Buttnekkiddoodles

Went to see the screening and discussion of the film FIRSTHAND: Gun Violence, at the Spertus Institute for Jewish Learning and Leadership. On stage we’re two of the five panel members, Dan Protess, producer and director of the film and Reality Allah, outreach worker for READI Chicago. FIRSTHAND is a 15-part digital series that follows the perspectives of five Chicagoans living with firsthand experience of gun violence in Chicago.

The gentleman on the right, Reality Allah, spent 20 years incarcerated and has since his release vowed to dedicate his life to reducing violence. He is now an outreach worker for READI  Chicago where he uses 30 years of his experience and knowledge to engage men at high risk of violence with transitional jobs and cognitive behavioral therapy and to connect them with other critical support services. He is featured in the documentary series FIRSTHAND: Gun Violence.

At last night’s panel discussion Reality Allah said that a billboard for the documentary was erected in south Chicago with his face featured. When he saw the billboard, he realized it had been placed five feet from where he was arrested prior to beIng incarcerated for 20 years.

For more information:
wttw.com/firsthand #FIRSTHANDwttw

When I’m working in a sketchbook I like and am having fun, I hate wasting paper so, I will work and rework pages that are full of doodles only meant to quickly demonstrate a technique. Occasionally, those pages become real exploratory exercises on imagination and improvisation. This was just such a page. Pitt Artist Pens on Clairefontaine Goldline sketchbook. Below are shots of the page as it developed.

Another fragment from the online graphic short story, “The Java Knot”.

“The flight had been the usual affair as flights go. Packed. Turbulence that saw the stewardesses hustle to buckle in for half an hour. Some child with an ear infection hitting a whistling high C at 110 decibels. Somehow, I always manage to be within two rows and to the fore of a wailing buccal cavity in misery. And while it’s a rare occasion, fortune saw to it that the narcoleptic passenger to my right kept metronomically landing 15 pounds of head into my right shoulder. When I’m not fitfully trying to avoid the flop and jerk of my own drowsies, I like to write, or sketch, during the flight. Did I mention I’m right handed? Stewardesses traipsed back and forth up the aisle with drinks and unwanted snacks, more such now that the airlines are hedging the possibility of in flight anaphylactic shock. Ear plugs are the high altitude attire that create some form of gated perimeter for those not wishing to eavesdrop on the politics, sports goop, and job resume small-talk job within earshot. I don’t wear ‘em. Maybe my hearing, like my pop’s, is slowly cruising the dusty road of atrophy and my vanity refuses to take notice. Maybe, due to the swirling waves of public white noise, I welcome it. I don’t sport a very keen sense of smell either. Further protection and comfort in the pool of perfumes and flatulence you could find yourself in on a crowded tube of humanity. Either way, I didn’t get any agitated dialogue from the row in front of me till we had landed. And only then did I get the odd scent drifting towards me from the two men now standing in anticipation of their row joining the disembarking Congo line. It may have been all the other distractions and my effort to maintain calm within the environs of my seat that I now swore to a haze, or a light vapor, or smoke, rising from the older gentleman. He was sweating. Both he and his apparent travel companion were wearing very similar reddish brown leather jackets. Jackets like the type detectives wore in cop shows from the Seventies. You knew the second you saw that cop, that he was on the take. The two guys in those brownish red leathers were talking in hushed tones, with the younger one seeming to display an attendance that was at once of tender and threatening concern.”

Pitt Artist Pens on Hahnemühle watercolor sketchbook.

More from the online graphic short story, The Java Knot. “She got on just north of downtown. Black and White save for the bit-lip pout matching that large purse of hers. Now I’m not a fellow that often takes liberties, but I treat myself, now and then. The bag in fact was black. And sure, it’s shiny leather surface was a compliment to the noir sheen on the Prince Valiant hairdo that was busy channeling that iconic doll in those Irving Klaw portfolios. But for me, for the sake of that proud little fleshy porch beneath the sharp punctuation of a nose, the black bag had to go. I slid my hand into my satchel, came out with my marker and let it‘s red ink gush generously over her designer knock off. It was late October and Day of The Dead was upon us, but I’d bet my accrued airline points the Congo line of death heads that traipsed around her hoodie and down her sternum, was a three season parade. Sometimes, a subject’s sixth sense will kick in, and I’ll have eyes rise to meet mine. But neither the wiggling crowd on that jostling train car nor my gaze pulled her bronzed eyelids up and away from the same device that filled four fifths of the focus of the passengers. For the remaining 15 stops that face, which held not a glimmer of last summer’s sun, was slack save a couple times when her nostrils flexed and the corners of her mouth pulled slightly deeper into her cheeks. I hold that we are tribalizing as a society. And, many wear their tribal identities as fashion. So I play this game as to whom will exit at which stops. The Gold Coast, Cottage Grove, Wicker Park, South Side, Logan Square, Wrigley Field, Cermak. Will the guy in blue business attire with tan cap-toe shoes and Tin Tin haircut depart at Bryn Mawr? Will the art nerd jump off at Harrison? The buttoned down duo of Asian post teens discussing Hayek, they’ll leave at Foster. But there’s a region that draws the nondescripts. The stylish young woman with fur collar, knee-high riding boots, large silver Tibetan earrings beneath glamorously highlighted mane gathered in an impromptu knot and sporting a large linen book bag with the beret capped face of Che printed on it. The six foot plus middle-aged black woman wearing copper lipstick, a leopard skin pillbox hat, gloved in fingerless purple velvet, ankle long black lace skirt, John Lenin glasses and reading an Ursula K. Le Guin novel. The broad Hispanic dude with the no nonsense face, meaty hands, neck tattoos, multiple earrings, burnt orange Longhorns baseball cap, maroon leather jacket, Chuck Taylor high tops, and chef’s pants. In the nether region of north Chicago, as the train slows for the Loyola, Morse, and Jarvis stops, they rise. She rose too. Here, the tribal signifiers bleed and blend. Out into the night, leaving the tube lit morgue blue and metal of the train car, her face of white went. The doors closed. The train slid north and I saw her black bangs heading down the platform stairwell. But I never recall seeing her shoes. No recollection. I spent the remainder of that night, and the next afternoon conjuring and drawing, with the help of several large cups of hot cocoa, the possibilities of footwear. How I managed to miss that, escapes me.”

Drawn with Pitt Artist Pens and fountain pen filled with deAtrametis Document Black Ink on a Romeo unlined Ivory journal. The figure was drawn while on the CTA Red Line, the shoes were drawn from online references. Disclaimer, no lab animals participated in this drawing in any way. Further, this was drawn by an artist who is a frequent consumer of tree nuts and legumes.

Drew my barista and a graphic novella steamed up outta the page. Title,”The Java Knot”…..thought I’d post just a hint…..”I didn’t see it at first. Something about his refined manner and precise movements told me that when he pulled it, he’d use it with deft application. He kept his right hand notably free. His hair hung in loops that were either satiny or greasy depending I guess on where you’d last eaten and though he was trim and effeminate, elegant you’d say, his bearing was taut and assured. His shirt was pulled across a wide, square chest. I got a glimpse of a cauliflower ear; that and the surprisingly rounded knuckles on otherwise supple hands gave the clue that along the way he’d served up a loose tooth or two. His grey eyes set squarely into mine yet avoided any hint of search or judgement. I found his manner agreeable. No smirk if you chose the cheapest, most pedestrian roast, or mispronounced the blend. No patronizing, “Excellent choice!” My tip was acknowledged in a subtle way so as to avoid seasoning the next customer with a ‘dig deep’ prompt.”

Pitt Artist Pens on Romeo unlined Ivory journal.