CozyJamble

Passing a copy of “Dicey’s Song” in the library made me remember the only fact you ever need to know about Maryland: there are no happy stories.

In elementary and middle school my teachers, as teachers across many states must do, tried to pound civic pride in our heads by assigning us work about Maryland. Name the capitol, name the exports; do a report on the Chesapeake Bay. But most importantly read, every semester, without fail, a book about Maryland.

The problem is the most story-worthy feature of Maryland is the Chesapeake Bay and stories about the Chesapeake Bay never end well. The Bay is over fished and Fish and Wildlife underfunded; the Eastern Shore makes its meager living as crabbers on a body of water notable for not really allowing you to crab.

As a result every childhood story you read about Maryland is a story about being poor on the Bay, being unemployed on the Bay, being unable to stop the pollution of the Bay, being abandoned by your family on, near, or sometimes in the Bay. Sometimes everyone loves your twin better than you on the Bay, like in “Jacob I have Loved,” and the only moment of triumph you have is when you move out to marry a poor farmer in the mountains where no one has heard of your family.

Sometimes you are abandoned in a parking lot by your mother and then go live with your screwed-up Grandmother on her shitty farm by the Bay and you have to deal with that psychological fuckery for seven books in a Newbery Honor-Award wining series by Cynthia Voigt (this will also make you realize “The Boxcar Children” fantasy of no adults would actually be horrible, ruining that series as well).

Occasionally you’re in Baltimore, like in “When The Ragman Sings” and your mother dies and you befriend the African-American ragman on your street and learn he’s not such a scary guy, but it’s, you know, the 1920s and everyone’s really racist. Also your father is emotionally distant for the rest of the book.

Point is you’re in Maryland, kids. Get ready for some mental scarring.

Even the few books that could be classified as uplifting Maryland classics have their bitterness. Sure, “Misty Of Chincoteague” is a heartwarming tale about a family raising a plucky foal from the wild horse preserve on Assateague Island. But how does she get there? By the main characters scaring all the horses in a stampede off the island, trapping her mother, and then selling her into eternal servitude. And yes, I include “Misty” as a book about Maryland because, goddammit, Assateague Island is ours, no matter what Virginia says (be satisfied with Chincoteague, Virginia! Your books are all about the FBI anyhow).

And “Chadwick The Crab” is about a crab, which would have been fine, except to make sure we really got home the Maryland dread my teachers followed up readings with lessons about our famous local cuisine — crab cakes.

Why it was important to make sure our reading material was so bleak? Even the Black-Eyed Susan books, which were not about Maryland but required by the state of Maryland to be read, contained nothing but depressing tales of teen pregnancy, drugs, abuse and despair.

Except for the one about the Plesiosaurus who go on a rampage in a Vermont lake, though a lot of people got eaten in that and I still can’t believe 7^th graders were required to read it.

At the time I rebelled, searching out things with happy endings, deliberately avoiding connecting the characters and tossing books across the room when a protagonist inevitably disappointed. Now as an adult, living in a world that is awash with many disappointments, petty arguments, and small moments of personal wonder, I think I see what they were trying to do.

Perhaps it’s because they could not put a pretty face on the half of the state that seemed to be declining , or perhaps it’s because of our awareness that things are not that they once were that stoicism pervades Maryland’s literature. A Marylander cannot ignore the contradictions before our eyes: the home of Harriett Tubman and yet also a slave-owning state. The home of “Treasure The Chesapeake” license plates while more and more fish hit the Engendered and Threatened lists. The home of those who work in the Capitol of our country yet ignored in the grand scheme of national thinking.

Perhaps, in hindsight, these books show more moral fortitude than we do now, refusing to sugar coat the fact that life is complicated, especially when you go without. Perhaps.

But the most important thing, I reflect as I put “A Solitary Blue” back on the shelf, is the one source of pride Maryland has instilled in me: no matter what our flaws, no matter what our problems, at least we’re not Delaware.

Because fuck those guys.

The first thing you find out when you buy a bike in Los Angeles is that everyone knows more about bikes than you.

“Fixed gear or single speed?”

“Road tires affixed to a mountain frame, huh? What valve size is it?”

“Did you build it yourself? Because I did.”

I made the tactical error of buying my neighbor’s bike in a yard sale with the idea that it would help me get in shape. Perhaps if I bought a bike for a newbie or someone who is clearly a bike idiot this would have worked. But my bike, as I quickly learned, is a road bike and its very possession means people assume you are much better at riding a bike than you really are.

“Haven’t I seen you at Critical Mass?” the LA Bike Elite asks me as I gracefully coast into a tree.

The other thing the LA Bike Elite loves to tell you is how many times their bike’s been stolen. It’s a rite of initiation for road bikes, it seems, to have someone go to extreme lengths to obtain it — this is why they do not have kickstands, for if you park it and take your hands off it for one moment someone ass will inevitably snatch it. And the shittier the bike is, the more desirable it is, at least according to the various bikers you run into at the library.

“I had two chains on it, solid metal chains, and they got a bolt-cutter and ripped through both of them,” a 40 year old man tells me, patting his bike saddle which is covered with black plastic, the frame two different shades of puke green.

“They got a ladder, cut off the top of the sign post and just lifted it up!” a chain-smoking tattooed lady outside the Fresh ‘N Easy says, gesturing to her home-made cycle as her clove sparks and the chain falls off.

“Used their mind rays to take my first bike, which is why you have to wrap it in tin-foil,” the homeless man at the recycling center recites confidently, holding the foil-covered handlebars with foil-covered hands. “Sometimes they take my batteries!” he adds, patting me on the arm.

The road bike is a racing bike, originally European in design. Used in cities it gained popularity in gas-crisis 1970s America where sales shot up into the millions and people took to the streets with them. I take to the hidden and mainly deserted bike path behind my house, attempting to figure out how to steer while hunched over handles which are, somehow, always sticky.

“Sticky handles and bad tires? That’s prime bike-stealing bait right there,” the group of seven-year-olds on tricycles tell me as I glide by. “What valve size is that?”

To avoid the disappointment in the Bike Elites’ eyes when I answer their queries with “Uh,” and “How do I tell if it has gears?” I learn to ride in Burbank in the off times of the day, weaving through nonexistent traffic as I set goals for myself like, “Be able to bike up this hill,” or “Be able to then bike back down this hill.” When trapped in conversation at a stoplight I learn to smile and nod at what my fellow bikers are saying, much like I did when pretending to know Spanish in High School (the trick is to occasionally ask teachers to “repeteme, por favor” and then go back to smiling as they speak slower). Halfway into this process my friends began to get bikes of their own and I suggested we go for a bike ride.

A mile in they’re struggling to remember how to brake and I’m watching, realizing that at some point in the nodding and smiling some real biking knowledge  has set in. I may not be the Bike Elite, but perhaps, perhaps, I can make it into the Bike Bourgeoisie.

“Can we turn back yet?” they demand.

“Just one more block. What valve size you got?” I ask them.

So the New Year has come and gone, and my first post back is…a crosspost (I know that’s what you live for, internet). I’m putting my closet encyclopedic knowledge of “Sailor Moon” to use helping out my awesome friends over at Remembered Heroes, a blog where my friend Jojo, draws a superhero based on her vague childhood recollections/guessing who they are by the name, and my boyfriend Marly hilariously points out what she did wrong. This week I’m joining in criticizing (look, its really funny, we’re not just being dicks to Jojo), so check it out!

And a merry Saturnalia! Posts will resume in the New Year — until then, enjoy celebrating all the Holidays!

The holiday season is upon us, and Josie is taking off for the hills — because nothing says “Thanksgiving” like camping in the great Californian North away from family!

Posts will resume after the holiday blitzkrieg settles down, but for now train your eyes to my Twitter widget for my latest interviews, articles, and reviews.

Gobble gobble.

All this week and weekend I will be in the Big Apple covering New York Comic-Con. You know what that means.

Comic Con Song

Keep your eye on Twitter for updates, and East Coasters I’ll see you in New York!

It’s been a while.

I’ve been state-hoppin’ and convention-coverin’ and production office workin’ and reportin’ non-stop since July, but now the schedule is calming down and I’m back to share my incoherent ramblings with my devoted followers (i.e. bored people who have accidentally found the site and then suffer a heart attack so they can’t raise their arm to navigate away from this page). I’m working on a lot of new projects between my ongoing cryptozoology painting series and a comic book, so to give you guys a taste take a look below!

Thanks internet, and good to be back.

Cover to the comic, written by myself, art and colors by Sam and Anita Tung.

The Conception Of The Fiji Mermaid

The Tasmanian Tiger and the Dodo and Passenger Pigeon Thieves On The Cross

The Immaculate Conception Of The Chupacabra (lots of this “immaculate” stuff, eh religion painters?)

Last weekend was the world premiere of ARMAGEDDON: A Night of Laughs And Pleasant Songs!

And we SOLD OUT every night!

Thank you to all who came and supported us, and for those who couldn’t make it, keep you eyes and ears peeled for a possible Halloween revival show.

Get your tickets for the End of Days today!

Tonight is your last chance to see ARMAGEDDON: A Night Of Laughs And Pleasant Songs!

Both Friday and Saturday shows SOLD OUT, so make sure to hop online and buy your tickets for tonight’s performance before they’re gone–click on the poster to get your tickets now!

Get your tickets for the End of Days today!

Next Friday is the world premiere of “ARMAGEDDON: A Night Of Laughs And Pleasant Songs!” Tickets are on sale now for all three nights–click on the image below to buy yours today!