary moments of wonder when the thought would pop up—“Why don’t you try it on?” 

Most of the time, the result was interesting. Sometimes she had no idea if it would feel right or RIIIIGHT… or just plain wrong. Not until she tried it on.  

Sometimes the climax was surprising—in a big big BIG way. And other times it was deflated and before it happened, it was gone.  

She thought he’d be different, even though they hadn’t met yet. But she had to know for sure. So she tried it on and tried it on and tried it on and on…and on and on and on.

try it on image by Kelly Tunstall who really liked the story because she figured it out...instantly. Thx, Kelly!

BEATRIX & CLINTEE TAKE ONE

 

Beatrix ran into her freckled ginger friend, Clintee, on her way back from the record store…  

“Beatrix!”  

“Hey, Clintee!” They stood-sat next to each other on their rusty old bicycles.  

“What are you doing today, Beatrix?” 

“Well, I just picked up some new records, so I think I’m going to get back, put one on, and hang out in the back of my skull.” Clintee didn’t move. Didn’t blink. Didn’t anything. “Yep, in the cave inside my skull, a sanctuary where its lush and cool and I’m a tiny golden Buddha sitting way in the back of my head on a pile of plush silk pillows, just kicking it and looking out into the endless prismic universe through my eye sockets…”  

“Oooooh,” Clintee oh-ed, seeming a bit lost in her own cave.  

Then Beatrix asked, “What’re you up to today?”  

“Well,” Clintee started, “I’m on my way to the cosmic nursery to pick up some magic bean soil and some crystal flowers, because this morning I planted some lulla-bells in my gut…” She lifted her shirt a little, exposing a cupboard door with a tiny Victorian brass knob on the side of her lower belly. She opened the little door to reveal some ringing bells sprouting from a terra cotta flowerpot sitting inside, just above her gut.  

“Wow! Okay! Good luck!” 

“Yeah, you, too…”  

And they went on their merry way.

drawing of Clintee with her Lulla-Bells sprouting from her gut by the always amazing Alex Suhner Isenberg of Searching for Style . check out the rad story she wrote and illustrated here. (you rule!xx)

I ________ do it. a) can b) can't

One day it was sunny. But it didn't matter. Darkness was everywhere. Or so he thought. Then he woke up, up in the sky, or something close to it, with someone nudging him from behind.   

"What the fuck are you doing here, Teddy?!" Teddy rubbed his eyes. And his head. And then his eyes again. He couldn't believe it. He was sitting in a cloud, looking at his belated Shrink. The one who passed away after her safari in Africa. The one who tripped and got attacked by giant bugs.  

"Ho-ly fuck!" he said with his mouth agape. "Where am I?"  

"YOU'RE ALMOST DEAD!" she yelled at him. Angrily. Frustrated. Just like when she was alive.

"Ooooh," Teddy mumbled. "Ooooh! Yeah! Yeah! I took a bunch of aspirin and then jumped off a bridge. What do you mean almost dead? How can I NOT be dead?" He was so so confused. More confused than ever before when he was back on the ground.  

His Shrink shrugged and shook her head in discontent.  

"What the hell? Didn't I teach you anything? Didn't anything I teach you sink in?! Did you succumb that easily after I left?!"  

Teddy just looked up at her. She looked the same with her short spiky grayish hair, and her almost motherly vibration. "Well, yeah..."  

"WELL," his Shrink threw her arms up up in the air! "YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE HERE!! YOU'RE NOT FINISHED DOWN THERE!"  

"But how can I go back? I took a bottle of pills and I jumped off that bridge. I was sick of one person running my life and the other bashing it in. And a handful of people having control of where my career and dreams go. And the other ones who never make time. Not even for a Slurpy. I mean, what's the point? Why would these dreams and ambitions be planted in me for my entire life if all they do is make me suffer? I can't go back..."  

"YES YOU CAN AND YOU WILL!"  

"Fuck..." Teddy said. He didn't know how to feel. He was excited and relieved, in a way. And he was happy it was his old Shrink who was there to yell at him. He had missed her so much after she passed away. He just didn't think he could do it without her. "Well, why are you up here then? You weren't finished either!"  

"OH LORD...YES I WAS. I died in Africa on safari! I won trophies for lifting weights when I was 60! I dated Phil Spector when I was a teenager! I helped you get there...I mean, I believed in you. And you know that. But I thought you knew how to believe in yourself and so I knew it was okay for me to go. What the fuck happened?"  

"I don't know," he said. "You left. And everyone else was too busy with bullshit to slow down and look at things with me for a while. And I lost touch with hope. Or happiness. Or dreams. It was only for a minute. But that minute was so bad that I didn't want to try anymore."  

"Well, you have to go back. I didn't spend all that time with you for you to be up here so soon. Go back. Go back. Go back." Teddy just looked up at her. The tears swelling beneath his eyes. He started to say something but she stopped him. "Listen, you didn't win with me down there and you're not going to win with me up here. Angel, just go back. TRUST ME." And with that she was gone.  

He woke up in a bed with a smashing headache, crust on his lips, and sleep in his eyes. He didn't know what to do. But he figured all he could do was trust. Or try again.

pill jump with confused bird illustrated by the awesome  Christopher Matty (thank you, C x)

NO GOING BACK...

Her normally talkative demeanor is surprisingly at a loss for words as she sits stiffly in her boyfriend’s red Jeep. She’s off to Chico to meet the family, his family, and friends, his friends, and see and smell and touch and run in a place he grew up in…a place where everyone knows him. And she’s going, too, as a girlfriend who in a way has just crossed over the threshold between dating and commitment. No words, no movement. Only hands crossed on legs crossed and eyes glued to the highway ahead.

I know exactly how that girl feels in Clare Sabatini's drawing for the story. It's amazing how she got it just right. I hope I get to see a lot more from her. thx!! xxx

POTS OF GOLD

He sat there, sipping his milk from the carton. His elbows on the table. His neck cocked forward a little. His eyes lost in the Formica. They weren’t necessarily sad, even though they had shadows and bags below them. He hadn’t given up—he still combed his short side-parted hair and, even in his whirl, he hadn’t lost his style. A v-neck olive green sweater, a white button-up, and even a narrowish vintage black tie spotted with tiny white doves.  

But lodged behind his tonsils was a thought that he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, let out. He blinked. Then his loooooong fingers picked up the milk again and he took another swig. God it was quiet. Except every once in a while he heard a car ride by. He wiped the milk off his lips and his arm fell limp onto the table. Had it been worth it? He was done. It was finished. Something he’d wanted to accomplish his entire life. But it had taken years, and time....Away. Everyone had grown up, got married, had kids, gone to parties,  picnicked on the beach, fucked in a tree, run in silly carnival races, camped out in Budapest… 

They didn’t have what he had, his dream realized. Or, had he?

moneybags drawing by Rafael Rozendaal who's one of the people who keeps me going

A STRAWBERRY DEATH.

 

Ginni’s mouth watered. Ridiculously. So badly that she slurped the spit back every couple of seconds. She was on a trip—in a field—or NEAR a field of giant bulging juicy shortcake strawberries—and all of her friends were gushing them back—smashing them onto their tongues—staining their fingers with pinky juice heaven.
“GINNI! COME ON!” 

“NO! I CAN’T!” And she couldn’t. She was deathly deathly allergic to these supple red gems. One touch, one smear, one nibble...and she’d die. She’d never even seen so many strawberries in her entire strawberry blonde life.  

She stood on the sidelines of Strawberry Hill, and strawberry life, watching their happiness ravage inside. The others laughed and jumped and danced, skipping from berry to berry, singing a loud, “THESE ARE THE BEST THINGS I’VE EVER TRIED!”   

For hours it went on. And then it started all over again. And the more it went on, the more alone and flavorless Ginni felt inside. There’s a moment some get to where they stand on the line of what’s worth it and...before she gave it another blink, she leapt into the center of the juiciest patch.


a strawberry death perfectly captured by Kelly Tunstall ... i love it! thx!