BallBag!
/Check it out, babe.
I drew Ballbag a few years ago, but he seemed really relevant tonight.
I met him while I was in Las Vegas with my brothers. We were drinking at the lobby bar of the Hard Rock hotel and he strutted up to us with tight-pants swagger. After a round of obnoxiously firm handshakes, he introduced himself as "Ballbag". It was a fitting name, I recall thinking, as his face looked just like a scrotum.
I think that Ballbag represents the worst case scenario of cosmetic enhancement. Everything about him is an absurd hyperbole of what a healthy, handsome man should look like. The only way to get that look is with a lot of needles and scalpels and UFC on TiVO and self-hatred.
So why is he relevant tonight?
Because he's a work in progress, and so am I. But more importantly- so is this website. Ballbag clearly has a final look in mind. Somewhere between Brock Lesnar and Gerard Butler is my guess. That's why he went to the doctor and pinched the loose hanging skin on his neck and said "Can you staple this to my forehead?" But he doesn't arrive at his imagined aesthetic destination. Instead, he winds up looking like an anthropomorphic set of testicles from the most upsetting Pixar movie you've ever seen.
I got on a tangent there, but the point is-work in progress. I'm figuring this website out. I've always wanted for it to be a living document, much like the Unite States Constitution (except with a lot of drawings of dicks). And here's what I got:
The main page (Check This Out) is for deliberate, finished pieces. It's where I want to show off my best stuff. Most of it is ink on Bristol board. I have a few big projects to show off on here, like "Sam Merica" and "The Sunset Sweetheart". Eventually, I want projects from other mediums to live here too, like "Splash Mountain" and "The Push Hard Inn" when they are both ready to be seen. I want to get one new post up on the main page every week and try to accompany it with a blog post. The main page is a place for my art, in which I strive for sincerity and honesty through the medium in which I feel I can most capably express my life's experience.
The blog (Chew This Over) is for less refined pieces. Most of them are straight out of my sketchbook. In the next few weeks, more of these posts will be in color. They're going to focus largely on life experiences (like meeting Ballbag), but I've got some other fun stuff to pepper in, too. I'm close to getting an interview with the Powell Station Preacher and I've got a few other interviews in mind, too. I've also prepped a few posts about some cultural stuff, ranging from SF street art to the Insane Clown Posse and pro wrestling (I'm in to a lot of weird shit, babe, and you know this). I also want to hit on current events every now and then, but I also want to accompany them with some sketches in order to keep them relevant and uniquely my own. The blog is a place in which I want to express my most immediate thoughts in a raw and unfiltered manner, which is frequently vulgar and (hopefully) humorous.
The store (Buy Some Shit) needs a new name, I think. It also needs products, and those are just a few weeks away. I'm almost ready to start selling "Tijuana University" tee-shirts and some assorted, high-quality prints. This is going to be the first sail that we raise on our pirate ship.
I'm proud of how it's all coming out, and I'm not afraid to say that. I'm proud to show this stuff off, and I'm proud that it's all for you. It's for me, too. And most importantly, it's for us. But it is for everyone. This is my platform. Alan Ginsberg said "It is the poet's duty to stand naked before his audience" and that's what I'm trying to do here.
I hope you like my Ballbag.
